Fixing the World

By Jennifer A Brunell

Fixing the World is an autobiography.
It is book about a boy who loved challenges.
He grew up to be a woman, but no ordinary woman, because she always wanted to know, and to be, more. She continually and single-mindedly sought out challenges, and she used them knowingly, to reshape her body, her life and her self.
After leaving school at sixteen, Jennifer set about educating herself. Ultimately, she became a high-flying, multi-lingual, international career woman. She travelled very widely, and she experienced a lot.
But to Jennifer, the greatest challenge in life was life itself, and understanding what we really are, and how we come to be. From there came the questions "Why are we that?", and "What comes next?"
This book is an exploration of Jennifer's journey through life, and through realisation; to an understanding of the fundamental truths of being and becoming.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Oct 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9781684708253

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Brunell

Copyright © 2019 Jennifer A Brunell.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

ISBN: 978-1-6847-0824-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6847-0826-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6847-0825-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019911771

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 09/27/2019

INTRO

I am driven. I always was.

If ever a there were a challenge out there to be had, I’d be there. I’d take it on, work it out, and beat it. This has been a lifelong fundamental. I’ve always had a need to achieve, a need to prove to myself that I can do that, that I can have that, that I can become that.

Where that drive came from, I’m not entirely sure. It was probably derived from many factors - but I have always had a need to be better, a need to grow, a need to be recognised.

In part, I’m sure I inherited the drive as a combination of the personality traits, and the teachings of my parents, and as a consequence of their aspirations. In short it may be that I was born to it. But my aspirations grew, and with each challenge overcome, they became greater.

Life provided many challenges, and I responded strongly throughout my life, to what came my way.

From the beginning, I was not happy with the situation and circumstances into which I had been born. I was disappointed with the opportunities and resources that had been allotted to me, and I soon began to challenge my birth-lottery outcome, and my given place in our world.

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As for all of us, my earliest challenges were simple.

All children start out behaving like helpless little drunks. We all pee our pants, stagger around, and babble incoherently, wearing our dinners rather than eating them.

Like everyone else, I had to learn to think and speak coherently, and to not wet my pants. I was not always successful in all respects. In school assembly on one occasion I was frightened to interrupt during prayers in case God didn’t like it. I was frightened of God, so I held on too long, and made a puddle. That was very embarrassing.

Inevitably there were other toilet accidents. I had to unlearn a natural clumsiness. I had to calm down, stop screaming, and learn to listen and respond. I had to realise that I was not the most important thing in the world - far from it. The world didn’t care about me. To the world I was an irrelevance. That was a challenging realisation.

I had to learn to fit in, to conform, and to march with everyone else. I had to do as I was told. I was taught to think, but not too much, and I was taught what to think. I was integrated into the group mind, and became a functional part of the human herd.

I never felt very comfortable with that.

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I lived without fear.

Death never frightened me. First of all I never felt I had anything to lose. But in truth, I always felt immune to harm. Life and death were mine to control. Personal harm was a choice that I was not prepared to make. I pushed everything to the edge.

Somehow, I always escaped serious injury, despite doing the stupidest things and getting into dangerous and life threatening scrapes. I didn’t break my first bone until I was fifty-two years old, and more brittle, but even that could have been so much worse.

I was a tree climber and I always scrambled as high as I could. I never fell, or rather I did, but I always managed to catch a branch on the way down. I was forever calm and calculating, immune to panic.

I felt a strong urge to jump off high things. I was born with a desire to fly and be free. Cliff tops were always a danger to me. I always felt I could jump, and maybe catch a tree on the way down to soften the fall. This urge had to be met with much resistance.

I felt the need to cycle madly, run fastest, scream loudest, everything to the most, so I did. I was a competitive little idiot.

I once deliberately cycled at full speed off a five-foot bank. I somersaulted in mid air and landed flat on my back, laughing hysterically. That was what I was like. I was fearless and stupid. But it was all very good fun.

I enjoy challenges. I always enjoyed challenges. It never mattered what they were. Challenges made me feel alive. They still do. They are my play.

Challenges make me think. They have enabled me to change, and to grow. I have always loved to meet them head-on; surely that’s the only way. There has been emotional pain along the way, but the challenges have rarely beaten me.

I can’t say I’ve always taken on all the right challenges, nor have I always achieved positive outcomes, but the challenges were the thing that mattered. We learn from every experience, and the experiences are all the more enriching when they challenge us; when we have something to overcome.

Challenges can come from outside or from within. As I began to grow a little older I began to realise that I had been assigned a number of unusual challenges at birth.

My home and environmental circumstance provided one set of these challenges. But I soon understood that I’d been dealt a strange hand of cards. I was not representative of the norm, and I also had some major internal personal challenges that would need to be dealt with.

I always felt somehow wrong. There was always something inside of me that didn’t fit properly. I didn’t fit properly.

I didn’t seem to feel what everyone else seemed to feel. I didn’t see the world the way that everyone else seemed to see it. I spent my time thinking about things that the people around me didn’t think about, and didn’t care about. The things that seemed important to others were not important to me.

I didn’t function as other people functioned.

I was odd.

My first real challenge in life was to understand why I was different, and to try to find a remedy. To try and to fix me.

Ultimately, I think I succeeded in fixing myself to a degree of satisfaction. I accept that I am still odd, but I am happily odd. I’m odd in a good way, and I know why I’m odd. I appreciate myself now for who and what I’ve become, and have no wish to be not - odd.

But it wasn’t really me that was wrong in the first place - it was the world. It was how the world saw me and dealt with me.

In changing myself I have made myself acceptable to the world. The world didn’t care about me and would happily have rolled over me and moved on. So I had to change me to fit. As a consequence, whilst the world hasn’t changed much, its response to me has.

Challenging my differences, and moulding myself to the world’s expectations, has led me to a lifetime of introspection, of searching for problems, reasons, and solutions.

In learning who and what I am, in learning what makes me tick, and learning what the world expected of me, I have also learned what makes the world go around, and why the world is what it is.

The world continues to crush and hurt people, to destroy them as it always has. It continues to make life difficult or unbearable for those who do not conform. But it is not individuals that need to be bent and squashed to fit. It is the world that needs to change.

The world needs fixing.

With age I have become more refined in my choice of challenge. I’m now much more secure and assured in myself. I know who I am, and who I can be. I have become who and what I am by my own choice, and by my own hand. So be it.

My challenges now, are outside of me. The biggest ones are yet to come. They are now on my horizon, marching towards me like the ranks of an army, weapons drawn. They will keep on coming forever.

BORN

&

BRED

M y birth set for me my first challenge in life. I was born at home, in a council house, (or, being politically correct, in ‘social housing’). The house was in Vicars Road, Shurdington - a fairly sleepy village in Gloucestershire. In number 45 resided Mum, (Susan, Rachel, nee Stamp), Dad, (Roger, James), and my year-old brother, (James, Leslie).

It was late October, 1958, and very foggy, so much so that the midwife got lost on the way. Mum pushed, I squealed, and I, (Stephen James), was duly presented to the world.

I was a physically a perfect, blue eyed, brown haired, healthy, baby boy. There was already much to be improved upon.

We were a mongrel family, with grandparents from England, Ireland, France, and Wales. Mum and James were dark, with black hair and darkish skin, that would be the French influence. Dad and I were properly representative of our Celtic origins, and were fair skinned and chestnutty.

As a family we were very far from wealthy - Dad was a twenty-one-year-old trainee toolmaker, and sole breadwinner, now with two young children to support. He aspired to more. Dad was a bit angry with life.

My very early years are largely a blank. I remember little until after I was around seven. It took properly momentous events to imprint anything on my memory as a young child. Some say we only remember the good things. Maybe I didn’t have many good things to remember, although I’m not aware of having been unhappy, but then I wouldn’t be would I?

My first snapshots of memory began to arise only when the family emigrated as ‘ten-pound-poms’, to Australia. At the time the Aussies were short of key skills, and our Dad, as a fully-fledged toolmaker now, possessed one of those needed skills. We obtained an assisted immigration passage to Oz, costing just ten pounds a head.

Looking back, even the memories that I think I had, may not have been actually real. Maybe they were imaginings derived from photographs taken at the time and seen later. Maybe they truly were snapshots. But as far as I am concerned these are my earliest memories.

I was four or five, and we left the UK after one of the worst winters for many decades, I think in 1963, but maybe not… I mean we did leave, but it’s hard now, with everyone dead and gone, to confirm any dates. There was always talk about that winter, so I presume we lived through it in the UK. It would have been a shame to have missed it, as I do like a bit of cold and snow.

We were to spend six long, fabulous weeks on an enormous luxury ocean liner.

We threw streamers to the Southampton dock as we pulled away from it, from our old lives, and from our family. Everything seemed grey – the water, the concrete of the dock, the sky, the ship. The only brightness was the streamers that we held.

The idea was that ship-board passengers would throw the streamer, it came as a roll, and hold onto one end. Their family, come to say their goodbyes, would hold on to the other, keeping contact for as long as possible. I don’t remember anyone being at the other end of ours.

I watched the streamers break and fall, and colour the water, as we were separated from the land, from our pasts, and into a new future. We remained peering through the railing as England became smaller, and then small.

Once fully underway, my brother and I raced around, exploring this huge ship. We were in a state of high excitement. The excitement hardly abated throughout the long journey.

A large ship is the perfect playground for a young child. Everything was new and different, and it kept changing day-by-day. Hide and seek was brilliant with so many good and exciting places to hide. My favourite thing was to lie on my belly and get my head under the railings at the pointy end of the ship and to watch the bow wave. It was mesmerising watching the water swell, rise and flow past. Occasionally there were porpoises!

I would go to the stern too and feel the power of the ship’s screws beneath my feet, churning up the water behind us, to leave the white trail that marked our passage. I thought of the ship as a great slug, wending its slippery way across the sea.

These memories may easily have come from the return journey two-and-a-half years later. It was a long time ago, and time makes things foggy. Whenever they happened, they had such an effect on me that I am still