Imagine Knowing
week 1 of control
Today,
I know.
I’ve known since the 28th of January, 2019.
Seven years and 124 days.
I thought I wouldn’t sleep last night.
I knew I would.
I remember knowing I’d wake up.
I remember knowing I’d come here,
sit down,
and write this to you.
I know exactly what I’m about to say.
How the pen moves across the paper.
How I’ll eventually have to get up and go.
I’ve watched this happen.
Dreamt it.
And now it’s the day,
and here I am,
writing it exactly how I thought I would.
Every letter the same.
Every pop of the pen in place.
Even the sunlight coming through the window.
The smell of the old burnt candles in the room.
I’ve known it all before.
I even remember knowing it would feel like this.
I just wish I knew
what happens next.
Control
The coin slides into the vending machine. The claw grabs the teddy. The parcel arrives at the door. Small proofs that when I press a button, something happens. I collect them all day, like cookies for the voice that tells me the truth. The one that reminds me I have no idea what’s actually going on. And worse, that I can’t stop it.
The voice gets louder the more I listen. It’s been there since I was young, and it feeds. Over time I learned to train it. The cookies keep it tame, stop it looking around for fears to snack on. But it never goes. It just sits on my shoulder, leashed, placated by my small celebrations. And every now and again it gets hungry, and starts to make some noise.
We like to think of control as an absolute. That we can nullify the world’s chaos and manufacture certainty. That’s what we’re all after, isn’t it. Certainty. But it’s all just an elaborate game of chance. Risk is baked into the equation of living. And the more we live, the more there is.
We get good at the managing. We get smarter, more experienced. We learn which games we can win and which ones we shouldn’t play. Everything gets a little tidier and we start to believe we’re turning the tide of entropy. Until reality knocks us down. Time moves faster every year. Gravity takes us under. And eventually the soil removes us from the world.
Addicts
We’re all addicted to control. It’s the one thing everyone reaches for when they feel unsafe. Some of us just have politer habits than others.
I’ve had polite addictions, and some less polite ones too. I’ve also been close to people hooked on things I’d be too afraid to touch, who came back. Something about rolling the dice and surviving scars us all the same way. You get access to a little parcel of freedom that’s hard to come by otherwise. It costs you, but it’s real. Normally it arrives as a leash that lets you know exactly how close you can get to the edge without going over. And like all animals, we like to pull on the leash.
I’ve spent the last six months pulling on mine, playing with fire, telling myself I’m learning how far I can go before I have to come in. But even when I point myself somewhere steadier, the same delusion sits underneath. That I’m somehow safe from the fear in what I do for a living.
Sneeze
A sneeze.
Something I have no say in. I can’t even control the sound. I’ll probably do it again very shortly. And while it’s happening, I am not in control. An involuntary action that defines me as much as anything I choose otherwise. Right now, to anyone who wants to look, I am the sneezing man.
So how much do I actually choose? How much of me is something I have a say in, and how much is circumstance, or decisions made by the people around me, or by a version of me that wanted something else? How much have I just wanted for so long that I do it without knowing if it’s good for me, or whether what comes after is what I wanted at all?
If I’m to be free, and alive, how much of that has to be voluntary?
And how much can I train into the body, so it moves exactly how I want, and carries me where I want to go.
Even when I no longer want to go there.
I’m trying something new this week
Over the last few months I’ve been trying my hardest to leave the studio and go see other humans.
As those of you who have been following my work for a while will know, I quite like the solitude.
But this week I guess I’m doing the opposite.
Anyway,
Wish me luck
Love you loads,
R x