If you are reading this then I am already dead.
Wait, sorry. That is a whole other blog entry. If you are reading this one it means that I am officially 27 years old. Of course through the wonders of technology by the time this goes live I’ll be sleeping. I hope, on some level, that I will wake up energised and refreshed. But I already know that I will wake up older. (I am so tempted at this point to resort to a slew of cliches. Time waits for no man. Age Is Just A Number. And you’re only as old as you feel. Or, perhaps, as the Spice Girls blurted out during a television celebration for Ellen DeGeneres’ birthday – you’re only as old as the woman you’re feeling. Perhaps not.)
And this year I seem to share it with a Presidential Inauguration. Truthfully not exactly – my birthday and the inauguration happen on different days but the time difference between Washington and Sydney is such to give the illusion. Indeed as I wake up Americans everywhere will still be in the throes of Obama-fever. It would be lovely to think the mere proximity of the event to my birthday would result in a transference of warm fuzzy feelings, however I don’t expect so.
My point is, somewhat unlike Ellen, I don’t really have one. I may be older but I doubt I am any wiser.
Someone asked me earlier if I could travel back in time and address a ten year younger version of myself, what advice would I give this younger me. (For the purposes of an internet meme not so much as a poignant reflection on this, the eve of my birth.) It is an interesting question. Ten years ago I had just graduated from high school. I had just moved to a surburb of Sydney known mostly for its proximity to the airport. I was about to start my music business management/audio engineering studies at the JMC Academy. It was an exciting time. It was a terrifying time. The best of times, the blurst of times, perhaps?
I’ve come to romanticise my Sydney experience some years since. But at the time it was painful. I felt so isolated. I was so isolated. I remember getting on the 309 bus at the Mascot shops and getting off somewhere near Central train station, walking up to the Academy steps and becoming a different person. Somehow I decided if I acted aloof enough people would assume I was more ‘eccentric’ than ‘social leper.’ In the same year I became momentarily involved with someone whose interest in me was fleeting at best. It was a devastating development and I became even more jaded and reclusive than ever. The whole experience was a strange pressure cooker of events, thoughts and emotions. If you were to look at some of the things I was working on, some of the things I was writing at the time you would’ve thought I had lost my mind! I had these feelings that I was convinced were coming from beyond me somehow. And there was a story that came with the feeling. Was this house possessed? Had I just lost my mind? A friend suggested it was much more Freudian than that.
I tell you all this simply to preface the advice I would give to that younger me, and, if you’ll have it, all of you reading now.
My advice?
A lot of things won’t ever make sense. You’ll save yourself a lot of energy and a lot of grief if you stop analysing them. There actually isn’t a particular answer to that question, “Why doesn’t [person x] love me?” Not a personally useful one at any rate. Things won’t always work. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person or that you’re being punished by some unseen deity. The Cole Porter lyric might be poetic but if you stop to meditate upon it for any period of time it will only drive you nuts.
Ev’rytime We Say Goodbye
Why the Gods above me
Who must be in the know
Think so little of me
they allow you to go.
Art can be therapeutic. Reliving painful experiences for the purposes of adding realism to artworks or inflicting a personal experience of penance – not so much. Giving up can be empowering and liberating. It made no sense at the time but I wrote a couple of verses of poetry that basically said ‘You know what? I’m done’ and somehow, for the most part, I was.
The Maze of Smoke and Mirrors
I take you through the maze
of smoke and mirrors
It’s a long way to my heart
I bet you’re wondering if it’s worth it
Truth is I’ve never done this before
Forgive me if I’m ill-informed
Feels like I’m in a completely
different world now;
The adornments and the adored.[Taken from Smoke And Mirrors]
A lot of people won’t ‘get’ it… but that isn’t a reflection of its value, or yours for that matter. Trust your instincts and keep going. Pay no attention to the current fad. Just concentrate on being authentically you.
And finally, it might feel weird to say, and even harder to believe… but you’re actually wonderful.
Happy Birthday to me.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
We are the sum of our experiences and our history. You would not be the man you are today without having lived through you past. That said, I love your advice and it is the rule by which we should all live… and you are wonderful.
Happy birthday John.
John,
I know (presume) this was not intended to be comical, but your line ‘Somehow I decided that if I acted aloof enough people would assume I was more Eccentric than Social Leper’. Well sir, that had me rolling. But only because I can totally identify with it.
I get the sense that much of what you write, you do so partially to convince yourself. Or remind yourself, at the very least. My blog certainly plays that role for me, and I think that’s why I enjoy your writing so much. Keep it coming John.