Joys of not fitting in etc.

In which our writer summarises what it is she has been doing with this blog for the last three years.

Recently I’ve been wondering about why I've been carrying on with this blog. For sure, It helps me organise my thoughts and feel a bit like a character in an ongoing story, which I guess is nice. But surely there must be a purpose beyond that?
I thought back to why I started writing and working as a journalist in the first place. Ultimately, you want to share the things you’ve discovered and learnt in a way that helps people. I wonder, how can I make my work more helpful? 
This blog began on my return to Europe from Hong Kong. In that time, I’ve lived like everyone else has through a seemingly unending pandemic. I navigated the ups and downs of a career path here that has involved trying to make comprehensible dense computer science topics, alongside a lot of other things. 
I’ve studied Europe’s media landscape and tried to process the highs, lows, and frustrations and despair that came with covering one of the world’s most fascinating and maddening places in the five years that preceded my time here. And I took pains to ground myself in a city I had childhood memories of that I might be able to call “home.“ I swam in the frosty Norwegian fjord of my mother's home town, ran my first half-marathon, said goodbye to my battle-axe Mormor my brainy grandmother, and my lovely uncle Paul, and tried and failed to master a confident armbar.
I also persisted in what has been probably my most comprehensive research project to date: trying to find a way to live in harmony with my own story and all the complexities, challenges and joys that have come with that. 

So what are the key learnings that I’ve uncovered since this work began? Here’s a list:

1. Someone said recently that trying to fit in anywhere is a fool's errand. Showing up as yourself is really the only way around not having a cookie cutter box to be put in. That, and learning not to make any apologies for who you are in all your complexity.
2. Being bookish is fine, and anyone who has a problem with that probably just needs to read more themselves. Reading broadens our experience of the human condition and trains our empathetic and intellectual muscles. This said, there’s a big difference between living in the theoretical and imaginative world and truly experiencing, mastering and failing in the ups and downs of the lived experience. I could write about ETA Hoffmann and newts now but it’s late and the rats need their dinner.
3. A journalist friend recently wrote in a list of guidelines for young journalists. “Don’t spend too much time on social media, if you can avoid it. Twitter derails more careers than it builds”. The takeaway here is: if the only lens you have at your ready is one that notices people’s failings, then maybe you need to think seriously about what legacy you’re planning to leave in the world. 
4. If your mind moves quickly, and likes to take itself on spins, you’ll always feel uncomfortable in your body unless you train it to keep up. And you’ll be running the risk of running with thoughts faster than common sense can keep up. Crossfit and MMA are too fantastic tools for this.
5. Rats are glorious.
6. Attention is not an entitlement.
7. Validation is not all it’s cracked up to be, and hankering after it makes you quite pliable. 
8. The thing you need to do is the thing that feels scariest. Managing the stress that comes with taking bold leaps is an art that refines itself with practice.  ​

Rat’s all, folks.