BREAKING THROUGH THE WALL OF THE STORY

We all have a story, of course we do. Some are good. Some are bad. Most are mixed. And if you’re an A Blocker, you’ll be stuck in yours.

One interesting element of having to talk to the media after the launch of F**k It was that I realized it was possible to tell your story in many different ways. As someone who doesn’t often look back or talk about myself, it was weird to be constantly asked about my story (yes, people always wanted to know what my F**k It story was). The thing is, they wanted to hear my story in just two minutes or 200 words, before going on to the next feature or article, to the next story. And the media, and for the large part, other people, aren’t interested in an ordinary story. They want sound bites, highlights, and newsworthy tidbits, stories condensed into headlines. And that’s not to criticize the media or other people. We live in a market of information, bombarded with thousands of bits of information (stories), and it’s only natural to want the most entertaining ones condensed into delicious, bite-size, memorable morsels.

So, I sliced up my past to see what made a nice story. I was the chronically sick man who said F**k It to fully healing and miraculously healed overnight.

True, but is it my whole story?

I was the man who hit a crisis in my life, physical and emotional, and ended up blubbing like a baby on a train, but realized in a flash of desperate realization that I no longer cared what anyone thought of me, and it changed my sense of self in relation to others forever.

True, but is it the whole story?

I was the son of Christian preacher parents, and I’d explored numerous Eastern spiritual traditions, and fused all the best stuff together into a philosophy based around the Western profanity F**k It.

True, but is it the whole story?

I was the advertising creative and writer who gave up a glamorous career to set up a retreat in Italy. And I was the owner of ‘Europe’s Best Retreat,’ who gave it up to do what I loved best – teaching F**k It through books, gigs, and occasional retreats (in other venues).

True. True. True. True.

So why doesn’t it feel like the whole story? Why doesn’t any of it feel like the real story? Because the real story – the real-time, evolving story called LIFE – is not like that, just as a game of football isn’t adequately represented by the 20 seconds of highlights on the sports slot of the late news program. The actual game might not be reflected in either the score or the highlights. One team might have dominated for most of the game – but not scored. The whole game could have been dominated by mediocre play, boring set moves, foul tactics, but the last five minutes saw two such beautiful goals from the most angelic, light-footed players that they will be replayed on TV screens, and iPads, and future pads into eternity. Did they represent the game? No, but they’re good to watch.

I am not my story. Even though, the more I’m asked about my story, and the more I have to try to keep it consistent (even if it’s boring for me sometimes), the more real it seems to become. I am not my story. And you are not your story. You are a living (usually – my readers do tend to be alive, although I heard recently from Gordon Smith, the medium and author, recently that I have quite a few fans in the spirit world, too), learning, changing, evolving, inconsistent, mixed-up, sometimes f**ked up human being.

Everything around us tends to demand that the story is consistent (just like the media wouldn’t like it if I chose a separate ‘slice’ of my life every time they interviewed me). We want to be consistent. We’re not like we were as kids, are we? We had no desire to be consistent then, or notion of what our character was, not when we were young kids anyway. But then people go and spoil it don’t they? They tell you what you’re like:

‘Oooh, you’re such a good boy/girl.’

‘You are kind, thank you for being so thoughtful.’

Or:

‘Do you have to be so selfish?’

‘Why can’t you just behave like everyone else?’

And you soon become the good, thoughtful boy/girl. Or the selfish, misbehaving freak boy/girl. What you actually are/were is a good/selfish/thoughtful/misbehaving/kind/freak/normal boy/girl.

We all are/were.

It’s only this daft idea that we should have a consistent, entertaining story. We probably go through a patch when we try to resist being typecast for life. It usually happens as teenagers. But it’s hard work. After a while most of us probably internalize the external desire for the consistent self, and settle into something okay, some median approximation of our many selves, like a tedious politician chosen to represent the many disparate elements of the constituency of Self.

Well, F**k It. If your story is one of your ‘Its,’ as it probably is, then F**k It.

Yes, you will always have a story. And sometimes you’ll enjoy telling it. You’ll even enjoy believing it. But don’t ever forget that it’s just a story. Don’t ever forget that you’re not your story. Story is ego. It’s okay, but it can be boring. Life is also ID. No, not the fashion magazine. Google It. Google them both, ‘ID magazine,’ and ‘ID Freud.’ ID is the F**k It State.

Hey – and don’t worry. You don’t have to try very hard with a lot of this. Let it in one ear, and even if some of it goes go straight out the other side, enough of it will settle in the bit in-between to make a difference. A permanent difference.

Now, have I told you that when I was a young man I was nominated for a special prize for the…

Crowd shouts: ‘Boring. Get off.’

And he got off. And all that was left on the stage was ID. No, not the magazine.Give in to creepdom

At the moment I am totally in love with the song ‘Creep’ by Radiohead, and I often play it in our groups. (If you don’t know it, we’ve put a link on our site so you can download it – www.thefuckitlife/extras.)

We all want to be ‘special’ (like the song says) in this wild world: we want to be perfect. But the reality is that we are incoherent; we are always less than we’d like to be; we don’t make sense and we can’t make sense of our lives; we can’t quite ever prove to ourselves that we are good enough.

You see, we are creeps and weirdos.

The moment we realize that, we can give up trying to be normal.

The sooner we stop wanting that flawless body and that immaculate soul, the sooner we start having fun.

The sooner we give in to our creepdom, the better. Because being a creep gives us all the freedom in the world to f**k up, get lost, look real, just be. And it’s sexier than you think (in that uncompromising way).