K is for Kindling

'If the world seems cold to you, kindle fires to warm it' (Lucy Larcom, American Poet, 1824-1893)


It is with a fair amount of certainty that I say life is hard work. The occurrence of recent events have made me call into question exactly what it is that makes life tick. I can't help but wonder...what is it that stops us falling into some sort of lull, some irreversible slumber, comatised to all that is around us. What is it that defines whether we are in fact living life to the full?

These latest ramblings are written en route to Paddington, in an overcrowded train compartment that holds with it that usual awkward, oh-so-British silence. I look around me and see every type of person imaginable; your high-flying businessmen whose work follows them everywhere they go, the mother and her young child, constantly teetering on the edge of a tantrum (and that's just the mother), the stereotypical teenage boy whose music is too loud and hair too long. I sit back and find myself wondering just what it is that sparks up their lives...that motivates them to get up every day.

As clichéd at this next thought may well be, I can't help but find some truth in it. This train, flying past a blur of fields, of houses, of lives. It has some resemblance to our own being. Doesn't it? There are times when you can fly from A to B with such ferocity that you have no awareness, no sense of times passing. You flit from place to place without any realisation. And then there are those other journeys. Those journeys you're not so keen on taking. Those journeys where the train stops, you hit a bump in the road, you're stranded. And all too soon you find yourself lost, catapulted into limbo. And you can't help but ask why.

I would like to think that my life has more similarities with the former situation. That I'm making the most of my life, that I count each and every day as a learning curve, a blessing. But is this really the case? I can't help but ask myself, are we living, or are we just...limboed? But then even if this is the case, there surely must be something to kick start our lives.

I know a large amount of us will admit, if we truly think about it, that all too often we allow ourselves to rely on someone or something to bolster up our lives. But I wonder...what if we started trusting ourselves? What if we permit ourselves that comfort, that responsibility to lead our own lives. What if, instead of handing our lives over, we started to kindle our own fire? After all...who can truly and utterly know you, but yourself?

8 letters, 3 words...

1 meaning.

As much as I should not be admitting that an oh-so-clichéd boyband has had some sort of input into my life and my thought processes, there are times when I can't help but think it's true.

Those 8 letters, those 3 words. It's surely come to a point where it's the make or break of someone, or rather, something. I often wonder how it is that the little sentence can bear so much weight. Does it really matter if someone tells you they love you? Are these not just words?

Love. That one word is thrown around perhaps more haphazardly than any other in the English language. I love that song. I love your dress. I love what you've done with your hair. Love has become so degraded that it is now considered socially acceptable to emblazon a chocolate heart with the declaration. I would need perhaps half a dozen hands if I were to count the amount of times I heard the big L word in one day. Yet more often than not, I would more than likely need one only to count those times that it was actually heart-felt.

I can't help but wonder, when a word has become, for want of a better phrase, so common, can it still remain the pivotal point of a relationship? And I'm not just talking about an intimate relationship; it's every kind. Mother and daughter, brother and sister, father and son. Can the word truly retain it's pure meaning? I often wonder how it is that so many people still rely so resolutely on those 3 words. How is it they can base an entire relationship on a sentence that someone has thrown at you, whether they mean it or not?

But then maybe I have become cynical. Maybe I have reached a stage where I need a bit of fantasy, a touch of make believe, injected back into my life. Maybe I have resorted to thinking like this because I haven't experienced it myself.

Love. It cannot just be a word. It can't just be those 4 letters that solve everything. Love is not about how it's said, or when it's said. It's not about a time or a place, or even a desire. It's about the proof. Oh it's true, 'I love you' has become the easiest thing in the world to state. But do we have the balls to back it up? Can we go through our life proving it? And can love, as they say, conquer all?

Upon reflection...

Isn't life is a fickle thing. It tests you. It upsets you. It all but causes emotional instability. It's that jar that try as you might, won't open for you, yet as soon as you pass it over, the lid practically leaps off. It's the one train you need to be on time, running late. It's cold when your craving heat, yet freezing when logic permits warmth.  It's that friend who you never really know is running along beside you..not until something major happens. It's that glorious thing we call hindsight.

Hindsight. What an amazing entity. With it, we feel the pain of all those wrong decisions, all those wistful moments. Yet without it...well, where would we be?

Count the times where you've looked back on your own life. You see that moment where you wish to high heaven that you'd acted differently, that you'd chosen the alternative route, that, even though you were convinced  things were perfect at the time, you had handled everything totally and utterly wrong.

Hindsight is just like Marmite. As cliched as it is, you can't help but either love it or hate it. As for me...I can't help but love it. How else would I ever learn?

J is for Jurisdiction...

 Jurisdiction:1. To Speak, Oath
                     2. The power, or right to interpret and apply the law
                     3. The power or right to exercise authority. 
                    4. To Control
                                                                                                                (The New American Dictionary)



The occurrence of certain events can do nothing but throw one's life into vast perspective. The somewhat student-esque notion of travelling the world, the plunge of a first job, a birth of a child, the end of a relationship. Each one of these holds with it the undeniable potential to change your life. And the more you think about it, the somewhat more intimidating it becomes. And there's no chance of ever avoiding these; our lives are constantly tumbling towards that pivotal moment, that unexpected shift. But however common, however impending these milestones are, I can't help but wonder if there isn't something deeper...

Jurisdiction. The word that is only ever heard in out-dated, crudely filmed crime dramas. But the more I look into this word, mostly unbeknownst to every day life, the more I see its injection into every day life.


Take a look at yourself. Analyse all those components of your life that hold some significant value, that impact you in some way. Be it your friends, your family, your hobby, your love..they will all hold some intrinsic, unexplainable control that try as you might, you cannot break.

And so it is that jurisdiction comes into your life. Jurisdiction; 'the power or right to exercise authority, to control'. All through our lives we try our hardest to defeat that overpowering sense of someone or something controlling you. We sense it, we deliberate it, and we ignore it. And I can't help but wonder...if we were just to accept that control is always going to be a part of our lives, that at every point, there will be someone or something that influences us, that motivates us, wouldn't it make life so much easier?

It's undeniably an interesting thought...

I feel it in my fingers..

It's amazing what an inkling can do to you. Sometimes you can just..feel it. You try and ignore it. You try and convince yourself that it is most definitely not the right thing to be doing and you should most definitely not be thinking about it.

But sometimes...just sometimes...you have to go with the feeling. No matter what the situation, no matter what the timing, no matter who it involves...you have to take that one and only time to be completely and utterly selfish.

That feeling you get in your stomach..the one that goes right through to the very tips of your fingers..it's like a thirst that has to be quenched. If it's not, it will just intensify until it utterly consumes you. Sometimes, there is nothing stopping you succumbing to your gut instinct and, as they say, going with the flow. But then there are other times when that ultimate fear of change builds up, entirely encasing you, grounding you to the spot.

But for me, it's these feelings and these times that propel you the most. It's these feelings that can be compacted tight inside you, feeding your strength and your willpower.

I am the first to admit that it is hard to act upon your gut instinct. After all, it's in our human nature not to trust ourselves. But one thing that I've learnt over the past however many years..is that sometimes the hardest things to do of all, are the easiest things to succeed at.

It's times like these....

...you just have to stop and try and take it all in.

Isn't life bizarre? For years you can be following a path, a religious stickler for pattern and routine, placing complete faith upon a whim. And you awake one day and find that your path, your trusty advisor is leading you in utterly the wrong direction. You have no choice but to step back; confusions sets in, resentment starts to grow, doubts start to build. You find yourself at a loose end; the lights have well and truly blacked out. With the end of the path comes the end of security. The end of certainty. And you wonder what on earth you can do about it.

But then you realise....maybe you can look for another path. Surely a person can't have just one route, one destination? Surely life can't work like that. Can it? Granted, luck is a huge factor in discovering something new, as is self-confidence. And unfortunately, some people are naturally blessed with ample of both. That is something that we just have to accept, or else we will find ourselves at a constant battle with the yearning and contempt that coincides, hand in hand with life.


Maybe this is all by-the-by. Maybe we don't need a path after all. Or if this isn't the case, maybe we can just....set our own. We are not all builders, we are not all developers. But we are all living. We are all in the here and now. Surely that's the best path of all. How wrong can it go when we've got the reigns? Setting our own path is better than nothing, right?

I is for Inevitability

'We cannot change our past or the inevitable. Life is 10% what happens and 90% how we react to it. And so it is; we are in charge of our attitudes'


It is impossible to go through this wonderful commodity we call life without, at some point, facing up to the inevitable. Let's be honest; most of us can't even make it through a day.

Every area we turn to we are confronted, face to face, with the mysteries of life. The fact that they span through so many domains is nothing short of astonishing; it is inevitable that on the day of the big interview you have anticipated for months, you will oversleep. You host a dinner party; it is positively inevitable that the pie will burn or the soufflé will sink. Inevitability; also known as sods law.

How is it that we can learn to face what is certain to happen? Especially when we know in ourselves that we are not going to like what we see? It's like being confronted with a blazing fire, and willingly walking into it. Maybe that's just part of us though; other creatures adapt by evolution, changing their ways, their colours. Is it then that our evolution is learning to cope, to take things in our stride?

But then who's to say that the inevitable is, ultimately, a negative thing? Could it be that there's something bigger, something more than we're aware of, guiding us through? Is that the definition of inevitability? I have often wondered whether we're not just ambling along a path already laid out for us. That even if we stray away, as we are oh-so-bound to do, the consequences of our actions will ultimately allow us to return. I have to admit, I can't help but see some truth in this.

I can't help but question; how can everything we do, every decision we make, purely be by chance? Surely if this were the case, we'd all just be constantly running round in circle, utterly blind to all in-front. Rather like a dog chasing its tail. And surely, if this were the case, we'd all end up exactly in the wrong place at exactly the wrong time.

I can't help but come to the conclusion, that if it weren't for the inevitable...well, life would be miserable. Wouldn't it?