Anxiety’s horrible. Bit of an obvious statement, I know, but it’s one that keeps coming back to me. I could go on about the pressures of modern life and our unrelenting spiral towards our collective doom, but I’m far too tired for that. I’m far too tired for all of it. I’m stuck inside my own head far too often, mostly because I erroneously come to the conclusion that external forces beyond my control are keeping me there. I keep thinking the iron bars around my brain are guarded by work, society and subscription services. But they’re not. I put the bars there, and now I’m on the inside and can’t reach the bit where the keyhole is to unlock them. Oh, also I didn’t put on a door with a keyhole anyway.
I occasionally get the feeling that I could, nay, I should just run away and start again somewhere else. Blank slate, fresh start, no commitments, chill out a bit. Then I realise how ludicrously impossible that is. Then I chastise myself for thinking something is impossible and scream internally inside my brain cell. That’s not a single brain cell, by the way, I mean the prison cell my brain is in, but it’s nice when you stumble across an accidental bit of word play. Ha. “Brain cell”. Genius. I’ll keep that one for another day. But it’s things like that the lead me to another existential problem.
Does all of my best word-making just happen by accident?
Okay, I haven’t even planned this. In fact, twenty minutes ago I was still grasping at potential topics for anything to write about, purely out of self-inflicted pressure that my own self-imposed deadline is looming. But already I’ve managed to ask myself an unanswerable question that could easily become a essay-length ramble. The problem is I’m not sure I want to explore the answer to that question because, if everything I’m writing just happens by accident then I’m not a very good writer, really.
Writers plan meticulously. Writers draft, redraft, scribble out, through away, reclaim and redraft again. Writers struggle to create something good. Whereas I just have a conversation with a screen. Sometimes what I come out with works fairly well, and other times it’s pure shite. And when you actually have a career that involves a good deal of writing (or in my case, conversing with a screen), that’s not a thought you want to be dealing with. That just creates self-doubt, and that just clogs up the internal prison. Forget prison overcrowding, try living inside my head. Actually, don’t. It’s already bad enough without trying to squeeze another person in here.
So maybe I won’t explore the idea that I may simply just be an accidental writer. That wouldn’t be good for me. If I was to conclude that I am really just a fraud, that would be difficult to come back from. If I’m a fraud who’s such a lost cause that he believes he’s actually good enough and is too stupid to realise he’s a fraud, that just makes me an idiot. And if I conclude that I’m not actually supposed to be writing at all, I’m a bit screwed because I’ve come so far down this path that jumping away from it would leave me lost without another avenue to go down.
I have to conclude that, no matter what I am, I’m kind of stuck with it. Making a change now seems nothing short of impossible, even though nothing’s impossible and, once again, I should tell myself off for thinking things are impossible, trapped inside my little brain cell. But even if I did stray from the path of a writer; even if I did run away and start again, free of the non-existent restraints that seem committed to holding me back; what else would I do?
If you enjoyed this existential crisis, stay tuned for another total and utter breakdown that’s sure to be imminent very soon.
How about a slice of pixelated Danish folksy chanting? Well, it’s not exactly folk, or chanting, but it’s dreamy and hypnotic and easy to relax to. Apparently this lady is also Danish, which makes her the best thing to come out of Denmark since cinnamon-swirled pastries and the pop styling so of Aqua.
But Barbie Girl this ain’t. No sir. For one thing, there’s a cello in there. And a voice which I’m not sure is a guest vocalist or Agnes herself communicating through a dude-like whale-song voice mangler. It’s one of the great mysteries of life, up there with the existence of aliens and why people like peas. Like all of life’s great mysteries, they can be pondered whilst listening to something like this. Go ahead. Ponder.
Agnes Obel – Familiar
Jamie Walsh 
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