I'm new here.

Sometimes a song just knocks you sideways. I've just listened to Gil Scott-Heron's "I'm new here" for the first time, and I'm still reeling. A friend had posted a link to the video, as Scott-Heron's just died. I'd known who he was, but now I realise that's not enough. I must, must go find all his music and listen to it, NOW.

Here's the video. Listen to it.



I've been reflecting a lot these past few weeks on how I am right now compared with about a year ago. I'm trying to come off the anti-depressants that I've been on since last May. I guess I thought it would be easy - I'd been feeling really good - but storms can blow up in minutes on my personal weather map. So much of my thinking has ended with me feeling as though I've gone in a circle and that somehow I've not progressed at all. I've felt frustrated and trapped, as though I've failed. As if self-knowledge is a sort of test I can pass or fail. Gil Scott-Heron sings to me about the freedom in the circular journey. You arrive where you started, you get the chance to walk the same path, but this time with new knowledge: of yourself, of the world, of other people. Or perhaps, with nothing at all: free of preconceptions (misconceptions?) about the things you thought you knew.

I think that is what I need to remember. I'm not slipping backwards, because life doesn't have a direction in that sense. Let's see if I can hold on to that thought.