Clocks Go Forward 2024

The clocks went forward last night, so its time to look back on the past five months. My post from October barely mentioned Gaza, only referring to my being glad to have found my activist bone. I suppose no one at the time imagined that Israel would still be genociding after six months. Palestine has been at the top of my mind, and I have been to nearly two dozen events for Palestine. I have learnt that people can break your heart with their cruelty but can also bring you to tears their courage, and it is up to you which one to focus on. In my low moments, I feel like I spend all my time either agonizing over the situation in Gaza or my job hunt. I don't know where I will be when I write the next "clocks" post as it depends on where I find a job. All I know is that I won't be in Bristol. If I don't find a job in academia in the UK, or get turned down for the one position I have applied to in the US, I will be back in India in which case there will be no clocks post as clocks in India don't change over the year. If I return to India, it won't be by choice, and I am not going to get into the reasons for that here. I have woken up on more than a few mornings feeling anxious about my job prospects. But, the best antidote to morning anxiety is to get out of bed and get on with your day, or at least that is how I cope with it. As the job search is also a location search, I find myself weighing the pros and cons of every country. The list of cons for each country is much longer than the pros. UK is starting to resemble a developing country and academia, in particular, is a basket fire. The US is the citadel of consumer climate-destroying capitalism, is seething with Zionists, and may elect Trump again. About India, the less said the better. But, I am slowly realising that there is no place to run to to escape the evils of the world. The world will likely become a less hospitable place in the coming years on all dimensions--social, political and environmental. I am  not going to be able to move to a world I want to live in because it doesn't exist and never did. I am going to have to play a role in building the world in which I want to live in, wherever I find myself. And, this realisation has been sobering for me but also liberating. There is very little certainty in my life right now but the one thing that I am certain about is activism will be a part of my future.