Heroes Not Zombies

A thistle in the vineyard.

I stumbled across this thistle in the vineyard up behind the house in the Charente where I’m living now. I thought the symbolism captured something about this phase of my life.

When I retired from clinical practice last year, I sold my house and Scotland and moved to France.

I had the idea to move to France, having never lived anywhere other than Scotland throughout my whole life, because I thought if I put myself into a different culture, and worked to become fluent in the language of that culture, then I might stimulate my imagination and my creativity. I thought that it would also be good for my brain – a lot of people suggest that learning a second language is good for the brain at any age. I thought that moving to a more rural community in France would also allow me to enjoy food which was grown locally and available fresh in the markets. (Adopting the Michael Pollan Food Rules – Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants) I thought it would enlarge and deepen my experience of the world.

It’s doing all that, and more.

Then today, I read a review of David Graeber’s “The Utopia of the Rules“, which really inspired me, so I set off to read more reviews, interviews and articles by this author. In one of the first pieces I read he quoted the following –

Putting yourself in new situations constantly is the only way to ensure that you make your decisions unencumbered by the nature of habit, law, custom or prejudice – and it’s up to you to create the situations

(It’s from “Crimethinc.” – an anarchist collective which says it is “in pursuit of a freer and more joyous world”.)

Well, wherever it’s form, it’s spot on!

Putting yourself in new situations constantly is certainly a way to move from zombie mode to hero mode.

David Graeber, by the way, is the man responsible for the slogan “We are the 99%”, and his book, “Debt: the first 5000 years” called for debt to be written off around the world.

What new situations do you plan to put yourself in, in the year ahead?