Paradoxical Self Expectations

I’ve been quite hard on myself lately, demanding to know why I’m not “there yet”; why I haven’t become the person I want to be yet, and why my goals still seem so far off. But, just now, a new question came to mind that changes things slightly… That new question is this:

If I’d done everything already, what would I spend the rest of my life doing?

Logically, my ridiculous self expectations are paradoxical, because if I’d achieved everything I could ever achieve already, I wouldn’t be able to achieve anything more (because there would be nothing left to achieve) in the future, and those future years(/the rest of my life) would be wasted by default. Assuming I have more years in front of me than behind me, the wasted years would outweigh the “successful” years, meaning that – on the whole – my life would be a failure.

So, now I’m kinda glad I still have a long way to go; it makes me feel better, in a bizarre way.

(Yes, this really is how my mind works.)

Five Things Required of a Potential Husband*

(*Specific to me and my personality’s needs, excluding all the spiritual requirements that obviously take priority. List not exhaustive and in no particular order.)

1 – Must own/run a bookshop, or at least an extensive home library.

2 – Must be a musician, even in the loosest terms.

3 – Must have an interest in correcting spelling and grammatical errors.

4 – Must appreciate good quality stationary.

5 – Must find my excessive need for clarity, my personality quirks and my need for in-depth, surreal, philosophical conversations endearing and/or amusing.

*Patiently waits for an orderly queue to form at my front door*

Right and Wrong Human Rights

Back when I was studying criminology I kept thinking a lot about the concept of right and wrong. Like, does society decide what is right and wrong, or is it something bigger than the human race? If your answer is ‘society chooses’ then logic dictates that, hypothetically, if over half of society (i.e. a majority) were to wake up tomorrow and decide that they have no problem with murder – and in fact think murder is a great idea – that would make murder right. But, if what is right and wrong is decided by some outside force (be it a deity or whatever) then regardless of society’s decision that murder is right, it would still be wrong.

It’s an interesting piece of thinking, and there is no conclusive answer, because the answer depends on your worldview, but it got me to thinking about human rights in the same terms.

Are human rights determined by society or is there some superior moral code that exists regardless of people’s ability or willingness to accept said moral code.

I could tell you what my personal viewpoint is but it’s not really the point here… the point is that you assess your own viewpoint on these things, and then hopefully share your conclusions in the comment section below.

D.F.T.B.A.

Heroism

This month in my Poetry Reading Group our loose topic is Heroism; so we’re expected to pick our favorite heroic poems to present to everyone, to be discussed.

In deciding which poem to read I thought I’d go back and look at ‘Unheard Voices’ - an anthology of poetry and short stories regarding the slave trade, complied by Malorie Blackman, that I read last year – but, upon opening the book, my natural inclination was first, to go to the ‘Towards Freedom’ section of the book and second, to chastise myself for doing so.

Why are we (as people. As a society) so accepting of the lie that escaping torture and captivity is more heroic than enduring it?

No, I’m not saying that we’re completely wrong in thinking that the people who attempted escape were brave – of course they were – but they are not necessarily more brave than those that didn’t. It’s not that simple, and we do the memory of captives a great injustice by thinking that it is!

RAGE

Do you know what actually makes me so angry? The fact that I now can look back at old pictures of myself and think, ‘Wow, I was actually fairly slim’. But I never knew it at the time, because even then, when I was technically a ‘normal’ weight, I had people telling me I was fat. From the age of like 9 or 10 I can recall times when my family would say things along the lines of “well, you’re fat, and you’re going to stay fat, so what’s the point?”

And I stupidly believed them. I fell into this stupid vicious cycle that started with lies that have now come true. Now I fear I really am too far gone. Now I have a medical condition that makes it so much more difficult to lose any weight at all. And now - NOW - I can see that, at the start, I was fine. If only I knew that before!

I cannot stress this enough: WORDS CAN DESTROY LIVES, even when you don’t mean them, even when you were ‘only joking’, even when you try to justify it and even when you’ve said sorry.

I am *so* close to just swearing right now, I think I might burst. WHY ON EARTH DID NO-ONE TELL ME I WAS OKAY?! 

2013 Photo-A-Day Project & Photobooks - UPDATED!

From New Year’s Day 2013 until New Year’s Day 2014 I am taking – and posting to Flickr – a photograph each and every day. Admittedly, it’s not the most original project, but it is fun none-the-less; Also surprisingly challenging (one of those things that sounds easy until you try it). Let me tell you this: there may be an infinite amount of things on this planet but when it comes time for me to select one to photograph, I suddenly find my options limited. Therefore this project will challenge me to go more places, but that’s not a bad thing.

Anyway, at the end of the year, all 366 photos will be appearing in a photobook but, in the meantime, I’m releasing a different photobook – my second – a follow up to ‘Overlooked Awe’ which came out last summer.

‘Creature’s Comfort: Nature Photography by Ellie Rose McKee’ was due to go on sale on Monday, February 4^th 2013 but its release has had to be moved back, to mid-to-late June, due to unforeseen circumstances. Here is the cover, which was incidentally the photo I took on New Year’s day this year for my project:

PLEASE!

Please, if you’re going to share graphic details of violence and abuse in a public forum like Twitter or Facebook (even if it’s just to raise awareness for a cause), PLEASE put a warning before it, telling people of a “sensitive disposition” to take caution in reading because – and I’m not just being dramatic here – a lot of it really does distress and disturb me.

I mean, a lot of people have the decency to type the words ‘Spoiler Alert’ in statuses that reveal key plot points of popular TV shows to the masses and I get a label on music telling me if songs are ‘Explicit’, so why isn’t there some kind of warning system in place regarding things of an infinitely more serious matter? 

Live Blogging my Homelessness

From 5pm this past Saturday, until 5pm on Sunday (December 9^th 2012) I made myself homeless, along with quite a few other crazy people, in a bid to raise money for Street Kids in Uganda. I had a sleeping bag and a cardboard box; I wasn’t allowed to bring money, or food, and I was therefore forced to rely only on donated rations – but I was allowed to keep Twitter up to date throughout the night.

The following is an hour-by-hour account of how it went:

Hour One (5 – 6pm): “Fully installed myself at the Sleep Out. Picked my cardboard box and sitting by a fire.”

Hour Two (6 – 7pm): “Very thankful to the person who donated bacon!”

Hour Three (7 – 8pm): “We have marshmallows.”

“There's a guy doing the full 48 hours of the Sleep Out, plus a fast and being sponsored to have bare feet throughout. #Hardcore”

Hour Four (8 – 9pm): “Starting to feel the cold in my knees. I have never worn so many layers in my life!”

Hour Five (9 – 10pm): “There's smoke in my eyes, in my throat, my hair and clothes. Looking forward to a hot shower tomorrow!”

Hour Six (10 – 11pm): “More donations of food have arrived at our cardboard city.”

“We're like the most well fed (temporary) homeless people in history (aside from the dude fasting that is).” 

Hour Seven (11pm – Midnight): “I'm about to try my first ever s’more.”

Hour Eight (Midnight – 1am): “Newsflash: It’s cold!!” “And it’s starting to rain!”

Hour Nine (1 – 2pm): “The surrounding drunk people have me rather worried.”

Hour Ten (2 – 3pm): “It's now VERY cold, but the drunk people seem to have calmed down.”

Hour Eleven (3 – 4pm): “Bedtime. A fantastic point to discover the zip on my sleeping bag is broken! #Fail”

*Hours Twelve to Sixteen: Twitter Silence*

Hour Seventeen (9 – 10am): “I'm awake. Not that I slept much...”

Hours Eighteen, Nineteen and Twenty (10am – 1pm): “Just guillotined 1,000 leaflets. If I couldn't feel my fingers before, I really can't now!”

Hour Twenty-Three (3 – 4 pm): “Almost there!”

Hour Twenty Four (4 – 5pm): “Last Girl Standing!”

Upon Arriving Home: “My hair is like a particularly messy bird's nest”, “I do believe it's now sleepy time – in my own bed!.”

To sum up the experience I’d say it was fantastic, aside from the actual attempting to sleep part, and that was mainly due to the fantastic people who took part with me. There were quite a lot of laughs and it was generally just good ‘banter’.

Would I do it again? I really don’t know, but what I do know is this: I am incredibly thankful to everyone who helped make this event possible, and I am truly humbled by the fact that, for so many people around the world, sleeping out on the streets isn’t a choice, and definitely isn’t fun.

As a group, we may have gotten a lot of support and food delivered right to us, but I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that that isn’t the case for those who sleep rough on a permanent basis. I ask that you spare a thought for such people, and take them into consideration when deciding what to do with items that you no longer want or need.

If you would like to make a positive difference to this planet, but have no clue where exactly to start, the donation page for my completed sleep out is still open. Donate there and Abaana, the charity in charge of the event, will make sure it gets put to the best use.

Thanks for reading.

Stay blessed.

P.S. You can follow me on Twitter here, if you want. 

The Christian Cool Cat Charity Lady Girl

Y’know those little nicknames you secretly give to people who you know by sight but don’t know the name of? Well, a few months back I discovered the nickname that the people in my local social security office had given me. Apparently, because I tend to go in wearing a hoody with a Bible verse on the back, I’m known as “The Christian Girl”.

And then, a couple of days ago I was at Belfast Writer’s Group where I saw my old ‘Introduction to Journalism’ Lecturer and his title for me was “The Cat Lady; Ruth Gorman’s Friend” (because I once wrote an article about cats for his class and I am indeed friends with Miss Ruth Gorman). Now, to top it off, my friend tells me she thinks of me in terms of “The Girl who does Cool Things”.

I’m not sure which identifier I like best but, if you bear with me, the last one is going to bring us on to the real topic I want to speak of here today i.e. the cool things that I do.

“What’s the last cool thing that you did?” You may ask, well, I organized my own book launch and wrote 50,000 words during the month of November.

“What’s next?” I’m sleeping out on the streets of my hometown on Saturday Night, to raise money for the Street Kids of Uganda. (See, you weren’t expecting that, were you?)

I’ve just been told it’s supposed to be about -3 (Celsius) so, I beg of you, take pity on me (and the people who do have to sleep out through no choice of their own) and sponsor me (for them) here. 

In Celebration

Breaking News: Stephanie Theresa Elaine Joy Hibbert - also known (to me) as S.T.E.J.H., Steph or Apples (to everyone else) and Dave (by an unknown number of attractive men who look her up on Facebook only to re-think their decision to ‘add’ her) – turned twenty four years old today.

You may remember Apples from such ‘stunts you’ve never heard of before’ such as:

 - Ode to STEJH, on the 1st Anniversary of her 21st Birthday (a poem, written two years ago today)

- Steph’s Fairytale (a bizarre yet highly amusing short story)

- Steph’s Hogwarts Letter

and, my personal favorite,

- Let’s Simultaneously Wish Steph Happy Birthday on Every Single Social Networking Site in Existence (which marked last year’s event)

This year, there’s this blog post.

The purpose of this post is to celebrate this momentous occasion and, just to warn you, it may contain traces of inside jokes that no-one but Dave and I will understand.

If confusion distresses you, dear reader, click away now.

So, Stejh, another year has passed and you’re officially old – how does it feel? How do you feel? I hope you’re recovering well from all the cake you’ve undoubtedly stuffed into yourself.

I hope you know I’m putting NaNoWriMo on hold to type this (the things I do for you, eh?) and that this post is not at all a way for me to procrastinate…

Speaking of procrastination, please start packing more than two hours before you leave Brazil; I (unfortunately) can’t be there to shout at you every two minutes and the plane won’t wait for you.

Remember those times we had to run to catch coaches to LDN – like literally run, holding broken suitcases and everything? We were so tired but my comic relief made it all bearable.

Remember the time you put Dulse in my pillowcase, or the time I stole your pillow in my sleep, or the time some troll left those comments on my YouTube video that almost made you die from laughing so hard?

We’ve had some good times, mate; some real good times, and people might (rightly) think we’re insane, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Come back to my side of the planet soon, yh?

Much love,

Your dearest Ellie

xx