FLYING SOLO

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Travelling alone is something everyone is encouraged to do – at least once in our lives. We are constantly bombarded by motivational Pinterest quotes or Tumblr posts to “wake up in cities you don’t know and have conversations in languages you cannot entirely understand” but travelling alone is fraught with challenges, some that I feel we are reluctant to address on account of us being concerned about giving the impression that our solitary adventures were all completely substantial and enriching. Not to mention we’re so eager to seize these formative, international experiences for all they’re worth that we’re filled with a striking anxiety that the whole time we’ve been wasting our time at the wrong places, doing the wrong things, with no one.
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I like understanding things. And understanding is more challenging in new environments. The difficulty is only highlighted when one travels alone because we are forced to work things out on our own. Basic things, that are usually automatic back at home, like knowing what food you’ve ordered or getting around on public transport, suddenly become complicated and fraught with error.  I had a brief heart attack when 20min after leaving a bar I realised I had walked out and not paid for any of my drinks, and almost crawled up into a ball when I ordered food from the deli and had no idea when or where I was supposed to pay for it.
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Loneliness is also more pervasive as connectivity to your usual circles is dependent on wifi availability, and any stranger who talks to you is viewed cautiously, either out for something, or keen to prattle endlessly at you about some vague understanding they have of your “foreign” culture. I’m often keen to call up a friend to come meet me at a place where a great band is playing or invite my sisters out to try this amazing French toast I discovered, but they are all sadly unavailable to traverse the globe at my instant behest to check out a cool gig or try a well-seasoned breakfast.
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(Please don’t get the impression I’m lamenting my privilege of having the time and financial freedom to take an indulgent vacation. I’m merely examining what it is to do it alone and perhaps realign expectation with – at least, my – reality.)
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My partner and I often discuss the validity of experiences and memories that aren’t shared with anyone else, or people we will probably never see again. Sometimes tiny moments dissolve and are quickly buried in the trifling detritus of everyday life. This makes me worried that the memories are lost forever; evaporated in the ether, transparent and essentially worthless. But my boyfriend insists they are somehow silently etched into your identity, informing your character and being every bit as essential to enriching your future self as the fondness of an unforgettable memory.
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Almost ten years ago, in a hostel in Hiroshima, my friends and I traded some cheap vodka for internet usage from a young, French backpacker. Next month, one of my friends is marrying that backpacker.
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So sometimes those moments we thought were meaningless, turn out to be the ones to shape our lives forever.

DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK

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Every where I look, I see people getting married and having babies. It seems peculiar because I never recalled seeing them in such overwhelming quantities before, but all of a sudden there they are, at my local café, on my Facebook feed, at the bookshop, cropping up in chats, texts and emails from friends and family. This evidence before my very eyes seems to run in direct contrast to the statistical reality that fewer and fewer people are getting married and choosing to have children, but whatever. I’m seeing it. Therefore it’s there.
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We help make sense of the world by looking around us. With everything we take in with our senses, we piece together, bit by bit, how things are, what they mean, and why they are that way. Often we place such emphasis on this sensory information that we fail to acknowledge the individual, psychological filters this information passes through in order to reach our smart, little brain boxes. The reality of this situation is that there isn’t an irregularly massive number of people getting married and having babies, rather I’ve been thinking more about marriage and babies (due to societal pressure, a close friend’s upcoming wedding, seeing a photo of Megan Fox’s unusually attractive offspring, etc) and therefore, all evidence of marriage and babies has become disproportionally emphasised by nothing more than my mind’s inclination to see it. There are plenty of people I know, see, FB stalk, who aren’t getting married and producing small people, but these guys don’t work with my current theory that “EVERYONE IS GETTING MARRIED AND HAVING BABIES”, so I disregard them, and instead focus on those who make me feel like I’m RIGHT.
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“Cognitive scientists have studied our natural tendency to look only for corroboration; they call this vulnerability to the corroboration error the confirmation bias”. And we humans are complete suckers for it. We see what we want to see, when we want to see it, and are reluctant to change our minds about it. Changing our minds about beliefs we hold to be true takes a lot more effort and consideration than continuing to reinforce any pre-existing beliefs. We’re keen to understand new things with as little energy expended as possible. In which case, we give things explanations and/or narratives to help store new information in an accessible location of our mental Kennards, and explanations that further reinforce existing beliefs are the easiest and most convenient method of storage! Only, when we’re a long way off being right, it takes a helluva lot for us  to see the other side (imagine how sensible it seemed to once believe the earth was flat!)
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Anais Nin said “We don’t see things are they are, we see them as we are” and you should try and remember that when you’re feeling chubby and ugly and every person you (choose to) see looks like Kate Moss, or when you’re feeling like a professional failure and everyone you (selectively) hear about is getting record deals and Harvard scholarships. If you’re anything like me, your mind is your personal saboteur, fashioning the world around you to make your mistakes and shortcomings even more graphic and pitiful. But remember, even though it often feels like you’re just taking the world in as a cool and impartial observer, we forget about those filters that shape and distort, emphasise and neglect, and churn out weddings and babies on every Insta post and street corner.

(Quote taken from Nicolas Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan. Image via Pinterest)

I’M LEAVING SEXY THERE (YEA-UH)

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I’ve always had a problem with being sexy. I remember learning the word as a young girl, and, understanding the notion as generally as “ladies who stick their boobs out, wear heels and tight dresses and boys like them”, I was eager to jump into my mother’s stilettos and try on her bra, stuffing it with mandarins to give it some purpose.
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As far as I could recall, “sexy” was something embodied by many public representations of women – on magazines, in music videos, on tv and in movies. It seemed to me as if it were something natural for a woman to be. Something desirable, essential and expected. But once I was old enough to truly understand the definition of the word (and consequentially old enough to possibly be defined by it) I was disturbed at how disconnected I felt from it. Like many teens and young adults, my attempts to embody what I assumed to be an intrinsic feminine trait, felt clumsy, awkward and inauthentic.
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This bothered me, as I thought it meant I was flawed in some way. That I was less than what a real woman was supposed to be. If sexy was about the tight skirts, push up bras and black stillelos – well, I had those! And if it was supposed to be about body confidence and being comfortable in your own skin, then you’re asking a helluva lot from those of us whose feelings of personal, feminine inadequacy are constantly reinforced with each glimpse of unattainable, manipulated, and unrealistic beauty standards.
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As much as I wanted to shun this need to be sexy, and rebel against the stifling and self-serving expectations of the male gaze, I instead made a decision that would make Germaine Greer’s self-respecting, feminist stomach violently turn. I started pole dancing.
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Under the guise of “getting fit and having fun” I was desperately hoping to unlock the secret to my apparent lack of sexiness. But in between every awkward body roll, clumsy hip thrust and ugly stiletto stumble, I slowly began to understand that when it came to being sexy, none of us there had a fucking clue. We’d shake our hips and flick our hair and burst out laughing because “being sexy” was about as natural to us as it would be for a Labrador to be a concert cellist. Only, Labradors aren’t constantly stifled by society’s pressure to be concert cellists. And they don’t feel inadequate and less dog-ish because they’re actually pretty shit at cello.
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Sexy is tough, and no one likes to admit that. Because admitting that is not sexy. Sexy should be “natural” and “visceral” and “effortless”. Only, for most of us, it’s not. And why should it be? It’s not like breathing. We won’t die from not “being sexy” (except Kate Upton. She’d probably die.) People will want to have sex with each other regardless of whether “sexy” is even a thing, and that’s the exact reason WHY it’s even a thing so sexy pretty much exists in spite of our ability to be it or not!
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So you’re not bringing sexy back – so what? You aren’t any less because of it. We should separate ourselves from the assumption that it’s an intrinsic and essential element of femininity, and we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be defined by it. You are who you are, sexy or not, and if you’re not and you wanna be, go learn. If it makes you feel good, then great. But, butts aside, know that in spite of all the traditional notions of candlelit bedrooms and black lace lingerie, sexy can be whatever you want it to be. And to be totally honest, a packet of Burger Rings and the third series of Blackadder is looking pretty sexy right about now…

YOU’RE THE CHOICE (TRY AND UNDERSTAND IT)

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Have you ever felt completely trapped inside your skin. Like there is this intrinsic, inescapable and essential “you” that you’re stuck dealing with until your dead? I’ve always found this a rather frightening concept. We’re born, we grow up and bit by bit we reveal this “us-ness”, carved into us like a chunk of marble being sculpted, according to our genetic make up (nature) and our upbringing and environment (nurture), into what is essentially a person we, as individuals, have had very little control over. It can be an easy and understandable explanation for our characters; if it’s something good (something that we like about ourselves), it feels comforting to know that it is a genuine and accurate aspect of who we are. If it’s something crappy (that we don’t like about ourselves), it can be dismissively attributed to outside factors.
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I was always happy to explain away my character in this fashion. “Oh, I behave this way because I was “born this way” or I at least had a predilection to be this way and eventually just ended up here.” It’s all well and good until you find yourself dealing with the likes of stress, anxiety and depression, and once these conditions dig in and take hold (as they unfortunately so often do) you reach the point where you begin to think “Oh well, I guess this is just who I am. A horribly stressed/anxious/depressed mess. Looks like I’m stuck like this forever.”
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It’s a sad and frighteningly common feeling, that notion of “doing life” with an inescapable cell mate who is essentially you, and so it often takes a great deal of courage and strength to break out of that mentality and recognise that you, right here, right now, can be responsible for shaping who you are/will be – and unlike anything that happened to you as a child, or that you got lumped with from your biological parents, you finally have some say in it. And it all starts with choice.
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Every day, in everything we do, we’re making choices. Big ones, small ones, ones that we’re making for the first time, and ones that we made for the first time a long time ago, and now we make without even thinking. These constant, and often subconscious choices we make according to reason and deliberation or feeling and instinct slowly but surely make their imprint upon us until “we form ourselves to respond predictably, build up a class of responses, an ever widening array of things and states we approach or avoid.”
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Have you ever dropped something on the floor that’s kinda made a mess and found yourself entertaining two thoughts – “I dropped that. I should really clean that up” and “No one has seen me drop that, so it could’ve been anyone. I’ll leave it and someone else will clean it up.” I know, not exactly the moral conundrum that makes a riveting GoT episode, but something significant nonetheless. Because it is in these seemingly innocuous decision-making moments that we set precedents for our future choices and then in turn, our future character.
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Many of histories great thinkers, including Aristotle and Sir Thomas Aquinas “place these depositions at the heart of morality, vice and virtue” and so essentially “at the heart of character”. Instead of deeming us trapped for a lifetime with an immovable identity, they instead assure us that “character is not just innate disposition but also an accretion of choices, a mixing of impulse and reason played out over time until it hardens into all how we are, and how we got there.” What they want to tell us is, “Be careful: as we begin, so we will become.”
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It can be a somewhat difficult notion to face, as it lumps us with the very unromantic and effortful task of responsibility, but it also liberates us by offering us the ability to change. And, although change is often difficult, the idea that it is at least possible can help us manage and alter those less-than-pleasant parts of ourselves that we once may have considered to be set in stone. But from little things, big things grow, and so it is with making changes in ourselves. Large and life changing choices come around only every so often (unless you’re Buffy or Jack Bauer) but we make small choices every day. And entertaining the consideration of these choices, realising that they are indeed choices we can make, can start us down the road of who we want to be. But it takes time and repeated effort. Just like you’re not going to look like Miranda Kerr after eating a few quinoa salads and having one session of reformer pilates, you’re not going to change yourself by choosing to pick up that mess “that one time” – you’ve gotta commit, and pick up that mess every damn time.
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“A deed, once done, creates tendency for its repetition and reactivation of the tendency gives it greater force. Eventually, these tendencies can harden into all we’ve got and become our character.”
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(All quotes taken from Vincent Deary’s HOW WE ARE. If you’re into thinking about all this stuff, go read it. It’s awesome.)

TIME TO BE TERRIBLE

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Like lots of people I know, I loathe the feeling of being terrible at something. It swarms me with a glittering array of feelings ranging from inferiority &  jealousy to stupidity and embarrassment and makes me less than inclined to face up to my ineptitude a second time around. We grown ups have all got so many talents and skills – many that have been developed and honed over years and years – that somewhere along the way we have forgotten what it’s like to start again from the very beginning.
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It’s a daunting task – especially in this challenging and competitive world where our levels of expertise and aptitude are directly responsible for gaining us employment, bringing us praise and acknowledgement and setting us apart from the legions of “basics” who try but cant do what we can do  nearly as well as us. We like to feel good at things – it’s flattering to our egos and it helps offer us a sense of identity and belonging to an exclusive community that is defined by a shared and relatable skill set (like musicians, accountants, pole dancers, etc). We like to be seen in the light of things that we’re good at as it helps us feel validated – our talents and skills, however right or wrong it may be, make us feel worthy – and there’s no greater proof of that than that warm, fuzzy (and slightly evil) feeling we get when we watch someone struggle with or fail at something that to us seems natural and effortless.
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For most of us, the majority of our new learning experiences occurred as children – back when being crappy at stuff was pretty much considered an inevitability. Now, a lot of that early learning has morphed into something that seems intrinsic to our nature – like walking or reading or killing it as Kirby in Super Smash Bros 64 – that we fail to acknowledge there was a time back when we couldn’t walk, couldn’t read, and didn’t automatically go for the Down + B attack (Rest in PIECES, SAMUS!)
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Now, in adultland,  being crappy whilst in the throes of learning something new isn’t considered as adorable and understandable as much as it is frustrating and time consuming (which I’m sure anyone stuck behind a learner driver or standing in the epic post office queue whilst the trainee serves can attest to (srsly, hurry the f up.) Not to mention that we usually have to pay more experienced people to suffer through our ineptitude in order to teach us the stuff we want to be able to do. That means PAYING MONEY to BE SHIT at something. Ummmmmm….no.
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But, as many reasons as there are to avoid the uncomfortable task of learning something new, it’s a hugely important part of our continuous mental/physical/social & spiritual development. Learning something new ignites the parts of our brains that have grown stale, lazy and complacent with assumed knowledge and repeated behaviours. It requires patience, perseverance and humility and reminds us what it is to be human – capable of falling, rising, growing and  appreciating what efforts are involved to do something new, unfamiliar and challenging.
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So today I ask you that trite and oft pinned quotation – when’s the last time you did something  for the first time? Something that you were really, truly terrible at? The worse, the better – as it takes you even further away from your particular, ingrained skill set. Go find something interesting, or uncomfortable or even scary to do and allow yourself to wallow in your incompetence. Your initial inability is not proof of your hopelessness as much as it is evidence that you’re brave enough to break out of your safe zone to grow, learn and, in my case, finally be capable of driving a manual. 

(Feature Image via Tumblr)

THE PROBLEM WITH BEING KIND

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When asked the question “Are you kind?” I think most of us would want to answer in the affirmative. We like to think of ourselves as essentially kind – not wishing ill will to others, wanting to help when we can by lending an ear, offering up a smile, a word of encouragement, a hug or a shoulder to cry on when somebody needs it.
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Being good feels good and according to studies, when we perform acts of kindness, we are being true to our own nature. Research conducted by Max Planck at the Max Planck Institute showed that people begin helping others at a crazy, young age. “…a 14-month old child seeing an adult experience difficulty, such as struggling to open a door because their hands are full, will automatically attempt to help.”
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But I can’t help but think, in spite of our in built tendency towards kindness, how rare it is to be truly kind without conditions. We often treat kindness as a transaction – do something kind, so we’ll get something in return. Whether it be; mowing the lawn for your lonely, elderly neighbour so they’ll leave you their vintage Bob Dylan records when they die, smiling at and tipping your bartender so they might overfill your scotch in the next round, or even holding a door open for someone and expecting a “thank you” for your efforts.
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Putting it like this makes us sound bloody selfish, but I’m definitely guilty of it. As much as it feels great to help people, to connect and be compassionate, it feels crappy to be taken for granted, and to have our time and efforts wasted. There seems to be a fine line between doing no harm and taking no shit. How often do you reach out to a friend or family member who shows no reciprocity to your acts of kindness and compassion? What’s the point of turning down your subwoofer at 11pm when your neighbour only ever speaks to you when they’re complaining about noise? And why bother giving that homeless lady your spare $2 if she’s just going straight to the Bottle-O?
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Being kind is hard work. It’s sometimes difficult understanding why some people even deserve it. But perhaps instead of assessing who is worthy of what level of kindness, and doling it out based on a potential reward system, we should make the act of kindness the goal in and of itself? And hey, be selfish. Do it because it makes you feel good. Because it helps you sleep better at night knowing you’ve made someone’s life a little brighter, richer or easier, even just for a moment.
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Like me, writing this blog, for you.
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(YOU’RE WELCOME.)

THE ONE THING DESTROYING OUR RELATIONSHIPS (AND MAKING US MISERABLE)

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Often we’d consider mind reading a skill reserved for only the most skilled psychics and psycho therapists, so it’s pretty funny how so many of us bestow this rare talent upon the laypeople around us.
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To be honest, we read people’s minds all the time, or at least we try (and think we are better at it than we actually are). But our own minds are complex, fuzzy, little universes, with heaps going on (particularly just as we’re trying to go to sleep or meditate – amirite?). Our own minds are tough enough to work out as it is, so it seems foolish for us to assume that anyone else can guess with any accuracy what the hell is going on in there.
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I used to make mind reading a pre-requisite of all my relationships. If I was angry, hurt or upset, I would not say anything because I thought that my friends, if they were TRUE friends, would pick up on my inner discord, run to my side and comfort and console me. Needless to say, this happened rarely and my friends carried on like nothing was wrong while I remained bitter and miserable like a trodden-on olive.
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This lack of perception on my friends part (and over assumption on mine) is not surprising. According to a study done, when people are asked to lie or conceal strong emotions “we tend to think the truth will be detected by others significantly more often that it actually is.” (Good news for people smuggling caps into Stereosonic!) “Our intuitive sense that our emotions leak out and are clearly visible to others seems to be more of an egocentric illusion than objective reality.”
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The problem is that we assume body language and reading people’s facial expressions are the key to deciphering emotion, but studies show that talking and using your grown up words is the most effective and accurate. Basically actions speak louder than words, but words speak louder than nothing (duh). With our friends, family and partners, we often have expectations of them to “just know” what we want, how we feel, what to get us for our birthdays (sorry Joely, ily). And while people we are closer with do “know” us better, they’re not necessarily any more adept at being able to decipher our wants, needs and desires to any particular level of accuracy.
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This is the problem in relationships when we start the silent treatment, game playing and concealing emotions and feelings.  When you say “nothing’s wrong” when a friend or partner asks “what’s wrong?” and there IS something wrong, you’re pretty much training them that those accurate, non-verbal signals they’re picking up are incorrect, leaving them only to deduce that when those signals are employed again in the future, they wont indicate that something is wrong.
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Of course there’s often our reluctance to put forth our feelings or emotions out of fear of rejection, embarrassment or ridicule. Men are more prone to this (thanks society) but I’ve definitely avoided expressing myself, figuring that my feels were “probably just a bit silly and not worth talking about”. That doesn’t stop me from acting like a stroppy bitch for a whole afternoon, leaving my boyfriend to repeatedly ask if I’m “okay?” when I’m sure he’d probably prefer I just came clean with my ‘silly feels’ rather than pretending everything was hunky dory.
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“Opening up a bit more often, when your own perspective matters and when that perspective is warranted, benefits those who give their perspective as well as those who are willing to use it” says Nicholas Epsley in his cool, psychology book ‘Mindwise’. “Knowing others minds requires asking and listening, not just reading and guessing.”
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So ditch the divination, make like Madge and Express Yourself – clearly and honestly to those you love, not just rudely and violently to Trump voters on the internet. If talking about your feelings still feels icky and uncomfortable, get creative and find an outlet to let dem feels out – cronut baking, interpretive mud dancing, penis art, etc. All creativity, used as a mode of communication, is somewhat therapeutic in nature as it allows us a platform to communicate our feelings and perspectives and helps connect us to others. 

LOVE IS FOREVER (AND NEVER)

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It’s funny, how we go about love. Something so huge and all encompassing yet at the same time, delicate and subtle. I’ve always been a massive romantic (philosophically speaking, not in the “stuffed teddy bears and love heart chocolates” sense – ew). Love had always seemed much more captivating, alluring and authentic to me when it was tumultuous, challenging and heart wrenchingly passionate. Stories like Romeo & Juliet, Wuthering Heights and the Sorrows of Young Werther probably didn’t do me any great favours in contradicting this idea. But the reality of this type of love is that something like it just can’t last (note the literary references above and their respective body counts). While it might not be necessary fatal IRL, it’s often difficult, painful, emotionally depleting and physically exhausting.
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Then, there’s the other “boring” type of love. That safe, comforting, embracing kind that grows big and beautiful through years of companionship, mutual respect and support. It sounds safe. But this, this is the love that scares me. Because this is the love that should last forever. Only sometimes it doesn’t.
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A few months ago I had the beginnings of a panic attack. My head got really faint, my breathing became quick and fast, and I felt an overwhelming nausea and fear sweep over me. It happened soon after my sister suddenly separated from her long-term partner, one of my best friends had a shitty break up, and for the first time, I met my partner’s ex-girlfriend, who he’d been together with for many years prior. I felt that, all around me, were symbols of love’s mortality, and that idea of the transience and impermanency of love frightened me – almost to the point of physical collapse.
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Okay, so yes, I’m a bloody drama queen. But once I caught my breath, bought a Boost Juice, and booked in to see a decent psychologist, I thought about love a bit more and that suffocating idea of “forever”. We dress it up and romanticise it, but what is “forever” if not an idea, a “concept” that sounds lofty and epic but is not something actionable, because we cannot actually do anything “forever”. In fact, we can’t even do anything “yesterday”, “tomorrow” or “next week”. Sure we make plans, we set goals, we often lay out our lives out ahead of us to give us something to work towards or look forward to, but in reality, the only moment that is in our control is this minute, this second, we live breath by breath. And it’s only in these little, tiny moments that we can really build love towards anything that looks like forever. Those tiny, bad choices we make in love, like ignoring our partner when they ask us to watch a cat video on YouTube, or not responding to text messages in order to make them worried or jealous, or making subtle (or not so subtle) comments that you know will make them feel guilty, ashamed or belittled – it’s these actions, however small, that can chip away at at any sort of love, let alone a “forever” one.
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So I won’t faint again at the bleak reality of love having an end date, because I don’t think anyone can really “love” forever. What we can do is keep making those little choices, moment by moment, and make them from a place of love. From that kind, respectful and compassionate place that’s often reserved for baby animals and our friends non-ugly children. That’s what I’m trying at the moment. And besides over-committing my really-busy boyfriend to a sexy photoshoot on the beach, (thanks Bjorn, we look fleek AF) I don’t think I’m doing too badly. It’s true, he makes it easy,  and often leaves me thinking “hey, maybe forever is doable after all?”

WHO ARE YOU (IF YOU’RE NOT WHAT YOU DO?)

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I remember leaving high school with utter relief. Phew. Now we’re done with that crap, I can head out into the real world, do something I love to do, be really great at it, and make stacks of money.
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That’s what the prospect of employment looked like to me. Anyone who was working in dead end jobs, or jobs they hated – well, they were just lazy. They haven’t tried hard enough, or applied themselves or found their true passion and committed to it. Work is what we end up spending the larger part of our lives doing. It’s how we survive and how we contribute. It’s what defines us. At least, that’s what I had always thought.
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So I finished school, went to uni, and, after some trial and error, I starting singing and people started paying me for it. I had found a job that made use of my skills and passions, it earned me decent money and it offered me the freedom to work for myself. I knew making a living as a musician was supposed to be tough, but it seemed like I was doing it. Paying rent. Getting gigs. Kicking goals, etc. I felt pretty damn good about myself. But being a singer wasn’t simply my job title. It felt like it was who also I was. It was in my blood, in my bones. Something I had always done and would always do.
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Fast forward to four years later. I’m going through customs at LAX airport. I get my photo snapped and my finger print taken and then a customs agent asks me “What is your occupation?” I pause briefly, then I pathetically burst into tears.
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Barely a month earlier I’d been forced to stop singing. Physical, and medically insurmountable issues had arisen and rendered me incapable of performing at a professional level. What was basically anyone else doing a sad, pitchy performance at a karaoke bar had become my reality and I was beyond devastated. Not just because I had lost my voice, and by consequence, my work, but mainly because I felt like I had completely lost who I was. Being a singer defined me, and not being able to proudly proclaim that any longer on my US customs form, well, it left me pretty broken.
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Upon meeting new people, one of the first things we ask is “So, what do you do?” We think their response gives us a good idea of what sort of person they are; how they spend their time, what is important to them. So it’s no wonder we are prone to over-identify with our occupations. Creative professionals, in particular, love to blur the lines between what they do and who they are. But this surely leaves us open to some dangerous ramifications when we get made redundant, stop booking work, can’t sell our products, or something happens physically/psychologically that makes us incapable of performing our roles any longer. Not only are we dealt the punishing blow of losing income and pride, and having to suffer the disappointment of wasted time and money, but losing the idea of yourself in the mix, that sense of who you are – that sort of loss is debilitating.
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So how to separate the two? This is the challenge. The lifelong search to find a deeper sense of self, to not have to seek constant validation from the outside world, and to truly exist without demands or expectations. It’s bloody hard and I doubt I’ll ever get to full Buddha Mode. But after the initial shock and struggle, being forced to surrender those superficial ideas of who I was and what defined me was a huge relief, and ultimately liberating.
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And sometimes I think maybe our passions are purer left uncorrupted. Maybe we don’t have to try and take everything we love and turn it into some money-making scheme. Some of the most miserable people I know earn a living doing something they “love to do”, doesn’t mean they “love doing it” for money. I think that that good intentioned advice a lot of us had to “do what you love to do” got quite a rude shock when we started doing it, and realised that our lives didn’t suddenly transform into a glittering oasis of happiness and contentment. Of course, I’m not advising you go do something you hate, just know that a job’s a job. Even if there are parts of it you love, there will sure as hell be parts you don’t and that’s fine. Just know that it’s not everything. And who you are – well, please know it’s a helluva lot more than a desk, a cubicle, a microphone, or 150 unread emails you’re reading this blog to avoid.

HEROES & VILLAINS (OF FACEBOOK)

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I’ve considered deleting Facebook. Many times. I find, particularly when I’m in a fragile emotional state, it can drum up feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy. Life’s-not a-competition-but-you’re-winning kinda thing.
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I’m not deleting Facebook, however, as it helps me keep in contact with my close friends and helps me get work, so I’ve basically tried to live with it instead of against it. One of the most helpful realisations I’ve made recently is that Facebook is a stage, and us (the donkey’s on it), merely players. Now I’m certainly not judging the validity of everyone on Facebook’s “realness”. Of course, you’re all the realest (ok, maybe second realest if we’re counting Iggy), but the image we present of ourselves across Facebook is a construction. Almost like a reality tv show, where we know we’re watching real people, but we also know we’re not getting the whole story.
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So, day in, day out we are confronted with a myriad of people that invite us into little, carefully crafted snippets of their lives. And soon enough, characters emerge. Depending on your world view, your personal tastes and your position in life, you notice that, as in any good stage show, there are goodies and baddies, people you root for and people you boo (maybe silently behind a Retina display monitor or loudly in a string of comments with accompanying angry gifs to convey your furious emotions. I, for the most part, prefer the fourth wall up for my dramas, so will rarely get directly involved (but it you prefer a pantomime, hey, go nuts).
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As with good characters too, we’re often encouraged to read between the lines. The way you are and the way you appear (on FB) are not always in sync (and are occasionally completely at odds), and obviously you don’t share every aspect of yourself with the Facebook community (although it seems like some people are trying to, amirite?) so there are a large number of conclusions being drawn here, about you, about what you’re like, what you do, who you are. People will use whatever colours they want to paint you into a hero or a villain (a hero in your eyes might appear as a villain in mine and vice versa). (Of course this only works for people who solely exist in your life as a cyber presence – IRL friends and family have established their multifaceted and complex human natures to you through a history of real life interactions.)
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The characters on my wall are endless, and I’m clapping for the girl who’s attended a slew of weddings but it still waiting on that proposal from her long time boyfriend. I’m cheering on the newly pregnant woman who doesn’t disguise her struggles and appears both genuinely thrilled and properly terrified by her impending sentence. Then there’s the less-than-heroic young, corporate dude who shares meninism posters, photos of Friday night piss-ups and memes featuring women with huge breasts, or the self righteous mother who deems everyone’s life achievements unworthy compared to the fact she’s popped a couple of blubs out of her uterus.
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You may think I’m the villain, for making these judgments. You might preach about supporting all my fellow FB frenz and that I should be speaking up for social justice and I should defriend/unfollow anyone I don’t agree with or think is a dick. But srsly dudes, I don’t want a Facebook feed full of people just like me, furiously agreeing with one another. I like the try hards, the braggers, the preachers and the jerks. They’re probably a punish in real life, but on Facebook, they keep things interesting (the baddies are always the most interesting).
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If you’re reading this, disgusted and horrified that I’m blithely suggesting I’m reducing you down to a pantomime cyber character, fine. Let me be the villain. Or defriend me, I don’t care. I think it’s a healthier approach to start seeing Facebook as the fabulous, constructed, masterpiece theatre it is, rather than a gripping insight into the real lives of others: where I for one, am a glamorous and successful, young artist with a thoughtful, inquisitive nature, a handsome boyfriend and an eternally happy family.
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Because nothing reeks of reality more than total and utter perfection. lol.