Life’s a funny thing

and it's only yours to live

This morning, I dropped my son off at nursery. He kicked up a fuss as we walked in, and, in all honesty, I was quite quick to try and get him to calm down so that I could leave. It’s not horrible, every parent needs to exert some sort of dismissive control: you can’t always drop to your knees and wrap them in your arms at the sight of a tear. But as I left, I looked up at the window. There he was, waving, smiling, and mouthing “I love you” as he blew me kisses.

“What a life”, I thought.

What a funny little life.

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I’m crying while writing this. I’m not sad; in fact, I’ve never been happier. I always hear people say how much they hate their lives. It’s not good enough for this reason, or life would be better if they had this instead, whatever this might be. And, don’t get me wrong, I used to be one of them. I hated my life. I hated waking up and not knowing where I would be in one year. Three years. Ten years. And all the while, I’m just expected to get on with things? How can I “get on with things” when I don’t know where I’m going? You don’t tell the lost driver to keep going: you tell them to get out their map and recalibrate. I thought it was ludicrous, and, in some regards, I guess it is. But I realised something in my mid-twenties. Something that had been under my nose this whole time.

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Perception is one of my favourite words. It gets used a lot. Many of you reading this, I’m sure, will have, at some point, been told that you just need to “look at it from a different angle.” I’m not gonna regurgitate that back at you, as it’s near impossible to do when someone else is telling you to do it. I don’t understand you, and you don’t understand me. And yet, I feel there’s something between us which goes beyond that. So, before you click that little X button and close this, give me a few more seconds.

I had to do this, but I couldn’t do it under the instruction of someone else. I had to choose, on my own, to look at life differently. I had to choose to look at the stranger walking down the street and realise how beautiful it is that they’re there. I had to choose to listen to the waves and acknowledge that there’s more to this existence than I’ll ever grasp. I had to choose to look at myself and see someone, something, that only I knew, and that only I would get to experience. I had to choose to love being here. I had to choose to love the beauty of it all. We live in a world where the wind can carry the songs of birds, and where each living thing you see is merely a different form of yourself. Existence is necessary within us all, but your existence is only yours to know. How crazy is that? How crazy is it that, no matter what, we will always have that in common? I’ve never met any of you who are currently reading this, and yet, we have common ground? Something that means, no matter where we are, we’ll always be together? Don’t try to tell me that’s not incredible. It’s hard-wired into us now to see life and a “lived life” as two separate things: the first is given, the second is earned. One is your ticket, the other is the fee. But it doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t need to chase others. You don’t need to set goals that involve years of tireless work, just so, come the end, you can say “I worked hard to live this life.” It’s there to be lived already. It’s there to be lived now.

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It’s not easy, and reading a silly wee post on Substack isn’t gonna fix whatever issues you’re dealing with, but there’s more to this life than you know. Try not to get caught up in the crowds, in the social-status contest, in the “they have this, and I don’t” conversations. Take your earphones out. Put the phone down. Find a quiet path, and experience it all.

Try to live for yourself.

Live the life that only you can live.

It’s a beautiful life.

It’s a funny little life.

With love, as always

Aaron.

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