Dear all,
To give this blog post its full title, "I used to TFI Friday but not anymore - or - How long writing takes & watching other’s progress…"
I wasn’t planning on this blog
post but I had a very mixed week so I felt like quickly posting, please excuse
the lack of editing or re-reading.
It started off last Friday
night. For those circa my age and above (35) and who grew up in the UK you
probably very well remember TFI Friday (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TFI_Friday) the madcap weekly program dedicated to
all that seemed good in the world back then (aged 15+ anyway… and the sort of
15+ that would immediately go out to the pub afterwards without the need for
I.D, THAT was the 90s I remember) and I don’t know many people who didn’t love
it. It was the start of the weekend and that sounds so terribly clichéd but
it’s true.
There was a sense of
excitement about what would happen as for a long period it was live (swearing
put a stop to that), had great guests and bizarre and outrageous stunts and
events. Now, you can’t look back with rose tinted glassed too much as I’m sure
there was the occasional stinker of a show, I’m not going to pretend everything
in life was so magically fantastic and amazing but the essence of what it was
to be excited by the future is something I can clearly remember, it was a
physical reaction to what was going on in society and what may happen once you got out there in the midst of it. The
truth is, it was a very lively, energetic, free spirited time with a lot of political and social change... but I was also
a teenager becoming an adult and that contributes to those feeling anyway.
Can you believe I got served? Okay, you got me, the moustache is a fake...
Last day of school which is the same year as TFI Friday first aired, 1996.
Every teenager (in the main)
looks back on the crazy times of their youth with fondness (and maybe relief that it's over and you got away with it all) yet I do feel particularly
fortunate to have been in my teens in the 90s and whether it is unfounded bias or not, I
wouldn’t swap for any other time... than perhaps the 60s. There are far too many
reasons to explain this here but what I want to express is the position I find
myself in now, aged 35, watching TFI Friday and realising that what I want to do with my life is still
inextricably linked to my teenage years and the understanding that I haven't really got anywhere.
The crux of it is that twenty
years later I look back at that show with all the wonderful talent that worked or appeared on
it and realise how incredibly young most of those people were. Not just Chris
Evans, but the bands, the guests, the crowd and so on. They had all been successful in their fields and were making names for themselves in their early 20s
and 30s. It seems silly to think of this now but at school I remember clearly
thinking how simple life seemed to be. You finish school, you get a good job, you get all the things you want and by the time you reach 30 it's all wrapped up and under control. It was so naive I’m ashamed to admit
I thought that way but it’s how I felt, if you wanted to act, you became an
actor, if you want to sing, you became a singer… and so on. There was no understanding
of what it took to get there at all. There was no understanding of what money
really meant, what ‘living costs’ were and how difficult it would be just to get by. At
35 you bet I understand those things now!
That’s the problem with
thinking about being young, you think of all the hopes you had because for the
most part you still have them. It’s difficult to accept growing older for most
people but in the main we get on with it, we make jokes about it, we recall old
times and laugh about the situations we found ourselves in, but with an
acknowledgement that our bodies and minds have changed, we have different
responsibilities and a different outlook on life and again for the most part we find acceptance and relative happiness in our place in life.
However, for me personally,
there have been a few upheavals along the way and if I am honest it is hard to think
of myself in one particular stage in my life. I feel very lost and
disjointed from those around me and from the ordinary expectations of society.
It feels as though I should be something, but I’m not sure what, and when I was watching
TFI Friday, beer in hand (that wasn't the case in '96!) I found myself getting quite upset at times because it dawned on me
that I should be enjoying my life as much now as I was then; not in the same
way of course, I’m not for a second trying to convince myself of acting like a
seventeen year old don’t worry, but in the sense that I should be in a place in
my life where I find excitement and fulfilment in new ways, and the fact
is, I don’t. However, there is a contradiction which I will explain in a second.
When I went through a depressed period three or so years ago, which I am still
dealing with today but on a greatly reduced scale, I quit my job, used up all
my savings to live abroad for a year, and had a lot of time to think about my future. I came back home and felt a lot better and a lot more sympathetic to my emotions (that probably doesn't make sense) and that is where the contradiction really hit me and why I am now struggling to cope with that contradiction but in a positive and constructive way, not in a depressed way. It is not something I see as a problem, but rather the route to the success I want in my life.
The contradiction is this. I have always been interested in contemporary affairs and
examining how people cope in their surroundings .. everyday lives and dramas, you could say. And I realise now that everything I have gone
through or everything I have missed out on for whatever reason, if looked at from a positive perspective, can help me
in my ‘artistic’ mission to describe this. I want to write about normal people
and what they go through and the melancholy that goes with examining sadness
and disappointment and unfulfilled expectations and unrewarding adult lives is
pretty much what I enjoy detailing. So the problem is, I am living an unhappy unfulfilled
life, yet somehow this is helping me work towards my goals. Don't for one second think I am asking you to get the violins out for me, it is hard to describe negative feelings without giving the impression you are feeling sorry for yourself or seeking attention and comfort and someone to give you answers and tell you 'it will all be okay'; I promise you that is not what I am doing. I am extremely lucky in general, I have no serious problems in life at all compared to the vast majority of the world's population! So, take this as simply an introspective examination of my feelings based on a shock at realising how quickly twenty years have passed, that's all.
The further issue is that I do feel like I am an adult who can reason and contemplate (there are times when depression can make you low and at those times it is incredibly difficult to view things objectively and with optimism but for the most part) and work through the issues I have in a calm manner. I feel I understand myself fairly well and have separated the things that are important to me and the things I used to think were important but no longer are. I don’t feel trapped by society or by external pressures at all. I probably feel freer and more liberated than ever before but that does not equal happiness. I am also wise enough to understand that the goals I have set myself and the hopes I have for the future may not bring about happiness in their own right either, if I had told myself that 20 years ago while watching Sleeper play over the credits of TFI Friday I don’t think I would have understood that, my perception was very much good job = money, money = house & girlfriend, house & girlfriend = being an adult, being and adult = happiness and contentment. That was my teenage reasoning, not my adult reasoning and it's very comforting to realise that the goal is happiness in itself. The old Emerson quote, ‘Life is a journey, not a destination.’ rings very true.
The further issue is that I do feel like I am an adult who can reason and contemplate (there are times when depression can make you low and at those times it is incredibly difficult to view things objectively and with optimism but for the most part) and work through the issues I have in a calm manner. I feel I understand myself fairly well and have separated the things that are important to me and the things I used to think were important but no longer are. I don’t feel trapped by society or by external pressures at all. I probably feel freer and more liberated than ever before but that does not equal happiness. I am also wise enough to understand that the goals I have set myself and the hopes I have for the future may not bring about happiness in their own right either, if I had told myself that 20 years ago while watching Sleeper play over the credits of TFI Friday I don’t think I would have understood that, my perception was very much good job = money, money = house & girlfriend, house & girlfriend = being an adult, being and adult = happiness and contentment. That was my teenage reasoning, not my adult reasoning and it's very comforting to realise that the goal is happiness in itself. The old Emerson quote, ‘Life is a journey, not a destination.’ rings very true.
Taken just before GCSE's. A few of us came in to school on a Saturday
to finish our design & technology projects... not sure how much work was done.
I can see I may have convinced a barman or two I was a couple of years older.
I do not have any of the
things I thought I would have when I was fifteen years old. Perhaps it is not
just that I thought I would have them, I probably expected them, probably
assumed they would simply be there. Yet I do have a more resolved expectation
of what I want my life to mean than I did then. My sense of expectation in
fulfilling my potential is entirely marked by what I will achieve internally,
the emotional fulfilment of what I want my life to have achieved rather than
any external symbol of success that I thought was typified in the glorious
antics of TFI Friday. However, there is one serious issue that I still have not
come to terms with and is probably the reason why I was upset watching the
programme (again, don't worry, I was in stitches at parts too…) and
that is, I know myself better now and I know myself as an adult, but I do not want
to lose that sense of carefree wonder at the craziness of life, the sense of
being unchained, the sense of embracing every single moment and squeezing as
much fun into it as you can, that you have as a teenager… I feel the balance of those feelings swing to
extremes all the time and as much as I understand how much hard work I
have ahead of me and the discipline and the rigidity that requires, I would
like to be happy again and laugh with that sense of abandonment that is
difficult to come by these days. That's the contradiction of getting older, how to balance out those feelings and for me, how do I translate it into words - characters, events, plots - in my stories that will do justice to my emotions. Can I accurately produce works that highlight this journey? That's going to be my workload for the rest of my life I think.
Then the second shock of the week. This
may have happened to you as I bet it is very common now with the necessity of
social media. Out of the damn blue I had a LinkedIn connection request come
through on email from someone I had not heard from in three years. I won’t tell
you about the person but it coincides with the TFI Friday issue. At first I was
in shock, then I was upset, then I was angry and then I was upset again. Aside from my issues with the person it made me think... what if they had asked me what I had been doing for the last three years? What could I say? Three years is a long time really, a person can do a lot. It was upsetting for me to question my position in life as in all honesty, I couldn't say I've done much. A lot of people I know would argue with me on that, they would say I started my company Thinking Plainly Limited three years ago and look at what I have achieved with it... and I think that is where the niggle is, the word 'achieve'. It feels to me like I may have done a lot of ground work (yes, that is essential I know) but that doesn't necessarily correlate to any real achievements. The same question if extended to my TFI Friday watching days would result in me having to say the same thing. If my sixteen year old self came up to me in the street and asked me what to expect over the next 20 years would I be happy with what I tell them? I'm not so sure. I have led an interesting and eventful adult life but what have I got to show for it? I have just as much to my name now as I did when I was 16 and that's not the nicest of thoughts, but that's why you must judge yourself against yourself and not against others. I am happy that I have got a very good idea of what I want from life and I still have ambition to
That’s why I titled this blog
post, “I used to Thank F**K It’s Friday” because as much as I love what that
meant for me, time is going too quickly and I have so much yet to do. I don’t
want Friday’s to come around because I haven’t done enough during the Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday! Give me more time! Friday night used to be the time when you felt released and free to get on with your life and be who you actually are, you would escape from your uniform, your studies, your scheduled-for-you life and go out and have fun... but now?
In another twenty years I want to look back at the 90s as a wonderful time but knowing I am still having a wonderful time, and that means a lot of hard work ahead of me. So for me, the phrase TFI Friday is staying in the 90s, it is just the title of a t.v programme, not a feeling I want to have. I know how long writing takes me, I know what I need to do to improve, I know the hard work involved. I have fully accepted that and I measure my future in a very different way now, when I think about writing a book I confront the reality of this taking up years. The arbitrary targets I once set myself have no place in my life anymore, I mark my progress in life differently and for damn sure I know to only mark myself against myself! Have I worked as hard as I should have today?
In another twenty years I want to look back at the 90s as a wonderful time but knowing I am still having a wonderful time, and that means a lot of hard work ahead of me. So for me, the phrase TFI Friday is staying in the 90s, it is just the title of a t.v programme, not a feeling I want to have. I know how long writing takes me, I know what I need to do to improve, I know the hard work involved. I have fully accepted that and I measure my future in a very different way now, when I think about writing a book I confront the reality of this taking up years. The arbitrary targets I once set myself have no place in my life anymore, I mark my progress in life differently and for damn sure I know to only mark myself against myself! Have I worked as hard as I should have today?
Final photo of me at 16. This was the night our school year received
our GCSE certificates. We all went for a curry afterwards, which is how
a lot of nights still end today :) Those who watch my YouTube channel (you
can subscribe by pressing the red button on the top right of this page may recognise
the face behind me... he'll kill me for posting this.
I wrote this out in one
morning and I have only re-read it once so I hope it hasn't come across too miserable, it was just a reflection
of two incidents that made me realise I need to really push harder with my
work. Writing, or any artist endeavour, is about creating something you are proud of and you think is meaningful... that is what is important to me and I wish that when I was 16 I had more of that insight rather than worrying so much about my position in society and setting milestones and reminding myself at every birthday how far away I am from being
I guess I could have saved you a lot of time and just condensed this whole blog post into the words, “My 30s can
go to hell!”
Just kidding :)
RGR
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