Fennel Hudson, A Waterside Year - Fennel's Journal - No. 2 Quotes
It’s not always best to know what’s going on beneath the surface.
It is this brighter side, the romantic side, the emotional side, that appeals to me.
There’s no such thing as ‘not enough time’ out here in the woods. I don’t even have a watch. Time is my own, categorised as nothing more than ‘morning, afternoon, evening and night’.
Leaving the rat race is easy. All you have to do is quit your job, sell your house, and go and live in a tent in the middle of nowhere. It’s staying out of the rat race that’s tricky.
Being here is such a contrast to where I’d otherwise be.
Sounds simple, doesn’t it, this notion of simplicity? Simple things done simply by a simple person. But it’s not as simple as it seems.
Satnav will get us quickly and all-too-predictably from A to B, but the path of life is more interesting when we’re allowed to explore the side streets.
Lake water, even when boiled, has an effect on my digestive system similar to the movement of a hangman’s trapdoor.
Every layer of complexity creates greater distance from life’s simple truths.
As with writing by candlelight, one’s greatest ideas come from ‘the flickering’ between darkness and light.
Dreams free us from normality. Daydreams, especially, take us somewhere between the real world and the dream world.
A man can never be truly free when he knows that he is neglecting his duties elsewhere.
Eight months in the woods have hardened me, or at least firmed up my beliefs that if a man’s going to fend for himself, then he needs to leave his credit card at home.
Rarely will I write indoors, even if it means getting wet during rain, or my hands numb in winter.
I write into an old book that smells of dust and whose pages are floppy with damp. Sometimes the ink splodges onto the paper, other times it will barely leave the nib of my pen.
As the daydreams grew longer, the distinction between what was real and what was imaginary grew less. Soon I existed in a blissful world of my own creation.
Freedom within is embodied in things as well as people. Like coins tossed into a wishing well, they contain our hopes and dreams.
Choice and perception are closely linked. They are unique, personal and emotional.
The promise of adventure is often more exciting than the adventure itself.
Life in the wild, as I’m observing, is about survival as much as pleasure.
My tent doesn’t look like much but, as an estate agent might say, “It is air-conditioned and has exceptional location.
Time alone helps us to remember who we are.
I keep on dreaming, but to find freedom, one must first search inwards.
Time is not something to be killed. Doing so suffocates a part of us, writing off part of our life that could, or rather should, be spent doing something meaningful.
Doing nothing can be as rewarding as doing something. And doing very little can be as productive, in a creative sense, as doing a lot.
The greatest moments of creativity come in absolute solitude, when one’s mind is free from distraction and able to probe the depths of the impossible.
Individuality and creativity are slowly dampened by a normal job with normal people.
Reality is in the ether, a blend of present-day experiences infused with one’s memories and dreams. A life that is real to one is surreal to another.
There’s merit in being different, inspiration in being individual, courage in being unique, and freedom in being yourself.
