Validation

Sometimes it's necessary to seek validation.

I've been struggling a bit the last few days. There are still occasions when my head doesn't seem to engage fully with my body. Perhaps it's a bit of post-remote-island syndrome, the shock of returning to everyday life, which often hits me sometime after the event. It's still odd to find myself in that disconnected state. I get left with this residual feeling that if I'm not actively doing something, then I'm going to fade away, that my self-belief is going to evaporate. I get helped by the need to push myself out the door to find someone to talk to and grab a portrait to record my day. It seems like such a ridiculous notion as a reason to take a walk, but it always makes sense on the way back home!

Today I needed to bolster my self-belief and I did something I've not done in ages, namely, google myself and the book that I wrote many years ago. I guess I was looking for some validation. I was curious to know if I'd recently been quoted anywhere. Well, it turned out that I have, in a book called The Illusion of Separation by Giles Hutchins. It was good to know that someone wanted to use my words instead of their own.

And then I found a random connection to a couchsurfing profile of a guy from Perth in Australia. He listed some important books in his life, including mine! What was most astonishing was the company I found myself in. I was nestled alongside Jack Kerouac, Aldous Huxley, Albert Camus, Jorge Borges and Joseph Campbell no less. The thought that I may have touched someone's life such as those great writers have touched the lives of thousands and millions even, has touched me deeply today myself. Thank you Alex Last, whoever you are, for making all that effort seem worthwhile. I'm posting this in order to help me remember how much this meant to me today. I love it that we like a lot of the same music too!