integral part of me was a crucial step. And in even more simplistic terms, I saw all of a sudden the damage I was doing to it by not eating properly. I am not sure you are ever cured of the illness that is an eating disorder but the key for me was to have developed a healthier perspective about my body. Whereas I used to see it as no more than contours of skin and colour, now I see it as a holistic system that I respect and love for what it enables me to do.
Uneasily, I started eating more healthily. From the end of term in June until I handed in my thesis (‘The Changing Form of the Indonesian State’) at the end of September, I moved into digs with a guy called Rich, another great friend. He was a vegetarian and superb in the kitchen, and his cooking helped me back onto a more even keel.
One thing I didn’t let up on, though, was my work. I think Rich, who was also completing a master’s, raised an eyebrow over how hard – and late into the night – I was working and how stressed it made me. But that was an example of energy directed towards a positive goal, and I graduated with a distinction. Naomi was awarded a distinction as well. I don’t know which of us got the higher mark. It didn’t seem to matter so much any more, and that in itself was a sign of progress.
4
Development
It is interesting for me to look back through the diaries I kept during my travels. In June 1999 I was bemoaning my tendency to ‘always try to please people’; five months later, as the millennium approached, I was renewing my lifelong vow to ‘make people happy’. They may sound contradictory statements of intent, but I don’t think pleasing people and making them happy are quite the same thing, even if they are two sides of the same coin. The first is akin to the impulse to worry about what other people think of you; the second is more about the desire to give to other people.
I would say my life has been dominated by two dynamics: an obsessive lust for control and self-improvement on the one hand, and concern about people and their situations on the other. From the latter has grown, perhaps fuelled by the former, my passion for development. I call it development these days, because that is the name they give it in politics and in higher education, but really it is just the desire to help people and to try to make the world a better place. It played a big part in my life when I was growing up.
It was the era of Band Aid and Live Aid. The footage from Africa reduced me to tears, and I remember vowing to do something to help. I was an avid fan of Blue Peter , and one episode in 1986 made a particular impression on me. It concerned the famine in Ethiopia and the cataracts that were rendering so many of the Ethiopians blind. I went through to the kitchen and asked Mum if we could arrange a bring-and-buy sale in the village. I wrote a letter to Blue Peter , explaining how distraught I was and how much I wanted to help. They sent posters and an information pack, and we set about planning and promoting the event. It was a success, and we raised £173, which wasn’t bad in the mid-1980s. I was overjoyed to be awarded my first Blue Peter badge. Still got it. Still got them all (I didn’t stop there).
The television reports gave me my first inkling of a world beyond my own, a world that wasn’t fair or equal, a world of poverty, war, disease and famine. But I also realised that this state of affairs wasn’t necessarily a given, and that we have it in our power to make a difference, to make the world a better place for all. We have that choice. One thing’s for sure, though – if we do nothing, it will be a given.
Buoyed by the success of the bring-and-buy sale, I set up further projects to raise money. I organised a litter-pick in the village (I hated litter). Then I wrote a version of Aladdin for the stage, which was put on at the primary school, complete with costumes and songs.
As I went through my teens and early
Uneasily, I started eating more healthily. From the end of term in June until I handed in my thesis (‘The Changing Form of the Indonesian State’) at the end of September, I moved into digs with a guy called Rich, another great friend. He was a vegetarian and superb in the kitchen, and his cooking helped me back onto a more even keel.
One thing I didn’t let up on, though, was my work. I think Rich, who was also completing a master’s, raised an eyebrow over how hard – and late into the night – I was working and how stressed it made me. But that was an example of energy directed towards a positive goal, and I graduated with a distinction. Naomi was awarded a distinction as well. I don’t know which of us got the higher mark. It didn’t seem to matter so much any more, and that in itself was a sign of progress.
4
Development
It is interesting for me to look back through the diaries I kept during my travels. In June 1999 I was bemoaning my tendency to ‘always try to please people’; five months later, as the millennium approached, I was renewing my lifelong vow to ‘make people happy’. They may sound contradictory statements of intent, but I don’t think pleasing people and making them happy are quite the same thing, even if they are two sides of the same coin. The first is akin to the impulse to worry about what other people think of you; the second is more about the desire to give to other people.
I would say my life has been dominated by two dynamics: an obsessive lust for control and self-improvement on the one hand, and concern about people and their situations on the other. From the latter has grown, perhaps fuelled by the former, my passion for development. I call it development these days, because that is the name they give it in politics and in higher education, but really it is just the desire to help people and to try to make the world a better place. It played a big part in my life when I was growing up.
It was the era of Band Aid and Live Aid. The footage from Africa reduced me to tears, and I remember vowing to do something to help. I was an avid fan of Blue Peter , and one episode in 1986 made a particular impression on me. It concerned the famine in Ethiopia and the cataracts that were rendering so many of the Ethiopians blind. I went through to the kitchen and asked Mum if we could arrange a bring-and-buy sale in the village. I wrote a letter to Blue Peter , explaining how distraught I was and how much I wanted to help. They sent posters and an information pack, and we set about planning and promoting the event. It was a success, and we raised £173, which wasn’t bad in the mid-1980s. I was overjoyed to be awarded my first Blue Peter badge. Still got it. Still got them all (I didn’t stop there).
The television reports gave me my first inkling of a world beyond my own, a world that wasn’t fair or equal, a world of poverty, war, disease and famine. But I also realised that this state of affairs wasn’t necessarily a given, and that we have it in our power to make a difference, to make the world a better place for all. We have that choice. One thing’s for sure, though – if we do nothing, it will be a given.
Buoyed by the success of the bring-and-buy sale, I set up further projects to raise money. I organised a litter-pick in the village (I hated litter). Then I wrote a version of Aladdin for the stage, which was put on at the primary school, complete with costumes and songs.
As I went through my teens and early
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