First Impressions last because so few of us bother to ever change.

So my head is still at Good Vibes which is a good place for it to be. Towards the end of the evening, dressed as some kind of Celtic Eskimo with Viennese sausage in hand (not a euphamism) I wandered across some lawn and some pavement into the laser lighting show of Faithless.

Something about electronic music and flashing lights and the colour blue stimulates the brain and though I was not tripping on any drugs (as per always) I found myself going on a journey of emotion and possibility that felt a positive shade of blue.

The title of this post was one of the repetitive hooks of a song in Faithless' set which if memory serves me correctly was actually coloured green not blue but it needless to say went 'How can I change the world if I can't even change myself ?' and thanks to the miracle of Google I was able to find out the song was called Salvae Mea, which according to the miracle of Wikipedia means 'Save My'.

Anyway, Faithless push the positivity they don't promote no junk, but I found this song quite positive. Thanks to it's repetitiveness its message was easy to absorb. Badu also did a prolonged 'Believe In Yourself' but the freestyling vocal style made it relatively harder to absorb. Plus you'd be all like 'this isn't techno, why's she all repeating herself?' know what I'm saying?

No.

Okay so Faithless were saying 'How can I change the world if I can't even change myself ?' and here's the thing. I can change myself. I'm capable of change. Sure there is some essence that makes me, me. Plus peeps including myself tend to misremember things. NNT points out that often an actors 'skill' or 'talent' or 'genius' is retrospectively applied to their careers AFTER they win an Oscar. We forget that we never really noticed them before. Or we assume that other people did.

Anyway, I can make a jump shot, like shoot overhead in basketball, this is just one tangible way I have changed. That is reversing a life long bad habit of shooting from the hip. An easier to block underarm shot that I always did (and I am told looks particularly ungraceful).

I am also much better at listening than I was 5 years ago, when I didn't listen to anybody at all. Everything I knew about anyone I did through observing and assuming. I was taught the secret by Shona, that in fact everybody is kind of fascinating if you can just listen to them, look for them. I'm still a terrible listener, but I am 1000 times better than I was.

To answer Faithless' question though (which was rhetorical I know) I can change the world around me by changing myself, a part of our environment is me. I think though that the very wording of the question alludes to responsibility I am reminded of the Maturity Goats: The one specifically in the upper left looking at the clouds, that 'Blames Self for World' is the contrasting goat to the red one with back to the clouds 'Blames World for Problems'.

The very question 'How can I change the world?' is to suggest we are in control of the world, that it can be changed by 'I'*. It is already assuming that we are not a victim. That if the world doesn't suit us we can go out there and change it. How empowering. To ackowledge that we can change ourselves though is most empowering.

I don't mean in the Little Mermaid sense, where you make sacrifices for cosmetic changes in order to get a guy, but in Emporers New Groove sense where you transform yourself into a better human being and grow for your own sake.

And like a Llama crossing the jungle, change isn't easy or even pleasent, but if you can make yourself more capable, more versatile it pays off, peeps will notice it eventually and you don't have to be saddled with some first impression. You can make a second impression if you are capable of change.

*'I' kind of looks like a seal looking at me.