Journal

Most lies are bad, a few lies are good, and some fall in-between.

I was sitting in the garden of our home in Perdiswell, Worcester (I must have been around 6 years old) when my sister ran excitedly towards me: “my pet bee gave me some honey!”

I was amazed, and had so many questions: firstly, you can actually have a pet bee? Where does it live? How long have you had it? Where do you get the honey from? What does it mean to “give” it to you?

All of those questions became immediately unimportant with a single question from her: “would you like to try it?”

Yes! Absolutely I would!

It tasted incredible: sweet, sticky, and almost familiar—although I was quite confident I hadn’t tried honey before.

I couldn’t get enough, and my sister was only too happy to keep going back for more. I licked spoon after spoon clean before I returned to my questions, and the answers came thick and fast.

• “Yes little brother, of course you can have a pet bee”
• “It lives in these small holes above the back door”
• “Oh, a few months, but I only just got the honey”

Satisfied, I licked my final spoon clean and went back inside to drop it in the sink. I had learned so much about the world! So much about bees! What a kindness—the honey and the facts.

As I walked through the kitchen and dropped my spoon in the sink, a can on the counter caught my eye: Lyle’s Golden Syrup.

Funny, I thought, I like golden syrup.

I carry a little card around in my wallet on which I’ve scrawled a few facets of my character that I’d like to be known for. I’d like to be a great partner, for example, and a great explorer, friend, maker, athlete (of the Nike variety—if you have a body…).

From time to time I’ll pull it out of my wallet and wonder for a moment: which of these is playing more or less of a role right now, and is that what I’d hope for? I sometimes surprise myself with the answer, and it gives me a little nudge towards action.

On the other side of the card, I’ve written a few single-word directives—words like confidence, compassion, curiosity, and agency. They exist so that I can ask the question: what would it look like for the character to play with more compassion (curiosity; agency).

It’s such a small act and a simple question, but on many occasions it’s caused me to act in a totally different way than I’d originally been thinking about. It takes me out of myself for just a moment and lets me consider how I actually want to act.

About to present something you’ve made? What would it look like if you played it with 10x as much confidence? What would the athlete do with 10x more conviction? What would the partner do with 10x more compassion, or understanding, or care?

Increasingly, I find more joy in small, simple ideas repeated often than in big or complex ideas. I see it when I take the same walk and notice something I’d missed, or re-read a book and learn something new—not because the book changed, but because I have.

These simple questions for me often have pretty profound implications. I’m sometimes a few words and a simple thought away from doing something that moves me closer to the person I want to be, or—almost imperceptibly—a little further away.

I was listening to Craig Mod on a couple of podcasts recently, and he mentioned a text file that he keeps on his computer titled “you’re not a piece of shit”. Fortunately or unfortunately for me, it really resonated.

This thought is brought to you today after spending a few hours feeling like a piece of shit, and then writing my (belated) morning pages and snapping myself out of it. I don’t claim to be special in not-so-occasionally feeling like a piece of shit—I’m sure many people do. Over the years I have felt it with annoying regularity, though.

In lieu of a specific (hopefully append-only) file, today’s morning pages entry was essentially a big brag file with a lot of swear words (perhaps influenced by my copy of “Do the Fucking Work” by GFDA sat on my desk). I started my morning pages feeling like a piece of shit, and ended feeling almost good about myself.

I’ll keep my brag file private for now, but it really drove home for me how powerful it can be to have one. I’m constantly hard on myself about the things that I haven’t yet done (and I do want to keep some of that energy), and rarely celebrate the things I’ve accomplished so far.

I’m sure that my speaking about morning pages will eventually bore people to death, but they do give me a chance to reflect on things like this every day. Having said that, I rarely remember what I wrote in the early haze of morning a few days later, and I almost found myself wanting to open a single file that reminded me: “hey, you’re not a piece of shit.”

If you’re feeling like a piece of shit, I strongly encourage you to write down all of the reasons that you’re not. You shouldn’t need to do that. It’s very likely that you’re not a piece of shit even without very specific counter-examples. For me though (and for the aforementioned Craig, though I’m sure it isn’t just a Craig thing), it can help.

So, at risk of swearing a couple too many times in this post: I’m not a piece of shit, and you’re not a piece of shit either. Be kind to yourself.

“You’re getting a bit twitchy”, my wife says quietly, “is everything okay?”

I’ve started to write about life recently. Actually, I started writing about life not-so-recently, but I started publishing writing about life recently. For months I’ve written about life every morning in my morning pages (in one way or another). It’s hard not to, because life is the thing that I’m doing all the time, so it provides pretty good material.

Writing about life makes life better, I think.

When I wrote about controlling your destiny, I was thinking about writing. The writing comes right after the thinking. Sometimes, it feels like it’s happening at the same time as the thinking (sometimes it seems to happen before the thinking, but I’ve got to think about that some more). I’ve already said that writing about life has changed my life, but I think I’d write about life even if it didn’t.

Something that I didn’t realize that I enjoyed until recently (not because I only just started doing it, but because I only just realized I particularly enjoy it) is reading memoirs. Specifically, I love reading memoirs from regular people. People who I could imagine being friends with. People who I’ve met; everyone I’ve met. If I could read your memoir (if you wrote or have written a memoir) I would.

On a flight from Atlanta to San Francisco yesterday, I read Heating and Cooling by Beth Ann Fennelly cover to cover. It’s a collection of 52 “micro-memoirs”, and I loved every one of them. Here’s an example titled Married Love, III:

As we lower onto the December-cold pleather seats of our minivan, we knock hands: both of us reaching to turn on the other’s seat warmer first.

In just a sentence or two you can convey so much about a moment. So much about your character and your life and your relationship. So many of your values. It doesn’t need to be for anyone else, even. Just writing it down can be a reminder of who you are, what you remember, and what you cherish (or maybe something you feel less good about).

Writing about life has made me notice more of it. A simple overheard comment that I would have otherwise forgotten about in minutes suddenly feels like something sort of special. I sit with it for a moment longer. Sometimes I type it out on my phone. On that same flight I typed out the below after the moment made me smile:

Heads, shoulder knees and toesss (drawn out, like a broadway musical), the steward sings, pushing the food cart down the aisle. I smile and mind all of them.

It’s a normal little moment, really. She probably does it every time she pushes the cart down the aisle. It wasn’t typical though—not for me. An instruction that’s probably been repeated thousands of times could have been delivered curtly, or with a hint of exhaustion. Instead it was melodic, almost joyful (and very quiet; just loud enough).

There are so many small moments like that one, and when you start writing about life you start noticing them. Enjoying them more.

It’s not just the small moments, either. You could unearth big, important memories from your childhood. You could sit with all of the small interactions you remember from your wedding day. You could recall what it felt like when something big changed in your life; when you started viewing the world in a different way.

Everyone should be a memoirist.

We’ll forget so many moments that might seem insignificant at the time, but might mean the world to us later. I’ve forgotten more memories than I can remember, I’m sure. If I can help it, I’ll remember more from now on, because I’ll write them down.

Christmas Day, Worcester, England, 1995 (ish?). I unwrap a toy parrot that repeats everything you say. My grandfather picks it up. “Fuck off”, he says. “Fuck off”, the parrot repeats. He’s cackling now. “Fuck off” he says again, cackling louder. Now I’m cackling (giggling).

I’m reading The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad, and I’m reading it on my Kindle. I love physical books, but there’s one experience I get from a Kindle that I don’t get from physical books (even if a couple folks have scribbled in the margins): seeing which passages readers have highlighted, and exactly how many have highlighted it. An example:

But I knew that a fear-driven life was one where I never made plans, where I stopped myself from dreaming ambitiously. It meant living safe and small, always hedging against the worst-case scenario. Instead, I wanted to live boldly. I wanted to hold the best-case scenario at the forefront and have that guide my decisions and actions.

At the time of my reading, 274 people had highlighted that passage on the Kindle. 274 people who maybe felt the same way as the author. 274 people who might similarly want to guide their actions with the best-case scenario. Kindle highlights are aspirational. They’re little nuggets you can collect to validate who you are or who you want to be.

When I was a young kid growing up in a small English town, there were two places that I wanted to live when I got older: London and New York City. I’ve written about why London was on that (very short) list, and the only post-rationalization I have for New York is “fancier, less accessible London”. London seemed out of reach for me back then, so New York City felt like a fantasy—one that I thought might last my whole life.

I’d search for images of New York and I’d stare at them (as soon as they loaded) imagining what it might be like to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, to look out from the top deck of the Empire State Building, and to stroll the length of Central Park. The TV we watch growing up in the UK is so often US-centric, and New York City always features as the most magical place. Home Alone, Friends, and (a guilty pleasure) Sleepless in Seattle.

When I got older, I’d replace the Google Image search with Google Maps, and especially Street View. I’d walk all around the city—panning the view left and right to memorize the buildings, to note the names of hot dog vendors, and to stare at a snapshot of Times Square. I’d explore for hours, wondering what it might feel like to really be surrounded by those huge buildings; to walk into those stores; to eat that hot dog.

Older still and you’d find me reading the poetry and prose from writers who were similarly in love with New York. I’d read Howl by Allen Ginsberg and recite it during poetry nights at college. When I got to my favorite string of words “…from park to pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge…” I’d give it some extra zeal, punctuating the still air with the sort of energy that I thought it deserved.

I studied Design and Illustration at college, and I’d follow all of the artists and designers in New York. I’d read about the art of the subway. I’d look up artists collectives in Brooklyn. I’d imagine joining a studio near the Brooklyn Bridge where some of my favorite artists and designers worked side by side. I’d picture studying the typography of the subway, riding every line and stopping at every station until I saw it all.

At some point (as it does) life happened, and I stopped thinking about New York quite so much. I’d occasionally speak to people about how great DUMBO (probably) was and about the work of folks who lived there, but I stopped reading the poetry and walking the digital streets. I moved from my home town to London, and I was so enthralled by finally making it there that New York didn’t take up quite so much space.

Fast forward a few years and New York came up again—but this time with a question that I didn’t really think I’d ever be asking: should we stay in London, or should we move to New York. My wife’s mother grew up in California and my wife has U.S. citizenship. From the first day we met we’d talked about an American adventure one day, but it took us many more years to act on it. We were headed, we thought, for California.

When we spoke to the companies we worked for, they agreed that we could stay if we moved to the U.S.—but only on the East Coast. I hadn’t thought about the real prospect of moving to New York. I guess I’d convinced myself years ago that it was—or maybe even should be, in some pseudo-romantic sense—a dream; a fantasy. But now it became almost inevitable—we were headed to the East Coast, so… New York?

The next few months were a whirlwind. Selling most of our possessions, shipping the ones that we didn’t, saying our farewells to family and friends, and booking an Airbnb in Brooklyn—right on Fulton Street in Bedford Stuyvesant. When we finally arrived and stepped out of the cab, I was filled with all of the feelings. I don’t think I could even describe them. It was all of them, all at once—a Mega Feeling.

I lived in Brooklyn for 2 years. I’ll skip the details for now, because this post is less about New York than the idea of New York. I can tell you that I walked from park to pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge. I strolled the length of Central Park. I walked so many of the streets. I ate the hot dogs. I’ll write more about that some other day—but somehow, I had made it to New York City.

I bought a book of “offline activities” (where you’re supposed to tear one out each week for a year). Here are a handful of my favorite ideas:

1. Look into someone’s eyes for five minutes without talking
2. Write a letter to yourself and open it a year later
3. Go to the library to solve a problem
4. Write down an overheard conversation
5. Take a new route to an old place
6. Re-read a book
7. Make someone breakfast
8. Write down a list of things you love
9. Write a letter to someone you admire
10. Plant something

The first one just because it’s weird and we should all be more weird together. The rest because they’re just genuinely good ideas.

For years I’ve tried to think about something interesting to write about, but when I started to question who I was writing for, I realized that the most common answer was: me. Every morning I sit down to write morning pages (750 words, stream-of-consciousness style) and it’s the most fun I have whilst writing. There’s no pressure, it doesn’t need to fit some theme, and I can keep trying to find my voice without judgement.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to care less about judgement—and I like to think that I’ve started to judge less, too. I’ve increasingly found joy in simple stories, and I’ve learned to disconnect the idea of “value” from “is interesting to a large number of people” and “makes money”. Maybe I was slow to do that, but once you have the world changes entirely. Everyone, it turns out, is endlessly fascinating.

I spent so long listening to the stories of folks who I find very impressive that I almost forgot about the wonderful stories that you can hear just by meeting someone—anyone—new, from some place that you’re not, from some background you don’t share. You feel it when you crack up listening to The Moth, and when you’re wiping away a tear (okay, many tears) during act three of This American Life.

It’s so easy to fill our ears and brains with the stories and thoughts of others, and easier still to make our own thoughts and our own voice more quiet—until it’s barely a whisper. What would you feel, though, if you wrote down everything that you can remember from your childhood? What heart-warming or tear-inducing story have you almost forgotten? I promise you that someone wants to hear it.

The stories that we queue up in our podcast app; that we stream back-to-back on Netflix—they’re interesting, but they’re not the only interesting stories. They’re likely not even the most interesting stories, at least not to everyone. I want to hear your story, and I hope that you’ll share it. Maybe just with yourself at first, and then maybe, slowly, with the internet—or at least with a friend.

If you write and share your story, I promise you that I’ll read it. Publish it and send me the link. Send it right to my email inbox, if you’d prefer. Speak it quietly (or loudly) to a friend, or a group of friends. Tell it how you want to tell it. Mess it up. Start over. Pause to laugh (or to cry). Even if it’s just for a day, pause the story that you were about to listen to and tell your own instead. I’d like to hear it.