(10 minute read)
It has taken me an inordinate amount of time to get my Kapasun website updated. Some of this was simply down to me: contemplating about exactly how I wanted it to look, writing the content, scheduling a (mildly uncomfortable) photo shoot, conflicting priorities and, being frank, loitering a little too waywardly down Procrastination Street. However, some of the delay was, in all honesty, due to circumstance and consequently beyond my control.
Additionally, I always had the intention of writing a ‘blog’, although I must confess that I greatly dislike the word as it sounds like the noise expelled by an unpleasant bodily function. I am conscious that there are a lot of ‘preachy’ blogs out there; advising/prescribing/ demanding (*delete as applicable) you to lead a better, healthier and/or richer life. This was never the path I wanted to travel.
I decided to call these writings, “Wonderfuel”, because I see them more as discussion papers for me to share some thoughts and for you to… well, wonder about the issues presented. What you then do with those reflections is purely down to you. I’ll gladly launch the stone into the pond but the ripples will go where they may.
This first entry is entitled, “Evolution”, as I’ve recently been deliberating on life (shocker!) and what in it is indisputable. May it, ahem, fuel your wonder.
“In reference to the (then) newly ratified Constitution of the United States, polymath Benjamin Franklin (1705-1790), famously suggested that “Nothing is certain except death and taxes”. That said, the McKinsey Health Institute reports that global healthcare spending is often over (or about) $8 trillion each year; the momentum for such coming from our unerring endeavours towards identifying means to extend our lives and cheat the very death that Franklin stated was unavoidable. Maybe one day an elixir will be discovered, or engineered in some secret Marvel-esque laboratory, that finally provides us (but more likely only those of us with the deepest of pockets) a revelatory route to eternal life. But, until that fateful day, I think we can all agree on at least one part of Franklin’s idiom.
And then there are taxes! Back in Ben’s day, the amount of money collected by the British Parliament, from various taxes, was around £2 million, a small sum by today’s standard. But the scale of public spending was far narrower than it is now. A simple Google search reveals that central government’s own current expenditure on services rose to £784.1 billion in 2022-23, with capital expenditure on services at £85.2 billion. Consequently, I think it is also safe to say that we are unlikely to be liberated from the stronghold of taxes any time soon… unless, that is, you have Jimmy Carr’s accountant on speed dial!
Yet, as much as we can uniformly agree on Franklin’s two definites, I would like to offer a third example of something that I believe to be a certainty, and that is… “change”.
I’ve always considered myself an optimist, or an optometrist, one or the other? Either way, it’s about your vision, your focus and your outlook on the world. For most of my sentient years, I’ve attempted to look at life positively, idealistically, maybe even romantically; striving and hoping for the best, preparing for the potential of less than favourable outcomes and, based on the unwavering words of wisdom from my mother, have tried to accept whatever cards I was duly dealt. But I’ll be honest, over the past few years, I have found myself having to squint more and more to make out the light at the end of the tunnel. Not so much believing my glass was no longer half full, but starting to question if I had been given the wrong sized glass.
Enter Mr. Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882). The renowned naturalist proposed, in his ground-breaking theories on evolution, that species can change over time, that new species can arise from pre-existing species and that all species share a common ancestor.
I fully recognise that, since becoming a parent, I have changed the most, fundamentally. Whilst I have always had a proclivity to put others before myself, once I became a parent, that became less of a choice but more a necessity. My identity changed. The Dave I was before joined the dodo and the woolly mammoth in the annals of extinction and I was forced to evolve.
It would be fair and accurate to say that I have somewhat struggled with this evolution. I have found myself under siege by a seditious and petulant mental health for over a decade; battling to repel psychological attacks to both my self-esteem and self-confidence and frequently becoming my own strongest critic and greatest detractor in the process. I have sometimes found myself setting a bar within many aspects of my life that is often, if not permanently, outside of my reach. I then either berate myself for failing to achieve my lofty ambitions, or I attempt to sabotage the journey to the point where I capitulate before properly trying. Consequently, in the convoluted corridors of my twisted mind, I don’t then have to face the reality of my failure.
The Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, famously said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” However, if you refrain from ever taking that initial, unsafe step, then your journey of uncertainty clearly never began and, potentially, you may be better off for that.
Have no doubt, the ridiculousness of these past few sentences is in no way lost on me. I am grossly aware that this approach to life is both unhelpful and unhealthy and I subsequently work extremely hard to challenge my thinking whenever my belligerent brain decides to lead me down these cerebral cul de sacs. But I can’t help myself from considering the Dave that came before, and wondering if he would have done things any differently? Maybe he would have been less sensitive to potential setbacks and carried on regardless with indefatigable alacrity? Possibly his more egocentric existence meant he assumed he had less to lose? But time, circumstance and experience have irrevocably changed me and, whilst Dave 2.0 has an unquestionable progenitor, he is an entirely new and different species.
Still, how can we not be altered by our ordeals? Historical and current trauma have undeniably influenced Past and Present Dave, as I’m sure your own traumas, my dear Reader, will no doubt have influenced the various iterations of your own self. But then are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?
If you put them all in a pan of boiling water, they experience a collective adversity but undergo an individual change. The carrot is initially firm, strong and unrelenting, but wilts when subjected to the boiling water, becoming soft and weak. The egg starts out fragile, with only a thin shell protecting its liquid interior, but becomes hardened by the heat. The coffee bean is unique! It is not drastically changed but transforms the boiling water instead.
Of course, we all wish we could be the coffee bean. Why wouldn’t we? Coffee is awesome! However, there have been plenty of times when I have been the carrot; portraying a tough exterior when, underneath, I was slowly crumbling. Furthermore, there have been occasions where I’ve found it impossible to hide that disintegration. The pain was just too potent to conceal.
Conversely, there have been instances where I’ve ‘wished’ I could be more egg-like; to become hardened to my environment. Yet, I feared by doing so, that I would relinquish the ‘sensitive’ part of me that, in moments of lucidity, I recognise to be one of my gifts.
Maybe we aren’t just meant to be one me-o in the trio but, in a hopeful reality, we are actually some colourful casserole of trés chic nouvelle cuisine; a blend of ingredients and flavours that become noticeable on the palate at different times throughout the meal. Moreover, continuing with the culinary metaphors, maybe we should not always be comparing what we are eating now with some gastronomic delight we experienced in the halcyon days of our past. By doing so, do we give ourselves the opportunity to truly relish the feast before us, or is it always tarnished by the rose-tinted gravy of nostalgia?
As easy as it is to do, perhaps looking backwards just really isn’t that beneficial. Like the dodo and mammoth, those people we once were are no more. Whether we realise it or not, we have likely attended numerous funerals for the person we used to be. The person we became too tired to be any longer. The person we grew out of. The person we dreamed we’d become but never became. We evolved into the species we are now. And, you know what, I think that’s OK.
We just need to be mindful not to (within reason) hold others accountable for the person they once were, or to unfairly judge their current actions based on what a pre-incarnated version of themselves might have done. If we are more understanding and gentler with each other, and equally with ourselves, then perhaps our extinction isn’t as predetermined as Franklin, Darwin and others have speculated. Maybe I can see no light at the end of the tunnel because I am actually in a cave, so just need to turn around and exit the way I came in, possibly via the Gift Shop?”
