Events, exposures, springboards and opportunities unmistakably abound in life (as of course do obstructions, pitfalls, fences, corrals and signposts) . Life is a jumbled sea of bobbing, floating, alluring, incoherent, disengaging and passing moorings. At times the rope is virtually thrown to us from willing and eager hands stationed upon a steady and inviting pier. Sometimes the berth or lanyard is hidden from sight but resting just beneath the fog. The attraction can be no more than a whiff or skiff. Sometimes we either bravely or whimsically allow the incidents to evaporate or vanish from view. By comparison even in the context of outward disparity and misfortune, there are occasions when people claim to have attached themselves to meaningful adjustment. Yet while it is hoped that each of us has, when the moment presented itself, made the felicitous choice, there remains nonetheless an immutable and unforgiving recognition; namely, that – whatever the decision – we are ultimately aligned to it. It is (predominantly at least) a rigid conclusion: I am here.

I am speculating there are those who – upon examination – may have preferred an alternate outcome to what is now perceived to be an irreversible verdict. Speaking for myself however I quite smugly observe that I can’t imagine things any other way. This isn’t mere self-satisfaction; it is blunt (and, I like to think, logical) admission. Perhaps – one might suggest –  I unwittingly diminish my capacity to state that there neither was nor is any other way. Perhaps I arrogantly deceive myself to think that life could have been any other way, that instead I simply followed the trail of bread crumbs or did what I was directed or expected to do (howsoever speciously or subordinately to custom and tradition). But there were to my thinking moments in my history when the paths of choice diverted and presented foreseeably different encounters and outcomes. Knowing (or at the least, imagining) that this is so is naturally the source of a degree of complacency. It is notwithstanding a laxity to which I now adhere both philosophically and materially. And unrepentantly.

There can be little ambivalence about the decisions we make. Such muddle contributes only to inconclusiveness. My learning has been that people – even the most intelligent among us – are ultimately guided by inherent and inescapable yearnings, vulgar appetites or primary settlements.  Highly structured things like redress or ambition (contorted with almost metaphysical commercialism or materiality) seldom have any other than a distracting persuasive effect. One must therefore estrange oneself from the supporting argument of others (if such is the case, whether vocal or intimated). It is all too easy – especially when one is young – to adopt the thinking and manifestations of others (family, teachers, celebrities or what I believe today are called “influencers”). This I know is an isolating statement, as though it were to discredit good advice. In my opinion, the voice to which one must listen is one’s own. This is not a glamorous or particularly insightful view. In the end – apart from whatever currency a decision may have – its glossiness is destined to a calcified state wherein we must exist. If we have mistakenly compromised our instinct (one of the only reliable patterns of behaviour in my estimate in any living creature), we run the grave risk of contaminating all that follows.

It is inconceivable on retrospective study to determine what might have been had we done otherwise. And I say this not simply empirically. The infecting and insinuating traces of motivation do nothing but obscure the deeper roots of affection and thus restrict the flow. This so-called reality is not entirely daunting. While I am not so unrealistic to suppose complete reformation is possible, instead I find strength and nutrition in the acknowledgement (or resignation) of what is and the improvement of the way I adapt to or feel about it (theoretically – and unflatteringly – not far removed from one’s view of the weather). The test is always what is most providential at the moment. To argue otherwise is to expose oneself to a volume of irreconcilable contradiction. You may choose to elevate the choice far into the future (or the airy atmosphere of logic) but you will never eclipse the present. Accordingly the better resolve is to control yourself (as apparently you imagine you should have done in the first place) and re-think the parameters that border your sphere of activity, recalling always there are two ways to go down a river: either you know where to go or where not to go. The possibility remains that things may have been different, but I am inclined more favourably to digest what is. Optimism about living is a relieving tonic, make no mistake. The instant the persuasion is engaged, the vitality begins to erupt.

One final note, the realignment of life (if that is what one proposes) has nothing to do with the past. It has everything  – and only this – to do with changing how one approaches the present. The battle is within not without. It means naturally that one must discard certain preoccupations which, while dignified with histrionics, are long past a shelf life.