5th November 2014

I am still sad.   It is tiring. 

Some days you just don’t know what you’re doing with your life.  There is a fear it may be being wasted.  That you are surely not fulfilling some abstract potential.  Maybe you’re not where you should be because of some character flaw.  You are a bad person.  This shadowy concern is of course nonsense as it is completely paradoxical.  You cannot ‘fail to reach personal potential because of personal flaws’, because your personal potential is precisely limited by your flaws.  You have in fact already fulfilled your potential, completely.  Well done.  Now go back to bed and let the mould gather in unwashed mugs.  You’re welcome.

…

…

That was comforting for about 20 seconds, but once your back in bed a whole load of other questions tumble.  Chiefly, if you have indeed fulfilled your potential, if this really is the highest you can achieve, why did you think you were capable of more?  And is it so bad?  Let’s play with this.

Why did you think you were capable of more?  A handful of reasons.  You know what success looks like.  You see it all the time, both in fantasy and reality.  It doesn’t look that different to you.  You also tick a lot, maybe all of the boxes in privilege top trumps – gender, race, sexuality, class, education – so either you’re really bad at playing your hand, or there are other more invisible categories on the trump cards.

Is it so bad?  Well you’ve got your health (mostly).  You live better than most of the kings of history every time you have a hot shower.  You make your own living which is an achievement.  And there are countless people going through much more stressful situations.  Although, the misery of others is scarcely a source of comfort – “you should be happy, because somewhere, a stranger is being assaulted” don’t fly.

Yesterday you spoke to a neighbour, a mum whose 16 year old daughter had just had just had a baby.  The daughter had post natal depression and kept running away from home.  The mum was managing her social worker’s confusing bureaucracy, worrying about when to get police involved whilst also looking after the rest of her kids.  You have less to worry about than her.

Apart from the addition of a social worker and financial hardship, this situation is not dissimilar to that of a celebrity you once met.  Success as fame does not protect against all types of human difficulty.  Is it true success?  Ha.  Maybe you do not know after all what success looks like.  Maybe more of it is fantasy than you think.  Trinkets are scant insulation if you havn’t got to grips with the important stuff, whatever that is.  Whilst this may be enlightening in some ways, you still are not really closer to knowing what you’re doing with your life.  You do at least know a little more of what you don’t know.  Sweet.