I’ve been passionately interested in birding since I my earliest memories, which mainly involve me following my Dad along a windswept shoreline somewhere in the UK. As a teenager I spent most of my free-time (and a good deal too much of time which should have been spent studying!) birding, initially at my ‘local patch’ – Alton Water, in Suffolk – and increasingly, further afield, twitching rarities in far-flung corners of the British Isles, and then launching off to Europe and then Asia in search of bigger and better birding ‘highs’. I am extremely grateful that this passion was passed on to me, not just for the amazing birds, but also for the places and people which my pursuit of birds has led me to encounter.
However, birding is no longer the ‘be-all-and-end-all’ that it once was for me. There came a time when I had to face bigger and deeper issues of meaning, and, especially, my own inability to live or attain the kind of life I aspired to. I don’t mean material aspirations – it was more a growing awareness that I wasn’t able to live up to my own moral goals, or to consistently ‘do to others as I would wish they would do to me’. This lead me to a life-changing encounter, and a choice to be made. Rather then try to explain it here, I would recommend the following simple presentation:
http://www.matthiasmedia.com.au/2wtl/
Do take the time to read it through. I’d be very happy to talk about it with you afterwards.
Dig deep 