When I mention 'the other side', I am talking about the stroll down the hill towards retirement. I am no longer in the prime of my career ... if there is such a thing. I am freaking out my colleagues by doing stuff like digging out old boxes and tossing files and telling them I am preparing for retirement. But I am also doing stuff like learning new teaching and learning techniques and I might even set up a YouTube channel. After all, I am looking ahead to a new phase of life where I have more say in what I do with my daily hours. I cannot fathom going through a day where I don't learn something new or create something that wasn't there before.
Post pandemic years feel weird. Especially when I am now in the group preparing for retirement. Priorities went upside-down, new habits were formed, perspectives changed irrevocably... and I feel that I am having to adapt to an existence that might look the same as it used to but is vastly different in unseen ways. It's like the sky is still blue and the grass is still green but there's a hazy difference. Maybe someone will read these words decades later and try to imagine how the author feels.
Unexpectedly I am more focused on music nowadays.
I love stories... whether I hear them, read them or see them. They make me feel things, and they also teach me things. Yes, I'm going to talk about Dimash Kudaibergen again. He is a story teller par excellence, via his music and his lyrics. So young, you may say, to earn such a title ... Surely he hasn't lived long enough to have gathered all those stories in his heart and to be able to share those stories with others. But watch a video of him singing... and tell me that isn't a superb example of someone telling a story that grabs you by your heartstrings and stays with you for days and days afterward. If I were a Buddhist, I would call him an old soul. Stories are powerful because they can paint swathes of colour across your mind and they can change the way you think. But the stories need to be presented in the right way, with the right words. I've always been a 'word' person and I've always believed I needed to know the words to be truly ...
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