Revolutionary Resilence

Its been a crazily bad night readers. The level of verbal abuse has been exceptionally high. From housing staff shouting at me for daring to say the risks possed by the temporary accommodation offered were way to big. To youngsters trying to ride bikes into me, shouting hateful abuse…….you get the picture. Upshot is I have one choice left, to been filled with fearful anger or to practice some revolutionary resilence.

Reckon you know me well enough by now readers anger and fear is just not my style. So I’m going to share one of my hobbies with you. Puddle art.

Took this the other day outside my local job centre. I was having a bit of a frustrating day and the heavens had just opened, throwing down rain, hail stones. Was tired, hungry, just really fed up. I’m sure you know the feeling readers you just want the world to go away, and leave you alone! The need for a 2 week lie in followed by a 6 month holiday. That end of your tether is a couple of miles behind you down the road feeling.

That’s how I felt when I walked outside that job centre. I also needed a picture I could use for this site, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Recognise the picture? I took a few others.

I really like this one. Something about the bricks of the path between the branches of the tree. The colours are warming.However I think it’s how so many objects that could be described as broken, dirty, rubbish have created something beautiful. The title I made up whilst typing. But that boot is less damaged than the other.

That’s what revolutionary resilence is all about. It’s making the conscious choice not to let the harshness and hate of the world steal the goodness of your gentle soul. It’s about playing with whatever is around. That day outside the job centre I had puddles, a camera on my phone and my boots. I experimented with different puddles.

This wasn’t the best puddle but I had fun balancing and did still get some reflection of the trees. The title is not the best either. Sometimes though it’s ok for things you do not to be the best. Self criticism is important it leads to improvement. What self criticism is not,is picking apart things you’ve done, telling yourself how rubbish you are, telling yourself your (insert whatever abusive term you use). That’s called self abuse and quite frankly there are enough people to do that. Stop doing their work for them.

How I became a revolutionary

I know what critical self abuse is like because I used to do it myself before I learnt revolutionary resilence skills. It’s strange and I can’t quite pinpoint when or why it happened. There was a realisation as my life circumstances got harsher that I didn’t have to follow the crowd. I realised that most of the time the crowd were actually wrong, especially when they were shouting abuse at me. Why would anyone join a crowd and shout abuse at themselves. When I realised how stupid this was and walked away from that crowd, I saw how stupid that crowd was in other ways. So stupid they were quite funny.

Suppose I started to grow up. Strange how you can grow up as an adult. I started to feel comfortable in my skin and not bother about what others thought. Oh the freedom of not being bound by the opinions of others.

I realised there will always be haters because there will always be people who hate themselves. These people need compassion and tough love. Tough love has love behind it if it doesn’t it’s just being nasty. It’s also important for self protection.

You see people who care about others also care about themselves. They know when and how to disengage emotionally after fully engaging emotionally. Those who care have hobbies and gratitude.

Which brings me to my extreme gratitude to the lady who introduced me to puddle art. I’ll never forget how we were kneeling on the pavement beneath the bridges in a down at heel part of Edinburgh. People seeing us must of thought we were insane. It would of made a good picture, an office worker and homeless lass kneeling on floor together taking pictures of puddles.

Im smiling broadly just thinking about that day. Outside this restaurant there are loud,hate filled, kids. It makes me sad thinking about the future path they seem to be heading on. These kids like to harass me I just feel sorry for them, wonder what’s happening at home that has allowed them to be so broken they behave like this. I pray they have a revolutionary realisation similar to the one I had.

Outside doesn’t matter same as what’s happening around me doesn’t matter. It’s what’s happening inside my head that matters and that’s the only thing I have control over.

My happiness, calmness and acts of care are revolutionary actions. There’s a war going on out there and inside our heads. On one side there’s fear, hate and death. The other Amy has love, courage and beauty. You know my master is Life and yep I’m a bit of a warrior these days. Love sends hate running off the battlefield every time.

Im heading off to bed down in the doorway soon. I hope you decide to start fighting in the same army as me soon readers (I know some of you already do).

“The only way to change the world is one person at a time starting with yourself“

Night