Although this blog is autobiographical, and therefore the main topic is me and my life, in order to make sense of my life I have to discuss other things, like issues, other people, and groups of various types. Technically, however, this blog isn't about them, it's about me and part of me is in relation to these other things, people and groups.
However, that being said, I think that I also have something worthwhile to give by way of not only talking about me for my sake alone, but that aspects of my life and my interactions with various other entities have, I think, some broader implications that go beyond just myself.
As an autobiography, I am just presenting one person's experience, which means that others will more than likely have different experiences with the very same issues, people and groups. Nevertheless, that doesn't invalidate my experiences, especially since there could be very real and significant reasons why someone else might have a different experience with an issue, person or group.
But I think there's another way in which my experience is valid in and of itself and that is to say that my experience is valid in the same way that saying, "I feel .... when you..." is valid. This is something that is recommended to say in times of conflict with someone or some group, because it's not attacking the person or speaking in broad generalities. Rather, it's focusing on how you (the speaker) feel in a very specific situation. In the context of my autobiographical blog, then, it could be like my saying, "I feel very disrespected when you (the mission or the Komsomols) try to force me into doing something that goes against my values."
It wouldn't be honest of me, however, to deny that I hope some of the things I've had to deal with in my life might be of help in one way or another to my readers. In a way this could be a means of giving my life value, that there was maybe a reason I had to experience these things and maybe some good somehow can come out of it.
That being said, I hope you can also see how this exercise might be of help to me personally as well. Already, just having come this far, I'm feeling more validated regarding my experiences with the Vienna mission. As an educator I know that just having read something isn't always enough. Sure I had read these articles before, some 15 years ago when I was on an extended trip to the States while otherwise living in Siberia. But this is the first time that I've written out my comments to these texts and tried to actually put it all together. Using Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning, one might say that I had gained a certain amount of knowledge and comprehension the first time around in my research and reading of these texts, but it hadn't been until now that I'd moved past that, moved up the pyramid.
For me writing is very useful for this, but sometimes more active shuffling around, as is done in sorting or even qualitative data analysis, also helps me look at things in a different way. That's one of the hard things (for me at least) in this process, trying to view things in as many ways as possible so as not to potentially miss some vital piece in the puzzle that will make or break the accuracy of my understanding of what really happened. Of course, talking like this makes it sound like what really happened was one-dimensional and that there might be just one explanation for everything; in reality, I doubt that is so. So all I can hope for, really, is to get a rough approximation of what happened at various times in my life. And if I work hard and do my best, hopefully I won't botch it up too badly.
