Numbers 8 and 14 are both about staying alive in their own ways, Number 8 in a literal sense, where I aimed to buy house plants and not kill them. This, I must say, has gone better than expected. I bought three house plants in early January. Two have survived. Things did go well for a while, but then our central heating died. This is a story in and of itself that I cannot go into without experiencing now-phantom frostbite, but it did effect one of my plants.
For two months, Georgiana (that was my plant’s name) did well. Georgiana was a beautiful plant. One of those many-stemmed, flowery, girly ones. She was beautiful. Unfortunately, when the central heating stopped, whenever any renegade drops of the water I gave her got stuck in her stems, they no longer gently tickled down or evaporated. No no. They became... mould. Actual mould. There was nothing I could do about it. Georgiana passed away in late February. I unceremoniously threw her in the bin. (Side note: guys, don’t name stuff. When you throw it away, you will feel guilty. Fact.) The others are alive and well. That’s an
achievement, even if one of them didn’t make it. But hey, as the mighty
Meat Loaf so wisely says, ‘Two outta three ain’t bad’.
Number 14 is about staying alive in a different way. It is about staying alive in the mind and the heart. I believe that there are ways that we can encourage our dreams and ways we can stifle them. One of the big goals of my day zero project was to stay inspired and to encourage myself, a habit which I find I have been woefully lacking in cultivating. This will be the first of my ‘inspiration’ posts, of which, if I manage to complete my tasks, there will be many.
Number 14 is to watch one TED talk every week. TED is a series of conferences that spread innovative ideas through high quality talks, and it uploads these talks on to a website (get on it, www.ted.com). TED has been a source of massive inspiration for me for about a year now, and I thought that it would be good to keep myself inspired by watching talks. I have been pretty good at keeping up with it every week, but last night I had the privilege of attending TEDx Belfast.
Most of the talks last night were great, but there was one in particular that stood out. It was by a guy called Colin Williams, and the talk was about how fear is the enemy of creativity. Fear holds us back from dreaming, and he spoke about this with both stories from his own life and with direct relation to Belfast. It kind of hit the nail on the head for me in so many ways. Firstly, for anyone out there who has been reading my posts, you’ll know that trying to rid myself of some of my fears is something I’ve been battling with recently. Secondly, this talk also made me realise how far I still have to go. There are still dreams that I have stifled because I’ve been too afraid to admit that I want them. Lastly, talking about a Belfast and the history that has shaped both the city and the mentality of its people was both brave and, I believe, necessary. He said that he believed the only thing holding Belfast back from greatness was fear that has been built into the society through a troubled history. His encouragement was to just rise up and essentially to join with him in his passion and his belief that the creative arts will be what makes this city great. To say this publicly in front of so many key leaders in the city and potentially to the world via the internet was such a strong and brave thing to do, and I certainly hope his words impacted them just as much as they impacted me.
The personal issues raised by this specific talk are things I will continue working on in the next little while. I will continue to fight my fears and try to move into actualising some of my dreams. Perhaps I’ll even confess to myself that I have certain long-buried dreams. While in the process, I will keep trying to stay inspired and actively choosing to invest time and energy into inspiration. I'm also hoping to look more at what this city has to offer and perhaps how I can be a part of what is happening here. TED showed me that there really are new and exciting things happening here. I am excited both for myself and for the future of Belfast for, as Colin Williams quoted during his talk, 'greater things are yet to come and greater things are still to be done in this city'.
