Tuesday 5th October 2021

I received an email from a friend the other day. I had written to them because I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with adult life and I knew that they would be able to come up with some grand piece of writing that would make it all seem ok. It seems so pathetic when you consider the wider problems we face as a society and a country, but sometimes I am too quick to give up and think what’s the point, and it’s very easy to spiral into a depressive state once you’ve allowed yourself to forget or ignore what it is that keeps you going. Anyway, my friend was able to give me the jolt I needed to snap back into a positive mindset, and I quote an extract of their email which particularly struck a chord with me – “What we do here is so against the idea that you have to use free-time to be ‘productive’, that each moment of your day needs to be spent achieving something that can be understood as some commodity; as some physical, real, actual object that represents worth”. 

They’re right, aren’t they? It is drilled into us so incessantly that we must use our time to be as productive and profitable as possible that we are quick to forget that there is much, much more to life than the value that you or someone else is able to extract from your labour. I mean, the fact that we tend to consider our time outside of work as “free time” shows just how the notion of productivity has managed to entwine itself into every aspect of our lives, to the point where we don’t consider the time we spend at work to be our own time, merely the property of whomever it is we’re lucky enough to be employed by. 

I am almost definitely digressing by this point, and I just chucked to myself imagining what 17 year old ultra-Tory Harry would say to the bile I am spewing, but I believe my point is a valid one. Since becoming employed full time I feel a distinct lack of control, as if my life is no longer my own and I exist merely to go to work, and my friend was generous enough to remind me that, regardless of whether you consider modern capitalism to be liberating or incarcerating, you must focus on what you can get out of life, and this is something I can get, I can write and express myself and put my thoughts out there to everybody or nobody, to the entire world wide web or to one friend in an email, and that’s something that I can achieve that cannot be understood as a commodity or as some physical, real, actual object that represents worth, but it is something that represents worth to me, and that is what matters, that is what will get me through, that is what will keep me going and make me want to wake up tomorrow morning. 

Sunday 10th October 2021

I tell you what, I don’t half talk some shit sometimes. Anyway, what a beautiful morning. A tad too beautiful for October, which is slightly worrying, but beautiful nonetheless. I haven’t been out drinking this weekend so I am feeling unusually fresh and, thanks to the twenty one hours of sleep I’ve had over the past two nights , wonderfully well rested. It turns out that getting up at half past five throughout the week eventually takes its toll. This is the first weekend I’ve had in a long time where I’ve had literally no plans and I am really enjoying it. As much as I love going out with my friends and living the high life, it can sometimes feel as though I never really get a break, what with working all week and then being out all weekend, so it’s nice to just do nothing for a change. I realise this all probably sounds a bit first world problems and I can only apologise, but it’s not my fault I lead such a fun and fulfilling life. 

Obviously I haven’t been doing literally nothing, I’ve just been bitting and bobbing, like any normal twenty two year old does. On Friday evening Hayley and I finally got around to watching Rocketman, which we both found to be a very good film. Unsurprisingly, I have been listening to the “This is Elton John” playlist on Spotify on repeat almost constantly since the film finished. Yesterday morning I cycled seventeen miles and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was my first ride in over two months so I expected it to be a tough one but I actually managed it with relative ease and even beat my average speed, so perhaps I am just unaware of my own phenomenal strength and physicality. It’s harder to find the time to cycle in the winter as the nights draw in and the temperature drops, but yesterday reminded me that I simply must find the time regardless of the circumstances, as it’s hard to overstate the good it does for both my physical and mental health, as I’ve written about countless times before. 

Hayley and I popped into Derby for a few bits yesterday afternoon. I filled up with fuel at Costco, got my headlights replaced at Halfords and picked up a few basics from home bargains and bodycare. As we were walking back to the car we passed a Ladbrokes and, almost instinctively, we turned to face one another and simultaneously announced “it’d be rude not to”. Whenever I spend time with Hayley like this, I am often reminded that I am very much my mother’s son. We managed to spend an hour and a half in there – Hayley loves to sit and play bingo, and it just so happened to be the time of afternoon for the main races of the day at Newmarket and York, so I was happy to fund her bingo for a bit whilst I had a dabble on the ponies. There was a young lad serving us behind the counter and Mum quickly felt the need to inform me that “he likes you” as she sat playing Icy Wilds on the gaming machines. Once we’d left, miraculously managing to walk out having broken even after a last minute stroke of luck on the roulette, I asked her to elaborate on what she meant. “When you changed your pin on your loyalty card, he told you that you could choose any pin you wanted, even 6969. I doubt he’d have said that to someone like me, would he?”. Flawless logic, in fairness to her, and I immediately regretted not leaving him my number. 

I don’t have much planned for today. I need to sort my picture wall out as they all keep falling down (again), I have an email from my aforementioned friend to reply to, Deville has sent me her personal statement to read over (apparently having a blog qualifies me to provide services like that), and I’m squeezing in a round of eighteen at Branston with Harry this afternoon (obviously). Despite my rant earlier in the week, I am slowly coming to terms with full time life and regaining the lust for life I felt so fervently over the past few years. Ultimately, you just have to get on with it and I find myself thinking, it can’t really be that bad, can it, if I manage to do absolutely fuck all for the entire week and still make a blog out of it somehow. 

God bless our capitalist overlords. Hope you’re all well.