Assuming

There's a curious story about a group of African boys that had to cross a desert. Each one carried their own supply of water using ostrich egg shells as their water canteens.

Ignoring the danger of not saving the water, one of the boys drank at every chance he could and before he realized it he ran out of water.

To avoid the embarrassment of not being responsible with his water, he did what he could to avoid showing his empty egg shell to the rest and he pretended to not be thirsty for the rest of the journey.

Eventually everybody else ran out of water too, and as they complained of their thirst, they could not understand how that other boy didn't give any signs of trouble. They made all sorts of mental conclusions:

- He had a great tolerance and stamina so the heat didn't bother him.

- He was saving water for the rest in case the travel became longer.

- He had been wiser about saving his water than the others and hadn't run out yet.

By the time they reached their destination, his fame and courage had grown so much that he was immediately appointed tribal leader. Nobody ever knew that his legendary water canteen had only been an empty egg shell.

Comparison

Original:

Forwards in Reverse


I travel forwards in reverse,
So I keep the surprise a bit longer,
The surprise of a new location and a new chapter.
Walking whilst I face ahead would be faster,
But it’s backwards that I face
So I don’t look in the future.

I believe the scientific term is retardation?
As I head true north with no direction,
No one is telling me where to go, although I’m not really going,
More like drifting,
No compass or map, no signs.

I wake up one morning
Continue my journey
Backwards of course,
But now you’re with me.
You are my guide.
Take me by the hand and lead me.

Bei

Edited:

Forwards in Reverse

Travel forwards in reverse,
hold the surprise a little longer.
The surprise of a new location
and new chapter.

Now face ahead
And stand up straight
And see it’s backwards that you face.
They say the term is retardation.

So you don’t see the future.
Head 'true north' with no direction.
(Though you’re not really going,
more like drifting with no compass.)

You’ll wake up one morning,
and carry on your journey,
(still backwards of course)
But now you are with me, my guide.
Take this hand and lead me.

Blunt

Identity/Personalities

(Probably one of my favourite bloggs, I've written so far, taken from the Xanga site: original blog date 08/04/10.)

I'll like to start this blog with a little story...

On Saturday the 3rd of April 2010 I went to Northampton town clubbing to celebrate AF's 19th Birthday, I'm not going to lie - the whole clubbing experience was awful the best bit was catching up and chatting with friends that I haven't seen in ages. At around 2 O'clock, Scott P, Jack and I started to walk around town and our conversation got to the point where we were talking about us as people, and how we are slightly different people when we are at university. Well Scott and I found this out as Jack isn't at uni yet. But Jack did say that he is looking forward to re-inventing himself at uni.

It's strange, some people I can imagine being the same no matter where they go and no matter what environment they are in. But, people like me, like my friend Scott and probably like Jack, were/are trying to "break free" and yeah that is a High School musical reference! In my home town, people constantly perceive me as what they've always known me, there wasn't any room to grow and if I decided to do something new, something not me at all I would care too much about what everyone thought - bad I know.

Going to university was definitely what I needed. People say "I wish I could just hit rewind and redo that whole event." But for me uni was even better! Fuck a rewind button, let’s hit Restart!

So now I (and Scott as well) seem to have two identities like a Uni Tim and Home Tim - okay that’s a little extreme, but there seems to be more sides to me nonetheless. The hardest thing is this, my readers - bringing the two together, it seems that Home Tim stays with me whilst I'm at home but sometimes Uni Tim comes out to play when I'm with my closest friends - so maybe it’s not an identity and an idea of how I'm perceived thing, but the idea of comfort and safety??

Whatever it is I aim to get rid of all these different Tim's and just have Tim! Because the idea of a lot of different versions of me whilst I'm with different groups of friends seems all too fake and I don't like that, however, this process maybe quite messy and difficult but still it should be fun.

Have you ever thought about multiple you's? Are you one of those that needed to "break free" or have you been constant throughout? Do you think you changed when you went to uni? Was it in a good or a bad way?