Growing Pains

Even if it still happens from time to time, it’s true you don’t realise when moments ‘end’. When the ‘always’ is replaced by ‘sometimes’ – soon to be ‘never’. We have so many in life. The tiny deaths of who we used to be. The moments of youth that end without goodbye. The last drunken kiss, the last uni class, the first serious job. Like with ideas, or details, they fade with time & can expire (ideas definitely do).

The youthful writer who exists within grows up. It’s a loss without grief we disguise as ‘growing up’, because the grown up has bills now. The deaths of so many interesting ‘when-I-grow-up‘s’ are replaced by regular 30 year olds who work jobs their youthful selves would’ve never chosen. We never mourn the change, the tiny death, because most of the time we’re in the same boat & it’s considered normal to concede. Most of the time.

Growing up, I had grand plans fueled by an energetic youthful romance, constantly searching for stories with love beneath the surface. Drawn to the ‘story‘, feeling like a character, searching the same trails for different results with only possibility ahead. The child playing with shells on the beach, with the boundless possibilities of the ocean right there. Happily in a relationship now, those days feel somewhat foreign – yet the romantic is still here. I don’t romanticise broken relationships, as if they were Shakespearean love tales anymore. The alternate realities used to feel possible, maybe better than what was everyday – but now those options are much less because I’m happy where I am. They sold hope to escape lonely nights or post-fight discomfort.

They don’t tell you that growing up means losing friends. On average the average male will have 3 close friends by 35, compared to 15 at 21. Most people change, & you’re likely to also.

But what if you don’t shift entirely? What if you don’t change that much?

Like 19, at 33 I’m still fundamentally the same person who feverishly avoids the mundane, unoriginal options we can fall into day-to-day. Maybe I’m avoiding ‘growing up‘. I won’t allow more than 3 days to pass before I revolt to something different. New recipes, new music, new something. I need to shock the mind by doing something unfamiliar. It used to culminate in a reaction that was energised to create something interesting, possibly littered with mistakes, drama, texts, sex (when I could get it) & hangovers. Shortly they seemingly disappeared & whilst some of these indulgences remain, they’re likely to continue leaving slowly like a bad hangover. The tiny deaths of the irrational, paving way for a new thought process.

So what happened to the energy when the romance shifted? The motive had to go somewhere, like a new addiction replacing the previous. To keep up with the threshold of ‘interesting’, the risks had to be bigger. Unlike your youth, time isn’t on your side. Responsibilities didn’t weigh as much back then, but when you age, time becomes the obstacle. The beginner at 30 is treated with skepticism, the 21 year old is simply ‘young’. I’m currently in the ‘young enough to start over, old enough to of settled down’ category. Since I have no intention of killing my attention span living online & living solely for the weekends – the challenges had to be tangible & not toying the line of fantasy from youth. Daydreaming costs time & I simply don’t want to waste it.

This path lead me to a beer business (first time I tried the beer was when it was made) & working for myself at 30 (never made that work before)- the ultimate strategy for continuous trial & error. Unpredictable, challenging, risky etc. Especially when nobody takes you seriously. 6 figures to walking dogs to pay rent. I guess I found my story.

We’ve all daydreamed lives not lived. Eye contact from the girl across the dance floor. Winning money from the lottery ticket. Picturing the perfect escape through daydreams of hope.

It’s because ‘hope’ might be the strongest drug of all.

It’s so powerful because we never see the other side of the ‘best case scenario‘. It’s perfectly untouched. We don’t dream of the rejection, the disappointment – that’s usually reserved for reasons we do innaction. With hope, we preserve the idea without breaking it. It remains possible, like Schrödinger’s cat. If you don’t open the box, whatever is inside is presumed both alive & dead. It’s potential, eternally positive, if only if it happened. Maybe it will? Ignorance is bliss, & there’s bliss in indecision. Can’t make a wrong decision if you don’t make one! Can’t stick to a plan if your plan isn’t up to you!

Those who hope could be called dreamers, yet those who live in hope are dreaming. As the lizard king Jim Morrison says – “WAKE UP!”.

They’re called risks, but in hindsight they’re recalled as opportunities – another prevailing lie the dreamer tells themself in perfect hindsight.

The preserved idea of risk without taking it is looked at as positive. Dreamers either lie blissfully unaware forever, or the hands of time rudely pull the sheets away suddenly & it causes a deep disruption – where you realise time has past (& so has your prime). Most mid-life crisis’ are built by regret & a scramble for the youthful energy.

“When you’re young, you have ideas & no money. When you’re old, you have money but no ideas”. (Shoutout to How-To-Make-It-In-America fans).

The energy shifted when my age started with ‘3’. The new search for romance was called work, still fueled by the undercurrent of love. I was determined to find the love within, purely because I hadn’t ever envisioned my life as it was going before that. I always told myself I wanted to do that path & the timing lined up to finally become who I said I was. I never wanted to be boring. I wasn’t making any stories, & if I did, it lived in escapism (drunken weekends, holidays etc). I was simply an extra in the scene – & I always thought me & mine would live like Vinnie Chase. Far from the dreams of my youth, the routine was grey & predictable. Searching for saturation, for ikagai, for what the books & movies swear existed happened when you left the comfort zone. The story. We always said we would at least try. To be honest I just wanted to find a way to make things, make enough to live & share it with those I love.

Soon the older (drunken) voice sung about work, not romance. I never predicted I would lose those who helped inspire possibility – but maybe that’s the role they were destined to play. The math says it’s bound to happen. We always think we’re immune but the law of averages prevails.

What they don’t tell you is how lonely it is. 

Some people look at art, others imitate, few create. The modern art paradox of saying “I could do that”, to someone’s work, then doing nothing – but feeling accomplished. The living embodiment of “you are what you do, not what you say you’ll do” (Carl Jung). The burden the canvas bears in public domain is to open yourself up for judgement & watch them hate you for trying. Then you start to hate others for not trying at all. A twisted cycle of isolation. It’s easy to throw stones when you haven’t dared enter vulnerability.

It is true that opinions are only loud amongst crowds – yet nobody is really yelling. Maybe you feel like it’s overwhelming. Maybe someone let you down, tricked you & you’re left to clean up the mess. We put the megaphone to the words & we create the echo. Who gets the blame? The person who sold you a story, or the fool who listened? People can both be nice & an asshole simultaneously.

Those who claim to love the art, don’t love the struggle. Those who only see time as an investment when they’re getting positive reinforcement. It takes guts to stick through the empty exhibitions. Your best customer is someone you don’t know & your biggest hater is someone you do. Freedom from the path = isolation from structure. Most people = structure. With youth you can be the eternal romantic, the short term thinker. Yet it runs out when eternity has a mortgage. You can stacking up the attempts until it starts to make sense. Eventually you’ll escape the bubble of ‘new & exciting‘, become yesterdays news. Then eventually if you stay with it, it turns again. Equity takes time. Reputation takes time. Skills take time. It goes from hard, to normal. The subject, the story & the writer. The next chapter written from the present lesson.  

Hope is a drug, laziness is the overdose.

I’ve always found things out the hard way. I don’t trust easily, but when I do – I’m in. He swings big, he misses big. It took me getting a little older to understand heartbreak lives outside of romance. Losing friends, getting older, being let down by those you trust can be ruthless. I never understood why people don’t do their own thing, but I’ve soon gained clarity on why most people don’t venture too far off the path. I understand now – you avoid the isolation & can live high on hope – it’s easier.

Like a junkie, my failures have come solely from hope. The poison pill you thought would get everyone else but you. Hope that things would be what they used to. Searching the same trails for different results with possibility ahead. Eventually the bubble pops.

The eternal optimist within moves on, as there is belief that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. A light pointing into the dark, hoping to hit a mirror. It’s still there, even after the hope leaves because with time you build proof. The eternal optimist within has the quiet power to whisper a lions roar. 

Free it. Through ideas, through like-souls (mirrors), through the stories of those who have failed then prevailed- feed it. Walk through the night & by morning the path will become clearer. Don’t let the drug of hope claim another overdose. Be who you say you are & it’ll work out.

The Magnum Opus awaits – it’s not time for the greatest hits. Light outlives heartbreak.

“I know it was you Fredo. You broke my heart.”