How I'm going to change the world.
(Or give it my best shot, anyway…)
Right, OK. Here it goes. My first post.
And I’ll say upfront – I believe it’s the ‘done’ thing nowadays – that this is not AI. In the words of Marks and Spencer, this is 100%, pure grade, original-thinking, artisan, human speak. (It could also be solid gold shit, but I’ll let you judge that for yourself. Anyway, the point is, I wrote it).
I’ll try not to waffle but, honestly, the world has been seeking to tackle my joy of fluff since I started to write and I’m starting to think that brevity isn’t such a good thing after all.
I mean, what purpose does brevity serve, really? Sure, it increases the efficiency of the delivery of information being conveyed. You spend less time reading, meaning you can move onto the next thing, meaning more time doing, meaning greater productivity. And the cogs keeps turning.
Write less, be quicker, do more.
But what if that just… isn’t the point?
What if we’re hardwired for waffle? For tangents? For storytelling, as it were.
What if the waffle is the bit about us that makes us human? The literary equivalent of social grooming, of gossiping. Of sitting round the fire, sandwiched between family members and listening as Uncle Homer waxes lyrical about the great heroes of our time?
What if we don’t want to be productivity and efficiency machines and want to be just a bit more, well, human? A bit more connected, a bit more emotional, a bit more imperfect, and a bit truer to who we are and what we evolved to be? I think I’d like that.
(Do you see what I’ve done here? Yes, that’s right, I’ve turned self-deprecation about waffling into a segway about the point of this Substack and my aims as an artist.
Yes, I suppose it is a bit of a shoehorn, but you didn’t realise I was doing it, did you? The audacity in these sweet cheeks. Woo! Can you feel the rush?
…I digress.
…I’m sorry, where were we?)
Being human.
A human being.
It’s something I’m exploring as an artist. Well, less exploring, more doing.
Let’s rewind to 2024, a particularly shitty year for me (we’ll park that story for another time…), but I found, as the world got increasingly sadder, more disconnected, lonelier, obsessed with output, productivity and efficiency, I too was also becoming sadder, disconnected, lonely. Shrunken and small, racing to keep up, putting the efficiency mask on every morning, managing budgets and saying things like ‘return on investment’, ‘non-billable hours’, and ‘market impact’ (dis-gus-ten’). Sure, I was using psychology and behavioural science, my first loves. I was changing the world, probably, maybe (definitely not). Sure, I was earning good money too.
I was living the dream, right? Wrong.
I was deeply miserable and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why (minus the objectively shitty bits of 2024, but, as I said, we’re parking that). I’d fallen for the great deception of a modern, capitalist society. That I could have it all if only I followed the factory mould and made myself into a tiny, little productivity and efficiency island.
And after 10 years of corporate life, it broke me.
So, I quit. One day, I strapped a metaphorical parachute to my back, pulled the metaphorical exit chord and threw myself off the metaphorical cliff. Never to be seen again. At least that’s what it felt like.
And I fell from that cliff for a very long time (I’m still falling now, if I’m honest, although the parachute is now firmly deployed). A total free fall for a year, in fact. It was dark, it was lonely, and I spent most of my savings (a good chunk on therapy, would you believe). I don’t think I’ve ever felt so lost.
The internet (my necessary nemesis) would have you think that quitting the corporate world and stepping off the beaten path is like opening a window with a cool breeze, that it’s easy and your life will become miraculously better overnight. Well, strap in, buddy, because I’m here to tell you that it’s not. It’s an ego death that will take pretty much everything from you, your sense of self, your achievements, your understanding of success. To put it mildly, it was fucking horrible. I had no sense of direction and felt like a failure most days. For, who was I if I wasn’t working for ‘the man’, hitting external markers, being a respectable member of society? I felt like nothing.
But, even with all that, I wouldn’t change it for the world. I’d do it again, in fact. For you see, it’s not the act of leaving that makes it so hard. That bit was surprisingly easy. It’s the unlearning. It’s the brokenness of the system you’ve left that makes it so utterly devastating. Like rotting food in a broken fridge (forgive the gross metaphor), you have to scoop out all you’ve learnt, all that you were taught about what you should do, and just, put it in the bin. Let it go. Let the expectations you had for yourself go (because, really, they were never yours to begin with). Accept that people will think you’ve lost it. Accept the judgement that comes from not doing what everyone else around you thinks is the sensible thing to do (people won’t openly judge you, but there’s a look and usually a comment of ‘Oh, that’s very brave.’ IYKYK). You have to accept that, forevermore, you will be out of step with the friends that you made while pursuing that life (the friendships will absolutely survive, trust me, you’re just the slightly [very] weird, maverick friend now). You have to recalibrate every marker you had of what it is to be a successful adult in society.
And you have to let it get really quiet. Silent, even. You have to let your inner critic shout at you, shout at the world, get angry. You have to let it panic and scream and writhe. And it will say some pretty horrible things. Oh boy, oh boy.
And then you have to open your ears and listen some more. And, hopefully, your gut will start talking to you again. And you’ll start to trust it. To follow it.
And once you start to do that? Baby, it all opens up.
For me, it was sitting at my desk, painting, when, like a bolt of lightning from the sky, I realised that I could be an artist. Like, I could just do it? Not that I wanted to be an artist, I’d always known that, ever since I was 4. But that I could be an artist. I was allowed to be an artist. And a writer, if I wanted. That I didn’t have to do things for the sake of appearing successful, or productive, or efficient. I could just decide to be an artist and then work to make it happen. Simple as that. Why I had I been waiting for permission?
It was also the realisation that my interest, nay, obsession, with human behaviour and psychology was, when you boiled it down, simply a complete fascination with being human and understanding what that meant. I didn’t have to intellectualise it, attach grades to it, I could just love it for what it was.
And it was the further, darker realisation that increasing rates of depression and anxiety, of fascism and violence towards women, weren’t the cause of a problem or the problem in themselves, but the symptoms of an unwell society hellbent on replacing people with technology in the name of profit, technology that was isolating people who had previously lived in, and need, community (also in the name of profit).
And it was the final realisation that, in some small way, making art and helping people remember what it is to be human, what it really means, deep down, before technology and social media, the evolved, messy neolithic bit, could help solve that problem.
(Call me delusional, I’m fine with that, I relish it, but don’t call me wrong. I have the studies and the facts to prove it, and I’ll share them in good time through this Substack.)
Creativity is fundamentally, universally human.
I think it’s what human beings are uniquely evolved for. That, and connection. And I think we’ve forgotten that. No, we’ve been made to ignore it. To consume in a bubble that’s designed to pit us against each other over status and wealth.
And I’m sick of it, I’ve been sick by it, and now I want to do something about it.
And, yes, even if that means I’m penniless, and even if it takes a lifetime.
Because remembering what it is to be human, to start noticing what it is to be human, the little things that make me feel alive, the small moments between people, and to prioritise that over all else, has genuinely saved my life. It’s improved my health, my sanity, my relationships. True, I have a lot less money, but - MY GOD - am I rich in all the ways that actually matter.
And that’s what I want to bring in my art. To create moments and evoke memories of what it feels like to be a real, human person on this planet. To let people be seen for who they fundamentally are, really seen, witnessed and felt, and to feel connected to the great swath of humanity.
It’s a grandiose aim when you put it like that, I’ll admit, but what artistic pursuit isn’t, at the heart of it, trying to capture what it feels like to be a person. From the first handprint cave paintings to Dolly Parton’s great litany of songs, the art that moves us most captures something previously undefined about being a person on this planet, and it makes us feel so completely, wonderfully human in the process.
So, that’s what I’m aiming to do with my art. I hope one day I achieve it. I’ll keep trying until I do. And I’d really love to have you along for the ride.
To my big plan, my commitment. I’ll keep making art, developing my creative voice, pushing my exploration of what it is to be human and how I can convey that to a painting. And I’ll keep writing too, committing my thoughts to this page, maybe some poetry too, to make sense of what’s coming through in my work, to allow myself to expand on it, and to forge my campaign on what it is to be a human.
Today begins my crusade for the glorious, messy human condition, my pursuit for the great remembering of humanness, and my fight against the dark forces of Musk and Zuckerberg. It’s going to be beautiful, emotional, heartbreaking and, distinctly, well, human.
