On the eve of my 32nd birthday, I sit here at my laptop, a beer by my side, wondering what awaits me in the coming year as a strong winter wind blows outside. I’ve sent out another load of job applications today. At this point, with the current job market, it feels like half-heartedly throwing a fishing line into polluted waters to try and catch something fresh. I know I’m not going to yield any tasty results, but I find myself just doing it for the hell of it (perhaps to fight off the insanity that comes from sitting around doing nothing). For the first time in my life, I feel like actually getting a stable, regular job; something to give me some routine and a bit of needed structure. It’s a bleak time to have such a basic wish though. Most of my applications aren’t even viewed, no doubt filtered out by AI systems and keyword searches. And even if they are viewed, it’s a lottery to even hear back from them given the absurd competition (a recent minimum wage warehouse job I applied for has received 1265 applications). I’ve also lately heard that a lot of job adverts are ‘ghost’ adverts – just there to harvest the data of applicants and sell to advertising companies. Yes, the UK in 2024 is not a great country to live in – a failing economy, a dramatically rising cost of living, continuous shit weather, no longer in the EU, and just seemingly going further and further down the drain each year. What chance does any young person have today if not born into wealth? For me, I don’t even ask for a lot; I just want a simple and modest life, living in a one-bedroom apartment, working an introvert-friendly job while writing my books in my spare time. Such a life seems to be increasingly further away as the days of destitution and desperation go by.
Call me a pessimist, but I am of the opinion that the total collapse of our current system is not far away at all. I have watched the cracks in society widen these last years as the gap between the rich and poor grows at an unprecedented rate, leaving hard-working people unable to heat their homes or stock their fridges or fuel their cars. Worker rights are being continually eroded and, for the first time, each generation is poorer than the previous one. On top of this, jobs begin to disappear because of AI and many of the few that do appear are poorly-paid with zero-hour contracts. Meanwhile the cost of rent and groceries skyrockets while wages stagnant. Whatever is happening is certainly not sustainable, and the increasing number of homeless people on the streets only serves as a grim introduction of the post-capitalism wasteland that awaits us. And that’s not even to mention the climate crisis which sits waiting for us as well, ready to well and truly turn this society into something from a post-apocalyptic, dystopian novel.
So, at the age of 32, what is a guy like me to do but drink this beer and type these words and throw more job applications into the void while contemplating the coming downfall of civilisation? Thankfully, I am lucky enough to have a space on a medical research trial starting in two weeks’ time. I will go into a clinic for 20 days and take an experimental medicine and have tests run on me. In return, I will receive over £5000 tax-free cash. I can’t complain, I guess. Medical trials are a great gig that has funded my life the last ten years, but I am getting to the age where I recognise I can’t always rely on testing pharmaceutical drugs for money. But for now it’s enough to keep me from those cold streets and that howling wind – and even afford me a holiday away from this sinking ship of a country.
So yeah, it could be worse I remind myself. That seems to be the way to cheer myself up in the dying hours of the 31st year of my life. It’s been a pretty tough one in all honesty, with terrible periods of insomnia ravaging my mental health throughout the year. But what else is there to do but pick yourself up and go again? Tomorrow I will wake up, do my morning meditation, strap on my running shoes, do some exercise, spend another hour job searching, and then go see my lovely girlfriend for a delicious meal with wine. Though things aren’t the best overall, I will be grateful of the joys in my life, including the simple fact of actually having one. As one man said to me: “Any day above ground is a good day.” Well, thirty-two years into it, I’m still well and truly above ground, and ready to keep on running into that wind, no matter how strong it gets. Cheers to that.
And then it happened: your life became just like how you feared it would. Each day drifted by without any real passion or purpose. Words came out of your mouth but you didn’t really mean them. Your feet guided you to places you didn’t really want to go. You could no longer smile at the simple things or be silly like you once did. Your shoulders became slouched and you no longer stared up at the stars. You figured that this was just how life was for most people. But every now and again you saw the sight of someone living in the light and you wondered if there was another way. The days went by as you stared into that mirror and searched within your soul. Gradually, you began to notice a distant sound that could be heard within you. Like a lost child calling out to you, the inner voice you had neglected still echoed in the wilderness, trying to guide you back to where you belonged. Slowly you began to realise that your life was in the wrong place, and that you had been diverted off track by distractions and deception. You didn’t know exactly how to get back on track, but you did know that you had to make a drastic change. The only thing you could do now was get off the path you were on – to leap into the wilderness and start tracking down that distant voice calling to you. That is when you stopped being a follower and started being a hunter. That is when your world became alive once again.
God, I think about it all now. How wild and crazy I was in my twenties. Flying to Iceland alone with a tent, hitchhiking around the island; cycling around the Scottish highlands with a girl I was seeing; living in a Rio de Janeiro suburb with a Brazilian family; hiking ten hours a day in the Nepalese Himalayas. I remember the locals laughing at me and telling me there was no chance I was going to reach my destination in one day. I dismissed their comments and hiked like hell, climbing a 2000m mountain pass in just a few hours. I then walked along a slippery ridge with no guide or safety equipment. Why? I just had to. I just had to live as hard as possible and be on my voyage to wherever it was I was supposed to be. There was no logical debate or reason; I was just following that inner voice that was screaming for raw experience. That voice made the entirety of my twenties a restless, whirlwind adventure. And sitting here now at thirty-one, I have to say that things have finally slowed down. There aren’t many dramatic and daring trips on the horizon. I now go on holidays and weekends away with my girlfriend. My current mission is getting my driver’s licence. I spend my weekends cooking new recipes and meditating and watching football matches. Right now, I’m enjoying a decaf coffee as I write at my desk on a work night, listening to some ambient music while feeling contentment from the simple things.
At one point I thought this kind of life was unfulfilling. I imagined myself running through the wilderness like a crazed animal until my hair was grey and my face wrinkled. I imagined myself exploring distant lands, partying most nights, getting in dangerous situations. Anything sedentary or static was the enemy of the soul. But the truth is now although the thrills are not there like before, there is a great peace in myself that I was missing for a long time while in my younger years. Ultimately, it was a lust for life fuelled by my existential dissatisfaction that propelled me into that thorny wilderness. I felt that traditional life was a con and most people were wasting their lives in trivial and mundane routines. But now – after all those adventures – I feel I have discovered the universal joy that can exist in every moment of life, regardless of one’s destination, should one be perceptive enough to the reality of being alive.
For example, I am living by a river now. It is a river I have ran or walked along hundreds of times. I’m there almost every day, in fact. And when I look out at geese flying above, the sun sparkling on the water, even the rowers going up and down – I stand and marvel at the beauty of the world the same way I did when I stood in front of Mount Everest. I feel a great delight and peace in my soul with this simple sight that I see all the time. And I just want to keep on living beside it and running my route and watching those geese and experiencing the bliss I have now discovered inside of myself. I simply don’t need to jump on a one way flight to some far-off place and get drunk with strangers before climbing a mountain. That life was fun and it made me who I am today, but now I’m in a different and, ultimately, happier place.
Okay, there is the chance that maybe I’ve just become tired or boring. But isn’t that what people do when they find inner peace? The life of a monk is hardly thrilling, but for most they live without the pain and torment that the average person experiences. And I think this is what I want now: to spend my days in peace and harmony. To meditate, to run, to write poetry, to cook, to spend time with my girlfriend and let the light rush through me. I know that without having done the epic journey, I would not have arrived at this sacred space I now reside in. Through intensive internal reflection, I have found my own formula to happiness. It is a place that maybe many people never get to experience, especially around the age I am now. But now I’ve broken through to it, I’m going to make the absolute most of it. Right now I am still sipping that coffee, listening to this music, and letting the words arrive one by one onto the page. I may publish this piece of writing somewhere or I might not. It doesn’t matter. Just the act of doing it fulfils me just as much as all those adventures did. Maybe I’ll be back on the road someday after another existential crisis, but for now I’m enjoying this oasis I have cultivated for myself. Tomorrow I’ll return to that river and watch the sunlight on the water; I’ll kiss my girlfriend on the cheek and hold her tight; I’ll cook a new meal and appreciate the flavour of the recipe. This is my life now. Yes, at the age of thirty-one, my adventure has finally slowed, but how my happiness has blossomed.
And it’s the reason you avoid being alone with your own thoughts. It’s the reason you need the noise, the bright lights, the drinks, the television shows. It’s the reason you feel that sickness inside is never going to go away, why you get annoyed over trivial things, and why you haven’t smiled at a simple sight in so long now. Can you not see how you’ve got yourself all tangled up in a lifestyle that is constricting your happiness? Take a moment to pause and reflect. Find a quiet spot somewhere. Stare at the clouds in the sky, at the willows in the pond. Be like that water surface; not bubbling up violently with thoughts – but sitting still and gentle. Let the noise die down; let the ripples of your mind settle. Somewhere along the way you’ve got yourself mixed up, but that’s okay – in this society it’s easy for it to happen. Distractions and deception are everywhere, but nature will not confuse or lie to you. It will tell you the innate truth that has been drowned out. The truth that you belong. The truth that you are already enough. The truth that you are living in harmony with the universe and that just being alive is a glorious thing. Each moment peace of the soul is possible and you can be nurtured back to some kind of sanity. Do not rush off to medicate yourself or chase some other ‘thing’ that promises happiness. Start by unplugging and letting go. Embrace simplicity and get into tune with your surrounding natural universe. Look at the trees growing tall by just being and realise you belong to the same energy system. Find the soil from which you can grow; the space from which you can breathe. No matter how broken you feel, this world will make you blossom again.
To write these things I must certainly be a fool. To invest so much of myself into this manic muse of mine. And not just time and effort; I’m talking about scraping the very bottom of my soul, scooping out the contents and placing them onto a page no matter how drained it leaves me. I think of all the other things I could have been doing whilst I’ve been committed to this strange and solitary endeavour. Perhaps I could have been developing some sort of career, building wealth, learning to fix cars, speak another language, or some other thing which I’m pretty sure every other person on this street would see as favourable to torturing oneself to write a pretty sentence. Are these sentences even pretty? Is this collection of words worth everything I have put myself through? I guess when I think about it, through the last ten years, it seemed like I didn’t even have a choice. I was simply possessed, or insane, or just blindly committed to a fool’s errand. I still remember being in a hostel bar in Guatemala with a blonde German girl I had been travelling with. She listened to me describe my need to write – a need which caused me to forsake everything else in the pursuit of becoming a great writer. She sat and stared at me with concerned eyes. I could tell I was a creature that she hadn’t laid eyes on before. Even hailing from Berlin – where I knew there was a wealth of starving artist types roaming the bohemian streets – I was still a foreign thing. She just looked at me and, after a moment of silence, said: “don’t you realise how crazy that actually is? That you would fuck yourself up just in order to write a good sentence?”
At the time I took it as a compliment; her reaction simply reaffirmed my belief that I was someone going to the ultimate effort of becoming what he desired deepest. It didn’t matter if I went crazy, or destitute, or scared away everyone close to me – all that mattered was getting that sentence down in a way that would show me I was a true writer, just like my literary idols – the other madmen: Thompson, Bukowski, Miller, London, Kerouac, Celine et al… all those fellow fools who bled themselves dry in order just to be great practitioners of the craft. None of their lives were pleasant, but they were ferociously alive and could put down immortal words that could put fire in a person’s heart. In my young and idealistic mind, that was the greatest achievement of a man: To create art. To stir souls. To understand the human condition and tap into a sacred place that was out of bounds to those who stayed on the safe path of life. I imagined society as a herd of animals; the majority of the people stayed huddled in the herd for safety and belonging. They had those things, but they were also restricted, held in place by others, and could only see an obscured view of their surroundings. The animals who drifted away from the herd, sure, they were more exposed and vulnerable to the beasts of loneliness and madness; but they also could move freely and see the world with greater vision and clarity. They had a wide screen view of the herd and their place in the environment that was simply unavailable to those within it. I explained this metaphor to her but she just continued to look at me like I was some sort of ranting lunatic.
I quite liked that young German girl. Despite her concerns, we even got close to romance, sharing beds and kissing when drunk. But her block up against me was too strong and we eventually parted ways. I was an unsettling creature and I couldn’t blame her for wanting to see the back of me. She was yet another one scared off by my madness, only to be recounted here in some random story I’m strumming out at 10.42am on a September morning over four years later. I wonder if she ever anticipated that she’d feature in my writings? I guess she wouldn’t have cared.
Anyway, after all this time, I’m perhaps not totally as idealistic as I was then when I was scaring off pretty young German girls. I’ve since self-published four books, selling somewhere around 2000 copies, making almost no money when I take into account the few adverts I’ve done on social media here and there. All of this effort and sacrifice for this. Naturally, you wonder if it’s all worth it. You only seem to get poorer and crazier as the years go on as a writer. Sure, there is the odd success story, but the 20th century is long behind us, and the writers who make any form of living as writers seem to be 1 in 47,897 or something like that. Naturally, you think about packing it all in and becoming a respectable human-being. Maybe you can still write the odd poem here and there, but it just doesn’t seem to make any sense to devote so much of yourself into something that takes you nowhere, other than the realm of your own satisfactory delusion that you’re a great and noble writer – an undiscovered genius strumming his keyboard in his garden at 10.47am on a September morning, as the rest of the world toils in their jobs and responsibilities.
I think again of utilising this energy for something else. Age 31, I still haven’t learned to drive, and I’ve recently committed myself to trying to obtain my licence again. I could be spending this time learning the theory like I promised myself I’d do this morning. I could also be researching jobs which I also promised myself I’d do seeing as I’m currently getting by on a zero-hour contract job with inconsistent work. But yet, here I am again: all these years on, still totally committed to the same manic muse that has consumed me now throughout the whole part of early adulthood. I can just about imagine that same German girl sitting opposite me now, still with those confused and concerned eyes, wondering why I am still fucking myself up just to write this nonsense that probably only a handful of people will read and forget about. It reminds me of a story I recently read online about a man who took ten years writing his novel and two years promoting it, only to receive no sales. When his family found out, they disowned him. He ended up depressed, moved to another city, and then started work on his second novel…
I guess it comes back to it: a person’s own purpose. We frame human purpose in a positive light; that generally one is meant to find what it is that they’re good at, serves others, and makes them a fulfilled human-being. But we never stop to consider that someone’s purpose can also drive them to the edge – to become fucked up, tortured, isolated, misunderstood, destitute, deserted, and even dead. I think again of Kafka and Van Gogh and Plath and all the others who only ended in darkness while pursuing their innate calling. Once again at the crossroads, I consider packing this laptop away and learning to drive. I consider searching for that job, tidying my room, ironing myself out, and becoming a respectable member of the human race. I hear the German girl urging me on. “Finally stop this madness. You have four books now. You’ve given it a go. You’ve done more than most people and it’s time to give yourself a break. Put down the pen and get yourself in order.”
But alas, the words just keep on coming, and if you’re still here listening to this self-indulgent, introspective, stream-of-the-consciousness crap, then well, I guess maybe you share a similar type of madness. There are so many other productive things one could be doing, but then again, what is the point. What is the point as I now watch two butterflies dance with each other in the morning sun; as I watch a ginger cat strutting elegantly down the path; as I watch a squirrel run along the fence and listen to the birds singing somewhere in the nearby trees. I guess nature doesn’t concern itself with what it ‘should’ do rather than what it is doing. And that in doing so, it is far more graceful than us with our clumsy and clunky lives. Perhaps I was simply born to the wrong species. Humanity was never the intended destination of a soul like mine. I was better off being a cat, or a squirrel, or a butterfly fluttering in the early morning sun. I know the second I stop this story and start studying my driving theory and searching for jobs, I’ll be longer in tune with the great harmony of nature. But this seems to be the requirement for surviving in society and stopping the pretty girls from thinking you’re crazy and wanting to sleep with you. That is an awfully nice thing, I must confess, so now I consider packing it away again. And it seems to me that if I do that, I’ll no longer be considered a fool by others, but I’ll know inside that I am a fool. To neglect this holy feeling I must certainly be mad, and now it’s time to choose: to be mad by my own reckoning, or by theirs. There is no easy way and I guess maybe I’m just too far gone as I decide I’ll be adding this piece of writing to my fifth book: Daft Daydreamer Delusions. I’m choosing to be mad in their eyes again. This one is for you, pretty German girl. I hope your life of sanity and sensibility is as fulfilling as this is. If you read this, get back to me and we can have a chat again. If you’re not too scared, that is.
I couldn’t concentrate on the normal things in life. It was hard – all too much harder than it was supposed to be. To be concerned with a career, to build up portfolios, to accumulate material wealth and neglect the present to focus on the future. To be frank, none of it interested me and I couldn’t force myself to do the things that everyone around me seemed to centre their life on. I thought there were only two possibilities: that I was missing something, or they were missing something. When you’re in the vast minority of any behaviour, it’s easy to categorise yourself as the wrong or weird one. But the more I observed the others doing the things they believed they were supposed to do, the more I was quite sure that many were on the wrong road, chasing happiness down a dead-end street. There were many moments where I experienced a profound bliss without having much at all. Just to sit and meditate, to go on walks in the woods, to write some words down and live in tune with my inner nature. This, I felt, was the true source to my happiness; and I also felt, although each person’s ‘things’ may have been different, essentially this was the way to so many people’s happiness – living in tune with their true nature. Meanwhile I saw many successful people on the ‘correct’ path – people with high-paying jobs, nice cars, big houses, large social groups, flash watches, and designer clothes – completely screwed up by the age of thirty. Drug addicts, prostitute addicts, gambling addicts, ego maniacs. Poverty obviously had its known downfalls, but it was clear that being too ingrained in the system could be immensely damaging to the individual too. Quite clearly, there was a price tag for being too involved in a game that lacked any soul or substance. Yet, this was what so many strived for; to achieve what we were socially conditioned as ‘the good life’. Just living in opposition to that, I knew I was experiencing the happiness that so many of those people were searching for. It was a striking realisation; perhaps one that had come at too young of an age. These sorts of realisations about life usually came at a later point in one’s life – maybe after a divorce or midlife crisis. Well, perhaps some others would eventually share my way of thinking too, but for now, I decided I’d keep living the same way I was. And also to keep writing down a few words here and there. Mostly because I enjoyed doing it, but maybe to see if anyone else felt the same way too.
Be kind to yourself. I know it’s easy to do the opposite; to constantly compare yourself to others, to think you’re not good enough, and wallow in your own issues. But one day you’re going to see that you’ve been fighting your fight as best you could; and, in the end, a lot of things you worried about didn’t matter anyway. You can’t control many things in this life, but you can control your attitude towards yourself. So why not love yourself unconditionally? Take a bit longer in the shower when you need to. Use as much gels and creams as you like. Savour the taste of a well-made coffee. Allow yourself to smile at the passing dogs, at the lovers walking hand in hand, at the rays of sun bursting through the clouds. Drink in the goodness of the world that is always there, if only you keep your eyes open to that instead of letting a fog of thought make you blind to your surroundings. You’re doing as good as you can, and the harder you are on yourself, the more you forget that just being alive itself is a complete wonder and marvel. And you are those things too. Just look in the mirror and gaze into the depth of your complicated eyes. Tell me there isn’t a magic there – billions of years of universal evolution manifested in a beautiful human-being. Isn’t it about time you saw that? Isn’t it about time you allowed yourself to be happy with the person you are?
It was the start of October and I was sitting in the garden on a sunny morning, trying to soak in some of that last warmth before the winter came. The dying leaves fell around me and I watched one float from side to side, twirling down before finally landing on the grass beneath my feet. I looked at it for a second, admiring its golden flames. Then I saw a wasp. It was crawling beside the leaf and eventually crawled on top of it. I was expecting it to get up and fly away, but it just stayed there on the dying leaf for a while, before eventually carrying on stumbling through the grass. It quickly became obvious to me that the wasp was dying too. Summer was over, and this lawn was a battlefield with the last remaining survivors. I then turned to look at the table beside me. I had my laptop with me and I could see my reflection on the screen. Thirty-years-old, I could see myself ageing rapidly before my eyes. The forehead lines were more prominent than ever, and my eyes looked tired and defeated. This is the way of the seasons, I thought to myself. Death and decay were inevitable and I looked back at the wasp and felt a comradeship with the dying creature. Our fate was the same. We were all staggering through life, falling to the floor, being made weaker and weaker before finally finding a suitable place to die.
“Didn’t you dream of things once? Something more than what your life has become? Didn’t you dream that every day would be an adventure, that your life would have stories to tell, and that your eyes would show the light of life? Have you slipped into a slumber of the self? Have you shied away from the light outside your cave? There is more to this existence than sinking into a lifestyle which does not serve the essence of your soul. And every person can keep that magic something still growing inside them, despite their perceived circumstances. Life’s tender touch waits for you and you can choose to embrace it; to trust in yourself and find the thing that can shake your world alive. Put on those boots and tread the path you have feared to take. Put your pen to life’s paper and create something that has never been created before. Stand up onto your stage and find that song that has stayed silent for too long. This is it. It’s always here and always will be. Life will not turn its back on you even if you’ve turned your back on it. The beauty of being waits with welcome arms to carry you home to the person you have always desired to be.”
I put the book in the backpack even though I know I’m not going to read it. I’m just going to end up scrolling on my phone again, stuffing my brain full of useless crap. I’m becoming everything I ever hated. I don’t see the sunshine on the water because my mind is elsewhere. I don’t feel the cosmos flowing through my veins because I’ve numbed myself with alcohol and hangovers. I know the path to peace and happiness; I’ve followed it before. Yet I choose to walk away from the light and become a troubled being like the others. Maybe I’m choosing to do this for a reason. Maybe the pain I’m causing myself will turn to blazing light in a heavenly future. I don’t know to be honest. I don’t know why I do the things I do. I don’t know why I put the book in the backpack even though I know I’m not going to read it. I don’t know why I have those extra drinks at the end of a night out. I don’t know why I’m opening up my phone again, looking at things I don’t even care about. Oh, how the birds sing around me to remind me of what it is to be alive. Oh, how the light tempts me to throw the phone into the river, to detach from this matrix and plug into reality. I pull the book from the backpack. The pages flicker through my hand. I begin reading. I begin again.
~ A Voice From The Wild ~ 