Early hours.

I’m feeling so inspired tonight. Which is a narcissistic, egomaniacal, self-centred, pseudo-intellectual bunch of crap. Not if you’re a real artist, like a big painter or musician or actor or something. If you’re someone like me, I mean. “Oh dear me, blimey, I’m so entirely encompassed by inspiration tonight, it’s utterly impossible to ignore, it’s seeping through my pores and filling the atmosphere!”.  What a moron.

Regardless. I’m inspired tonight. Trouble is, except the aforementioned, that I don’t know what the hell it is exactly I’m inspired about, or what the hell it is I’m inspired to bloody do. So I pace back and forth, unable to stop, unable to channel this energy, wasting time, feeling uneasy like I want to pee and there’s no toilet in sight. I don’t feel like talking to anyone, because I’m not in any position to put it into words, let alone attempt to explain what my problem is. I don’t feel like reading or baking or trying on 100 different outfits, or sleeping or running, because I deem all those activities unworthy of channelling my energy into. 

Life lessons.

I’m beginning to realise something. Something that I knew of in theory, and that I’m now experiencing first hand. I’m realising that, except from good and bad people, there are also amoral people. People who don’t care about something being right or wrong, who don’t see fair and unfair, cruelty or kindness. They only see what’s profitable, what’s the best investment, which move will lead them to the desirable result. They cannot be reasoned with. They cannot be touched or moved or approached. They cannot be fought. They are not inherently good or evil, they simply have no moral compass. They can be kind and cruel in equal measure, they can worship you or crush you down in equal measure not because they feel anything, not driven out of spite or malice or hatred or gentleness or love, but because doing so is just good business. They believe idealism is a vague romantic philosophical concept, not something you can live your life by. They only understand the language of growth, and they will kiss and kill without remorse to achieve it. They will not look back with fear or nostalgia. They will keep going until their heart, a solely functional body part, stops beating.

It’s a very strange thing to interact with them. In my case it’s infuriating, making my insides burn and generates in me a desire to crush them all and fix the injustices they caused. But that’s such a useless way to go about it, trying to fight someone who doesn’t value morals by using your own sense of morality. There’s no point screaming at them “This isn’t fair!” when they wouldn’t even react if you screamed “This is so kind of you!” or if you screamed full stop, for that matter. But there are so many of them out there. So many who don’t, and will never, realise what a despicable way this is to spend your days.

Tuesday

(9.06 am)

Chip: Hey! Let’s go to France for the long weekend!

[good morning to you too]

(11.47 am)

The Meteor: Hey! I’ve been lying on a beach for 10 days and I’ve got a pure choco tan.

[and I’m here working 12-hour days for the next campaign. I’ll kill him.]

(12.10 pm)

Anna Chronismus: Hey! I’m flying to London for the weekend. Let’s go see Benedict Cumberbatch play Hamlet on Saturday and yarn shopping on Sunday!

[fair enough, this was pre-arranged. Yarn shopping was added as a bonus.]

(04.38 pm)

Chip: Hey! I booked the tickets for France! You want to find a hotel? I’ll drive us from London to Lille.

[he’s organized and determined, let’s give him that]

(07:17 pm)

Sir P: Hey! Let’s throw Seirios a party for his 30^th. I’ll come to London from Athens for 8 hours on the day. Also, remember that book you wanted? I’ll deliver it to you personally on some other random date because Athens-London is like King’s Cross-Bank in my mind.

[this one is a whole chapter all on his own. I can’t even.]

(07.45 pm)

Seirios’ girlfriend: Hey! Birthday party for Seirios sounds like a great idea! I’m making him run a marathon so I need something good!

[yay!]

(08.21 pm)

Anna Banana: Hey! I quit my job. I’m celebrating with wine and Zombieland. Can you help forward my CV?

[what? Sure, yes, are you OK?]

(08.32 pm)

Mum: Hey! I’m making fig jam!

Dad: Hey! I’m monitoring the tortoise’s eggs – when they hatch, I’ll film it!

[wonderful. Save me some jam, I’ll pass on the eggs.]

My biggest achievement to date: I’ve somehow managed to surround myself with all those adorable lunatics. 

Renovation

Before you go to sleep, what’s your last thought? Until October, mine was something along the lines of “you’re doing it wrong”. It’s not that I was unhappy, exactly. It’s that at some point I became very acutely aware that I had been living so deep in my comfort zone, that I stopped thinking about being a bit more alive. That realisation was terrifying. On my 29th birthday, I promised myself that 30 would find me in a different house, a different city, a different job. That shouldn’t be a big deal. Thousands of people do the same on a daily basis. But I’m a creature of habit as well as a control freak, so it was a bit more involved in my case I guess. I became extremely fixated on my goal.

So by October last year, admittedly a few months past the deadline I’d set myself, from a tiny town where nothing ever happens, I moved to London. From a four-bedroom house and four roommates, I found myself in a shoebox-size studio living on my own. And from a small office with a staff of seven, to a massive advertising agency. 

I admit I was looking forward to all of this with a childish enthusiasm. What’s more incredible though, is that I’m still smirking like an idiot most days. I feel freer than ever and that makes me happy. Putting on my headphones to get in the tube makes me happy. Waiting 15 minutes to be served at the pub because it’s so full of people we could play Tetris using our bodies makes me happy. Random chats with random people who have all kinds of random stuff in their head make me happy. Ramen at 3.00 am because that’s what I feel like makes me happy. Going through King’s Cross at midnight thinking “Rather than going home, I might as well go to Paris for the weekend” makes me happy. The amazing view of the London skyline from my window makes me happy. Spending a considerable amount of money in gigs and theatre tickets makes me happy. Working in a loud place with a bunch of creative nutjobs whose sanity is questionable at best makes me happy. Walking to the cinema and back makes me happy. I know, I know. Why the cinema? Well I don’t bloody know. I’ve just never been able to walk from my house to a cinema, in any of the countries I’ve ever lived in. It’s a big deal. Shut up.

But this rant isn’t about what I did. It’s not even a radical decision that I made, along the lines of shaving my head, embracing Mathematics and climbing Mount Everest. But that’s not the point. The job isn't perfect, and neither is my shoebox, and neither is London. Ok, well, London is pretty damn near perfect. But that’s not the point, either. There will never be a perfect job, house or city. What there will be is tons of regret for not doing stuff I didn't do when I should have done them. I’m working towards fixing that, though.

Life is good, you guys. It’s also too small to be wasted. I’ve been a big waster. But no more. Now I go to bed thinking “yay!”. And I’m a reserved, borderline unsocial person who thinks everyone is a bastard until proven otherwise, and I still don’t know exactly what I want to do with my life. Imagine what you can do.