Lingering

I linger online
And the longer I linger
The less I live

My circular / tangential theory of time

Time is circular. That doesn’t mean that everything is always repeating itself, although that’s often the case. Rather, it's a combination of tangents and curves that represents our past, present and future.

If time was represented as a circle, at any given point in time what you saw as the future would be a point directly in front of you: a tangent. You are heading towards this point although you will never attain it, because as you follow the circle, you are constantly changing direction, little by little. That doesn’t make that future any less yours: you are still heading towards it and your path would be far different if you were heading towards a different one. But forces affect you and nudge you so you continue on the curve a little ways, adjusting the tangent you are heading towards. You may head towards this one a little longer, moving in a straight line for a while, and then something taps you in another direction; you adjust your sights, refocus your target, and continue. In this way time and life is simply a series of tangents and circles.

Connected to this is my belief that some of the harshest, most gut-wrenching moments come when that tangent, that vision of the future, is torn away from us, and we spin like a broken compass, with no sense of north. That’s what happens when someone dies: all the things you had actively or passively imagined for the future – birthdays, parties, arguments, conversations, tea, cookies, gifts – get torn away with them, no longer a possible future. That’s what happens when you get fired, or you don’t get into the course at uni you want, or you suffer a career-altering injury: all your plans for the future, all your security, has to be re-assessed, and re-instated with another goal in mind.

Life is never as you imagined it. Where you are now is rarely where you imagined yourself to be 10 years ago, or at least at our age that’s the case. But would you have got here if you hadn’t been looking at that point off to the side, on a tangent 10 years ago? Remember a minute change in angle greatly affects the tangent, the further you follow it from the present point.

The Rose Grower

Bethany looked after the woman who bustled away, her mouth slightly open and the last morsel of her muffin poised between her mouth and the plate that had just been swept away, momentarily forgotten. She collected herself and turned to her table companion.

'You know, I know I should like Mrs. Galloway; she does so many good things, she's always busy helping people; see even now she's collecting plates when Jenny's supposed to be doing it; but she somehow irritates me.' She gestured to the slightly stooped woman and her ever-growing stack of dirty plates.

Marcus nodded knowledgeably.

'Ah, so she's a rose-grower then.'

Bethany frowned slightly, resisting asking what he meant by that until she had had a good think about it. Marcus smiled.

'There are rose-growers everywhere,' he explained expansively. 'They grow the most beautiful roses; they spend every waking hour tending their precious roses, roses which bring delight to the world: on Valentine's Day, on birthdays and anniversaries, to lovers, to lost loves, to new loves, to say sorry, or to say welcome, or to say congratulations or thankyou. A rose-grower's family takes pride in their roses; a rose-grower's neighbours boast of their view. But the rose-grower is so busy growing roses that she never stops…'

Bethany's face lit up as she realised where Marcus was going with his analogy and joined in the final words, 'to smell the roses.'

She smiled and looked back to Mrs Galloway.

'Yes, she does good things but takes no delight in it.'

Marcus made a sound of agreement. 'And she probably thinks it is best that way, and that doing good things for pleasure is purely selfish.'

Coloured glasses

Mary was an ardent gardener. She worked hard on her Saturdays to prune and trim and tidy and weed and rake and tie and pick. She meticulous watered her gardens every Wednesday between 7 and 9am and every Sunday between 4 and 7pm with a hose with a trigger nozzle so as not to waste any water and with a watering can for those hard-to-reach plants.

Her roses were her pride. She never tired of visitors praising her roses as they came to her door and would lavish them on friends, family, colleagues, visitors and strangers alike. But from time to time she did get irritated at the thorns. Despite her thick gardening gloves, she often pricked or scratched or scored herself when pruning or picking or planting or weeding.

“Why do roses have to have thorns?!” she asks.

But the thing is, in a world where we focus on beauty, we presume that roses grow thorns as a defence. We believe that beauty is fragile and needs to be protected. We take it as an analogy that that which is lovely must develop barriers and that care must be taken in handling that which we love for it might hurt us.

Why do we never consider that maybe it’s not roses that have thorns, but thorns that have roses. Maybe the thorns, isolated, unloved, alienated, conceived of a flower so beautiful that all who saw it loved it and were momentarily distracted from the thorny stems leading to the blooms.

But if that’s the case, I doubt the thorns mind our preoccupation with the flowers, although they may blush with shame when we curse their own intrusion on our awareness.

Give me a sign

You want a sign. You grieve the fact you're disoriented. You cry out for direction. You want an obvious clear neon-lit sign.

And then when it comes you're not sure what it means.

It's green, it's arrow-shaped, it clearly points along a single pathway. The pathway is flagged with bright torches which light up in sequence like some runway signalling a plane to land. The sign says GO THIS WAY and has not only your name on it, but your middle and last names, your date of birth and the names your parents were considering giving you, every nickname anyone who's loved you has ever given you and even the nicknames that nobody called you but you gave yourself.

Yet still you cry, "What does this mean?!"

You don't want a sign. You want a tunnel. You want to be pressed in on all sides with only one possible escape. You want the path forward to be the only path. You don't want to have to choose. You want all choices to be made for you and to follow on in sweet ignorant enthusiastic bliss.

So I’ll tell you this one thing: Choice sucks. But it sucks more not to have it. To choose is to be responsible, to be an adult, to take control of your life and say I and I alone shall be accountable for my success and my failure, for my fortune and my mistakes; I have nobody to blame but myself from henceforth and I shall be my own strength. I shall endeavour to choose with logic, with heart, with generosity and with discipline. And if ever I cannot choose between two options, only the trusted few shall be my guide.

I’m cast adrift in a roiling sea but I am the captain of my destiny.

I tell you this: you do only have one choice: you must choose.

Find your flat place

For Kristen


Find your flat place. Everyone needs somewhere where the ground is flat beneath you. And it's not always home. For some people home is the least flat place you can be.


A flat place is somewhere where there are no slopes, no hills, no twists or turns. Somewhere where you can be stable and grounded and don't have to worry. You won't slide away, or have to climb uphill. The ground doesn't shift beneath your feet and make you stumble. 

Find somewhere where you can find your balance and catch your breath. Then, once you feel yourself again, move on and take on the world around you.


Find a flat place, and return there at need.

Lookouts

I want to be the sort of person who goes to a lookout and looks the wrong way, but still sees beauty. For what is life but the search for beauty where others don't see it? And that is why some search for beauty in ugliness; in music and in noise; in sights and in pictures; in smells and tastes; in heat and cold; in fabric and fashion; in life and in death; in structure and chaos; in maths and in emotions; in logic and intuition. Because we all want to discover beauty where others don't see it, so that we may have some small claim over it. We will share it with others who also see the beauty, but all the while, we remain convinced they don't see it like we see it. That's why people fall in love with the wrong people - they trick themselves into thinking only they see the diamond in the rough, even if mass popularity suggests otherwise. All the while, what they really want is someone to see the beauty in them that others don't see, that they don't see. All the while, what we really want is someone to see the beauty in us that others don't see, that even we don't see ourselves. For life is the search for beauty where others don't see it, but the greatest pleasure and the greatest surprise, for it is also our greatest doubt, is to be thought beautiful ourselves.

Finding a boy is like buying shoes

Finding a good boy, one to date and love and marry, is like finding the perfect pair of shoes. Let me explain.

I go shoe shopping rarely – as it takes a lot of effort and I can’t always face the disappointment. I see shoes I like which are currently very in fashion, but I don’t try them on because I know they won’t fit. Or sometimes I do try them on anyway and they don’t fit, or if they do, they’re too expensive, or I buy them only to find they stretch and don’t fit after two weeks. But usually one of three things happens:

1)      I can’t find any shoes I like, although I know exactly what I’m looking for.

2)      I can’t find any shoes to fit my feet.

3)      I can’t find shoes for the appropriate price.

At this point I start feeling a bit down. I start thinking maybe I’m being too picky in what I’m looking for and I should be realistic and content myself with the pair that looked alright. I start thinking my feet are a really unusual shape so I’m very unlikely to find anything that fits with the current fashions so I should get used to a little bit of pain, or try to buy accessories to make them more comfortable. I start thinking that good shoes cost a lot so I should be prepared to pay more.

And this is like finding a boy. You start thinking you’re too picky and too specific in what you’re looking for. You start thinking that nobody is going to suit you perfectly. And you make more and more compromises on what you will put up with – what cost you will bear – in order to find a companion.

Sometimes, this isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes people are looking for the perfect man instead of the man who is perfect for them. Sometimes they are not prepared to pay the cost for happiness.

But be aware of these things in your dealings with both shoes and men. Decide whether your requirements are ridiculous. Realise that a ‘good fit’ is possible. And know what price you’ll pay and reassess it constantly in case it creeps up to a point you never wanted to approach.

Boys are like shoes. Good ones make you feel confident, comfortable and good-looking. Bad ones gives you blisters and regrets.