This blog could not get any more boring. For the most part I agree with that statement because my writing over the last year or so has taken a turn for, what one might call, the philosophical - or just downright rubbish. Long gone are the days when I would sit down twice a week and make a fool of myself for the entertainment of others. Admittedly that was not the aim of my writing, but in hindsight I can't help but feel that my weekly log of embarrassment brought smiles to more faces that I care to think.
As an example, I was reminded today of the episode (heck it was a full blown feature length movie!) about the girl who I admired from a distance in second year. Looking back I was rather foolish in both my emotions and the commentary I provided of them on my old blog. Rightly, much enjoyment was had by my readers during that period - and I'm more than happy to be laughed at once in a while.
Unfortunately (for some anyway) I've learned from my shortcomings over the years and I've become much more guarded when it comes to things like that - at least on my blogs. No longer will you catch me writing about the 'angel on the train' or going on about some girl who I happen to be in the same room as a few times a week. I could do that, but I feel too old for it now.
And I guess that is the point. I might only be 21 (with number 22 just around the corner) but a combination of things over the last year or so have lead me away from the youthful exuberance that I may have displayed in the past. One of those things has been the change in my book shelf. From once being purely novels and law books, my shelves now read roughly as follows: cook books, psychology, NLP, poetry, law books, novels, some short story collections and a couple of biographies. Read backwards up to 'poetry', that list would not have looked out of place back in second year. However, go a little further down the line and the reason for my more reflective style of writing recently becomes clear.
It was March last year when I read 'Clarity' for the first time and started down the road to learning about thinking. When before I was thinking about learning, I soon found a passion in the reverse - and a passion it remains as well. I lamented in my last post that I would quite like some of the 'old me' (or 'classic me', as this post appears to call for) back, but for the most part I like who I've become. My blog might have suffered, but if you look at what I've achieved in the past 12 months then I like to think that I haven't.
So, for the time being anyway, I think I'm happy that my blog is perceived as being 'boring'. It is indicative of a period of change in my life that I can chart from first and second year to today - a storyline that very few have access to in their own lives. I could be writing about girls but I doubt that I would feel so good about it as I did a couple of years ago. There are blog posts to be written there, but I'd rather they remained unwritten - at least for the time being.
I know this has been a long post but there is just one last thing that seems a fitting footnote to what I've written tonight. Over the last four or five days I've ventured out into the world of classical music for the first time proper. I must have clocked up about thirty hours with having it on while studying, and I'm kicking myself that I've not come to it sooner.
I used to think it all sounded the same but, to a small extent, I've educated myself enough to know that there is so much variety out there. Beethoven's piano pieces alone have relaxed and riled me in equal measure over the last few days. I'll not go on about it, but I will leave you with two of my favourite pieces (below) and a recommendation. As I write I'm listening to Rachmaninoff, described by one Youtube user as follows: "If love and passion had a sound, it would sound like Rachmaninoff." In my own words, it's like listening to an audiobook where the words are replaced by music. Brilliance.
Anyway, thanks for reading this lengthy post and I'll be sure to be boring everyone again on Friday as I gear up for my annual Valentine's day beating post. Here are my two early favourites from my first foray into classical music, from Beethoven and Chopin respectively. Bear with both and you will be handsomely rewarded.
Martin
