Like many things, it seemed a good idea at the time.
I began this blog when I had a period without work in Greece at the end of my contract and didn't know what to do with myself. I had to make decisions about where my daughter finished her education and there were no clear solutions. The answer seemed to be to do nothing and wait to see what happened. Of course I was still looking for work, improving my web skills, trying to improve the management of my daughter's school, making other friends now I had more time, doing more exercise with regular swimming and generally enjoying the bits of life in Athens that I did enjoy. Both Bee and I were ready for a move to another country even if we didn't know where it would be.
Not exactly doing nothing. At least an active form of doing nothing and being prepared for anything that might turn up.
In recent years I've become an admirer of Taoism. It seems a rather flexible and forgiving philosophy of life.Wu-wei, usually translated as nonaction, inaction or nondoing, is one of the most important Taoist concepts. Although there are many explanations of Wu Wei, you can find some of them here (wikipedia) here, but probably Alan Watts explains it more understandably for westerners:
nondoing is "what we mean by going with the grain, rolling with the punch, swimming with the current, trimming sails to the wind, taking the tide at its flood, and stooping to conquer." Thus, nondoing is "the life-style of one who follows the Tao, and must be understood primarily as a form of intelligence".(Tao: The Watercourse Way, Pantheon Books, 1973.)
When you feel lost and life doesn't seem to be working out, it is because you have lost the Tao (the Way), the river of life, which will lead you where you need to go. Forcing things does not help to get back to the Way. Sometimes it is necessary to go in the opposite way to that you would expect.
Hence the rubric on the top left of the blog.
Eventually something did turn up: a job in Kosovo. No chance for Bee to live there with me, and only two weeks work a month, for 12 months. So it seemed, no alternative but to bite the bullet and go back to England where Sloph was just due to start university in Oxford. Not our favourite idea, a bit safe and dull, but it's been a success for everyone but me, but only because I am so rarely in Oxford, that I have had no time to meet people.
