Who is drBACKPACK?
living life with meaning, feeling, and endless curiosity
Would you agree that labels and categories are common in describing people? Can you think of some examples?
Age, gender, race, ethnicity, class, relationship status, occupation, location, and there’s plenty more circulating in daily conversation.
Isn’t that boring? I mean, do these REALLY tell you what you would like and need to know about a person?
I have a disdain for these descriptors of people, largely because of the stereotypes accompanying them. They are very superficial, just skimming the surface and nothing more, reducing people to something quantifiable. Such characteristics should not be used to define who we are.
I am forever fascinated by the function behind the form, in swimming beyond the surface. I am a person who is drawn to human values, qualities, and capacities. Within these waves you will discover the unique rhythms + flows, and ubiquitous undercurrent of meaning + feeling, of every individual you embrace.
Epithetical Metaphor
What’s whimsical is the origins of the name drBACKPACK. An old friend of mine saved my number on his phone as ‘Backpack’ because every time he saw me I always had one! I found it hilarious and simultaneously fitting, as it suited my nomadic energy + lifestyle. When I began teaching Secondary School Geography and was developing my own learning resources, I wanted to attach a moniker to them. drBACKPACK was born, found, discovered!
‘BACKPACK’ thereafter grew into an analogy representing my values, qualities, and capacities. I felt this epithetical metaphor captured my belief that we are not human beings, but human becomings, in that we are constantly evolving. I don’t ever want my backpack to be static, still and to become stale. I want it to roar + soar through limitless hills, valleys + waterfalls. To be exercised + expressed in comfort + under duress.
Adopting ‘dr’ as a titular prefix denoted my decision to give myself a ‘license to share’. I firmly believe exchanges between people + places are what make life worth living. The essence of life is felt through sharing and exchange. For frequent + extensive periods of my life I’ve felt caged + constrained, cut off from experiencing these encounters effusively, so I wanted to encourage + permit myself to finally let loose, be free + be myself.
Attributes
Becoming a ‘Dr.’ involves obtaining a licence to practice a specific profession. I want to live my life forever adding, removing, replacing, repairing, exchanging, and expanding the contents of my backpack. It’s character consists of the following fundamental values + attributes that define who I am, and detail the intentions + incentives fuelling my existence:
- Humanitarian – caring, assisting and empowering people is a great privilege and a huge pleasure as I value human life, and don’t view people as tools or commodities to utilise + exploit for my own gain. I firmly believe in the power of human connection and love.
- Versatile – I have taken on a huge range of roles + positions throughout my life, as I’m always flexible with what I do to make something happen. Currently these include being a Healthcare Professional, Writer (Creative + Academic), Educator, and more.
- Committed – once I’ve set my mind on a goal, objective or task, I have to follow through, particularly in adversity. So I will work hard, and try to persist and persevere with hunger, until I’ve reached where I want to be.
- Passionate – bringing energy + enthusiasm to anything and everything I do is something that comes to me naturally when I’m fully engaged. Hence I live my life with meaning + feeling. At my core, with everything I give myself to, I AM AN ARTIST.
- Excellence – if you’re doing something, do it properly. I am committed to doing the best that I can in any situation, particularly when serving others, and have often been described as being ‘thorough’. I forever aim high and strive for excellence.
- Innovative – my learning, progress and achievements have been enabled by a concept I coined in 2015 that I call CCT (Critical and Creative Thinking). I like to generate new ways of understanding + articulating information, and performing + practicing skills + tasks.
- Understanding – everything is relative + contextual. Experience is useful, yet people, situations, and circumstances have their unique configurations and it’s important to embrace and work with that. Not to impose, but to be patient, understand and empower.
- Compassionate – human connection can be an intense experience but is vital in empathising with people experiencing any form of adversity. It’s the key to making an effective and sustained difference to someone’s life.
- Learner – if I am not learning, them I am not living. I strive to improve + enhance my skills, knowledge, values, qualities + capacities on a daily basis. It’s integral to who I am, and actively do this in a variety of ways.
- Grateful – humility is inherent in my disposition, ingrained in my emotive + cognitive reflexes. I will always express this regardless of where I am because it’s important to appreciate all that I have in any given moment or situation.
In some ways you can call these values + attributes ideals because although I exercise them they are constantly evolving, as I’m always seeking ways to perform better. I can be content + grateful, but never fully satisfied. I call this dynamic a ‘balance between excellence + acceptance’.
What does drBACKPACK (want to) do?
‘I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This does make it hard to plan the day’. Yet, ‘I have a why in life, so I can bear any how’, and I am ready and hungry to discover and give more to new people and places.
This eclectic quote encapsulates what I am forever striving to do and the determination driving my journey. I created my platform in September 2016, and have patiently let it grow whilst navigating the world of working in British public services, namely Education and Healthcare. I now want to use my platform to draw upon the diverse range of skills, knowledge, experience, values, qualities, and capacities accumulated + nurtured since my youth to appreciate + contribute.
Appreciation
‘Endless curiosity’. I live my life to feed my curiosity about people and places, from awing upon the big picture to marinating upon the intricate details of daily dalliances. I thrive off learning about and experiencing people and places, and will happily become immersed in new discoveries. It is my way of appreciating the world, and my place in it. Of respecting and admiring the endless + limitless potential and possibilities of life.
So I exercise my appreciation through exploring space, place, and the body, in mind, heart and spirit. WRITING has for many years been a primary medium for expressing this appreciation, and this platform has given me the space to exercise and articulate + develop my ideas, thoughts, emotions and wordplay. It enables me to not only appreciate the phenomena around me, but to also appreciate everything I am.
Contribution
I want to contribute to the social and emotional aspects of people’s lives
In short, this is my mission. My years of living, studying + working, of learning about and interacting with people and places has taught me that social + emotional issues, events, incidents and experiences are seminal to our condition of existence, our quality of life, i.e. whether we are living well (colloquially called wellbeing).
They can be short-lived but have a profound and intense impact on the people we are and the lives we go on to lead, regardless of when they occur in our lifetimes. On so many levels, from the individual to society, I believe we can improve the way we perform, practice + process these moments and journeys. Herein lies my true passion + vocation.
How does drBACKPACK (want to) do all this?
Empowerment
A concept rooted in feminism that has been co-opted by multiple institutions in myriad forms to follow what became a contemporary conceptual trend and buzzword. It thus has countless meanings and applications. Yet I’ve always been interested in what it meant when conceived, as an approach to enabling people to determine + facilitate their own lives according to their own values, beliefs, principles, and goals.
So I want to be involved in initiatives and activities, whatever form they come to take, that enable people to develop the skills, qualities, and capacities to eventually go away and do their own thing. To be able to plant the seed, assist with the initial watering and feeding, so that inhabitants of a pasture can eventually nurture their own land for THEMSELVES, however they wish to. Some would call it local level, grassroots work, but the bigger thing for me is self-determination over conditioning + imposing a way of life upon people. I believe it’s the antithesis of a fulfilled condition of existence, of living well.
Social Justice
Inextricable from my notion of empowerment is social justice. You could say I have a lifelong commitment to challenging injustices that I have personally witnessed and encountered, and I feel continue to manifest throughout the world on a day-to-day basis. Heck, the list is endless though, and I’m not going to go all out and say I’m going to change and fix every issue and problem. But I can’t tolerate and accept people being harmed and mistreated, abused, maligned, undermined and subordinated.
I will thus challenge and change things where and when I can, starting with myself. If things can be done better, or there is a different way, then I want to learn more about them. Then maybe I could be involved in trying to make these changes happen, then go from there. But if I can challenge the injustice that even one person is experiencing, and make a difference to their life, then I will be grateful, and feel fulfilled + privileged to do so.
Exactly what form will these take?
Examples include service/resource provision, short-term interventions, programmes, campaigns, workshops, projects, trips, activities, courses, education, training; they can be one-off or come in packages.
But for what I want to do? I don’t know. But more specifically, I don’t want to specify, because I am open to implementing this in whatever form is most appropriate and effective. Moreover, I know it will always evolve with time + experience. Yet most of all, I don’t want to limit myself to something specific.
Published March 2022
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