Bright Outlook

In keeping with my TYSIC, I am updating my blog. And in keeping with my overall goal, an article about the place I envisage myself to be spending a large proportion of my time over the coming months....

Do you have a special place? A place where you go to contemplate issues requiring contemplation, a place to relax or a place to simply get away. You may not even know it yet but I think everybody needs such a place. Often depicted in the movies as a place to escape to, in reality they are few and far between.

I have just found my place. For three years at university I began to think that it was the local pub, where a comfy seat and a mug of tea away from student housing seemed like heaven. I often wanted my place to be somewhere outside, somewhere peaceful and pretty where nobody could find me. But that has logistical problems. After all, where would I park?

It is hard to believe that I am happiest sitting where I am: there is a sharp chill attacking me from somewhere unknown, there's the groan of impatient traffic down below, and the piercing screams of children just free of school.

Surprisingly, I share this place with people from all walks of life; people that I would never pass were it not for this sanctuary. Because a sanctuary it is; where Phil Collins and Kurt Cobain stand side by side without pretension and Shakespeare shares the stage with relative nobodies of the literary world.

All visitors are welcome, and they and I benefit from the same rules, the universally regarded rules of a library. This place, in the middle of Shropshire, with stunning architecture and steeped in a history too deep to begin, is a star in the daylight. Whether to concentrate on academic work, to live vicariously through yet another novel or merely to curl up in the window and watch the world go by, this library is the place to do it.

When you see the building that schooled one of Shropshire's greatest minds for what it really is, all the hustle and bustle of life fades away.

So excuse me as I put my headphones on, tuck my legs under and while away the hours doing something or nothing...

Ssshhhhhh!

Oh, and one more thing. If you happen to visit this place and get a seething look from a young girl carrying heavy books...you're in my seat!

My First Published Piece

So how can I summarise the thoughts of the twenty-somethings living in Shropshire today? The easiest way would be to list my grievances. This generally consists of the inaccurate presumptions and insults forced upon my age group by the self-titled 'older and wiser' generation: we drive too fast, drink too much and our exams are easier. We are too politically correct, we are afraid to be proud of our Britain, and we are turning that Britain into something no longer worthy of pride. Then of course there's the fact that we are always in such a hurry; we barge our way past people to get seemingly nowhere at all.

But that would be too easy, and maybe even a little unfair. After all, is it not us who brand the 'older and wiser' generation as people who drive too slowly, smoke too much, and are not as intelligent as we are? Those who are horrifically un-PC, only proud of the Britain that they grew up in, and treated that Britain in such a way that we now have to feel guilty at the sight of a plastic bag. Then of course there's the fact that they are so slow; they dawdle in front of you, completely oblivious to the notion that some of us have things to do and places to be.

Doesn't sound like a very nice world, does it?

But then I go to see my Grandma.

She loves me for being a good person, for taking her to the grave of the Grandad that I never knew, for driving cautiously and for appreciating the opportunities that I have, never begrudging those opportunities to anybody.

I love her for being a good person, for being strong in a much harder life than I shall ever know, for never meaning to insult anyone when using those kinds of words, and for all her silly sayings that sum up an air of nostalgia about a Britain that once was.

We don't think these nasty things of each other because we know each other. And with so many things in this world to enjoy, from the sought-after snowy day to the first smell of freshly cut grass, why waste our time complaining about other people?

Why not do something that we all enjoy and raise a toast (I'll have a gin and tonic, she'll have a cigerette) to remembering that the person barging past you is me, a good person living the way you used to, and the person dawdling in front of you is her, a good person living life in the way that I one day will.

Cheers!