Hello! My name is Elizabeth and I’ve spent part of the past year travelling the world. But due to my physical disability, I’ve had to be slightly more creative in how and where I chose to spend my time overseas. So whilst I may not have hiked up the Himalayas, I did sit and paraglide over them- but I’ll come to tell the details of the cool stuff I did this year in future posts. Since this is just an introduction, I couldn’t possibly give too much away so soon…

A main theme of this year has been talking. I LOVE talking. I love to talk about absolutely anything with anyone who wants to talk to me. As far as I’m concerned, conversation is a completely underrated medium of expression. Simply by talking to new people this year I’ve learnt an indescribable amount: about people on a personal level; people in the context of their culture and language; then how all of these elements to someone’s life can affect how they think and communicate. One huge conversation of this year has been answering the question posed to me by my friends: did you find yourself? And I did. Ever so slightly. (And I puked a little just typing that…)

Whilst the phrase ‘to find oneself’ may or may not mean a lot to you, personally, I’m a product of my Northern English working/middle class upbringing so it just makes me cringe. Regardless of this, the past 12 months have taught me that the phrase is relevant to my life. But what does it even mean?

Nerdy moment and big words to follow…

Well the pretentious connotations surrounding the words have largely been created as a result of rich upper class kids exploring the third world, as a kind of penance to pay society back for their inherited wealth (and because they can). This causes those less financially fortunate to feel resentment- both actively and passively- towards that class of people, sometimes leading them to take the mick. This psyche unsurprisingly distracts from the actual meaning of the words themselves. So whilst my observation may seem blunt, it’s been the way of the world for centuries that those with less money than others generally become jealous very quickly. In this country our societal jealousy often manifests itself in humour and mockery. Good old Brits with their sarcasm. But most of the time it’s not even the wealth itself that sparks the jealousy, it’s the opportunities that money provides for people.

In a culture where reality is so easily tainted by apps such as Instagram, it’s no surprise that this pattern continues and has arguably intensified in recent years. At this point it’s important to say that I’m in no way attempting to devalue those with money giving back to the world and travelling, but it’s also difficult for those who’d love to do the same but can’t afford it, to see. Thus the phrase and act of ‘finding oneself’ is mocked alongside the term ‘gap year’ – which is often said in an exaggeratedly ‘posh’ London accent i.e. ‘gap yah’. I’m even guilty of saying it like this and I have harem pants and bead bracelets just like my fellow gap yah-ers. Call me a hypocrite.

Though I don’t believe that you can go and sit in the jungle for a few weeks and ‘find yourself’ definitively by any means, I will argue that completely separating myself from the familiar has given me a new perspective on the world and my place in it. The state of society at the minute is such that we’re provided with lots of opinions as statements, and oftentimes there’s little discussion about what’s said.

SO, I guess I’m going to use this platform to talk about some stuff and I hope that you take enjoyment out of reading it. But if you don’t, then you read to here so I still win.
🙂