Through the Portal - a novice blogger discovers the delights of being online

The idea of the Portal I find really stimulating. Doorways, entrances, ways in, beginnings - these are concepts that have always provided a measure of  excitement for me. We all have our own mind maps that help us make sense of what is real and meaningful and such mind maps all had their beginnings in our heads. All our ways of making sense of  the world started with a particular Portal.

There is a tribal Tory Portal out there. I nearly got sucked in once but fortune has favoured me.

There is a Portal for those who favour fairness and justice. I am very pleased I have always been inclined to hang around this particular doorway. Sometimes, I  have plunged in through the entrance of this Portal and found myself diverted into cul-de-sacs of extremism and egoism. But I like the path I am following now as a supporter of  Jeremy Corbyn.

There is a Portal for those people who find themselves part of the Establishment. Their own success, fuelled by their ambition and talents, has gifted them entrance through this doorway that leads to recognition and status, and a measure of wealth and power, in whatever field you care to mention - politics, media, academia, industry, commerce, finance. The response of such people to the Corbyn phenomenon suggests to me the power of inertia. Many of those inside this Portal don't like their mind maps disturbed.

I had an interesting Portal in my early life as a child. It hung on the wall of  my parent's semi-detached in suburban north-Kent, now swallowed up in London.  An inexpensive, framed print of an autumn-tinged, woodland scene with mountains in the background. No human to be seen. My parents never went away on holiday so the picture on the wall represented something rather magical - a land of promise,  a future that was there to be explored when I was a Grown Up. When my mum died, three years after my dad's passing, I was nearly 50. I arranged for  the clearing of their  house and decided to take nothing away with me. The print that had meant so much to me as a kid had served me well. I no longer needed it in hard form. I had internalised its essence.

My point? Care about your Portals. Understand them. And don't get trapped inside them.