A long conversation with an old friend. The past and the present and the future. The ambivalent feelings, the ambiguous emotions, the anguish and the anger had some chance to make themselves known.
I was set to thinking.
I have long doubted my ability to make 'good' decisions - based on my track record. I have not fared well in any financial or house-buying decisions; my equine-related decisions went from catastrophic to coma; my relationship-related decisions went from single to spinster. This does not bode well.
Now, I did make a good choice about going to Oxford to study English Literature at St John's College in 1989. OK, in the first two terms I doubted the wisdom of the act but it did work out. I knew that after the first year.
However, I think my decision not to do a DPhil. back then was a poor one. That set me off on the whole TV trajectory. And I recall the reasons for my decision: ego covered over by a claim that I could 'do something meaningful' but exposing liars and cheats and injustices.
Many of my horse decisions had more than a whiff of ego about them too.
Though choosing Oxford the first time might have seemed an ego-choice, I chose it because when I went to the Open Day I 'felt at home'. However bad things got, I didn't feel that I wasn't at home. I mean, one can feel lonely at home or an imposter or that one doesn't belong but still feel kind of at home. At least, I could.
And, in fact, when I moved the horses to the Little Haven I did feel at home there. Maybe it would have been OK if other things in my life hadn't fallen apart. Maybe.
So, right now, these days, where do I feel at home? I hate to say it but I do sort of feel at home at the company where I work a lot. I feel at home volunteering for the Wildlife Trust. I feel at home with my indoor creatures and the crows.
That's all OK.
Now, the course. Do I feel at home in the world of philosophy? See, I'm not sure I do. See, I think it has more than a whiff of ego about it.
My friend had discovered this course in Anthrozoology in the university of the city where I went to school. Oh Lord, I thought, as soon as she mentioned it, why aren't I doing THAT?? I could write a paper about urban crows. About humans and horses. About cats. I could write about animals as family and animals as meaning. I could write about play and shared cultures and shared social learning. I could write about the push and pull of inter-species intercourse - the OLD meaning of intercourse before you imagine bestiality is on the agenda. I could write about conservation quandaries and human fallibility.
I thought: what would a decision to swap entail and what would it mean and could I? Do I want to? Dare I?
I thought: who am I? A dilettante or a seeker? Is it just another sparkly thing that I don't have or is it a destination?
Anyway.
Let's sit with it awhile.
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