"Why / how are you single?!"

I'm a 30 year old middle class white male. Take away the unseen mental health issues and, really, I have nothing for society to pin me down on – except that I'm single.

I mean long-term single. Last time I was in a serious relationship John Howard was PM. I've yet to enjoy regular sex in a liberated Australia.

We are a misunderstood group, us happy singles. Yes, “happy singles”! So many people don’t seem to realise the two words can even go together. Society doesn’t just pin us down, but beats us repeatedly across the face with expectations that we take every opportunity to get out there and find a partner – just find somebody!

A work colleague today asked if I was going out tonight. When I said no, he asked, “But you’re single right?”

Well yeah, but also I can’t be fucked going out tonight to make awkward small talk (we’ve covered this, yeah?) and try to pick up. I have better things to do. And I don’t even know what they are yet, but they don’t involve leaving the house. 

So I’d like to wish all my single friends a happy Valentines Day.

The rest of you can get fucked – indeed many of you will, so don’t take it to heart.

Don’t get me wrong, I do want to be in a serious relationship again – sooner rather than later preferably. But I’ve learnt a lot in my five years of singledom, which has been peppered with all kinds of – if not regular – dates and dalliances. Most importantly, I learnt I had to want to be in a relationship rather than need to be in one. That took a while. I spent many years seeing it as some kind of panacea to my mental health issues, which was harmful to potential relationships and prevented me helping myself for too long.

That whole “You have to love yourself before you can love someone else” thing always seemed like pithy, clichéd bullshit to me. Why couldn’t I love someone else while hating myself? It makes perfect sense if I see most people as better than me, right?! Well sure, but it’ll destroy a relationship.

I’ve focused the last couple of years on exploring my own happiness (not a euphemism) and passions. And, despite increasing concern of friends looking to set me up, I really have never been happier. Truly. After all, during my six-year relationship I was horribly anxious and depressed (not because of her!).

Relationships and love amazing, wonderful, energising things. But I refuse to be desperate for it – it’s not conducive to happiness, it’s unattractive and it’s counter-productive, and each of these things feed into each other.

If I had a dollar for every time someone has expressed bemusement at my ongoing sabbatical I could buy roses (at Valentines prices) for ALL the women today – I’m not blowing smoke up my own arse, but I am a catch ladies.

It’s a well intentioned, heartfelt and flattering sentiment, and yes I do appreciate friends keeping an eye out for a potential mate, but I do get a little tired of them being far more stressed about it than I am. It’s a little presumptuous and dismissive of my mindset, not to mention the fact someone can find happiness in a different way to you.

Marriage is held up as this ultimate goal of life, yet so many people are unhappy. And yes, I would like to get married – sorry, no, I would like to be with someone I want to marry. But it often just plays into another one of these all-consuming social expectations of what relationships are.

If and when I get married, I won’t buy into this “better half” bullshit. The most functional couple I know are two fully independent individuals choosing to spend the most important aspects of their life together. Outside observers have expressed curiosity to me that it is "a bit odd", and bemusement that they would spend regular nights out apart, even travel separately. Well apart from what the fuck business is it of yours anyway, why should a couple be tethered and tied. If you want to do the same thing, fantastic; if you don’t and drag each other around you just fuel frustration. Maintaining individual identity and passions is so important in my opinion; otherwise you lose what attracted you to each other in the first place.

I won’t succumb to the expectations of others when I know what makes me happy - I've spent the best part of 30 years figuring it out and it ain't been easy, so I deserve a little self-determination, thanks.

If I have a problem in this area aside from my sometimes crippling introversion, it is that I know exactly what I'm after. I've felt it – fleetingly – before. I’ve felt that amazing feeling of somebody who just understands you in an absurd way and challenges you and inspires you. It’s a blessing and a curse. I struggle to commit myself to any relationship that doesn’t meet that benchmark.

But I’m happy with my life as it is at the moment. Happier than a lot of people who today are sending flowers, going out for romantic dinners and writing on each others Facebook walls; not as happy as some of the genuine couples doing things their way – the ones I admire, and, I admit, do get a little bit jealous of sometimes.

What matters is I have lots to keep me occupied, interested in and excited by life at the moment, including a wide group of great – close friends who are male and female, single and attached, who are my inspiration, my support, my entertainment, my reason to live. They can’t give me everything a relationship would, but they come pretty close.

Happy Valentines Day to them. 

Life begins at the acceptance of death

"As a day well-spent brings happy sleep, so a life well used brings happy death"
 - Leonardo Da Vinci

Ageing can and should be fun

My earliest memory of anxiety is being perhaps five years old with an insurmountable problem. Distressed, I told my mum that I didn't want to die, but neither did I want to live forever. Understandably, she didn't know what to say. Most kids would be comforted by the idea of eternal afterlife, but I was just as uneasy with the idea of eternity as ceasing to exist.

The idea of forever and ever and ever and ever (etc) messed with my mind, like when a camera focuses on a screen projecting it's image so the screen shows up on the screen perpetually and you try and visualise where it ends.

Death was probably central to many of the obsessive fears I went on to develop, whether they related to health, religion, meaninglessness, ageing and achievement or any number of other concerns.

Anxiety turns the burden of proof on its head - a tiny seed of doubt fed by compulsive reassurance-seeking will grow quickly into an all-consuming fear that feels like an all-but-certain truth. Only once the pain of excruciating reassurance finally outweighs the original anxiety of the doubt would I finally let go, which offered a strangely sweet sensation of release - 'all that wasted mental energy, if only I'd just stopped thinking about it,' I'd chastise myself.

It took more than fifteen years before I found a way to do that, but I had the basic idea right. Acceptance is the key to happiness. Letting go is the only way to move forward

When your growing up birthdays can't come around quick enough. And then you hit 18 (or 21 in America) and suddenly want to hit the brakes. But in the long run happiness seems to realign with age, increasing alongside one another. So why do we get so hung up about our twenties (I have five and a half months left)? Some of the happiest, most content people around are also the oldest. They've moved on so many times, they know worry doesn't stop anything.

I think about death every day. I don't enjoy the fact I'm going to die, and I'd rather the thoughts were less frequent visitors, but hey, I'm a natural obsessive and I now know it's better to let them come and go, and to be open about it than lock them up inside or try to outrun them.

So, yeah, I let myself think about death, and sometimes relish talking about it with certain friends - it helps me understand this crazy, unlikely existence. I wish it didn't occupy my mind as much as it does, but it doesn't often cause any distress.

Currently, I'm reading the fantastic official publication of the Melbourne Emerging Writer's Festival, The Emerging Writer, and just this morning got to Maria Papas' wonderful piece 'Forgiving the Dead: Writing as Release'. In it she discusses writing and talking as tools for healing and quotes Hannah Arendt:

'We humanise what is going on in the world and in ourselves only by speaking of it, and in the course of speaking of it, we learn to be human.'

I think this is true of dealing with fear of death, the most pervasive human fear. And as Yoda said in possibly the only memorable line to come out of The Phantom Menace: "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."

Religious zealots, a lot of whom are surely driven in their faith by fear of death, prove this point nicely. Yet Atheists can be just a zealous and aggressive so I wonder whether an underlying fear drives their often religious-like activity. For the record, I'm agnostic and happy to admit I don't have a clue about how we all wound up here, and the question of 'why', frankly, hurts my brain.

The philosophy I am trying to instill into my psyche these days is all about the living in the moment. It's all you've ever got.

However, knowing that, one day, all will be gone can be a celebration of the wonderful, precious moment. I think half the reason I continue to pay to see Graveyard Train play live (six times in 18 months) is to sing joyously with a bunch of strangers about the fact we are all going to die. It's incredibly cathartic.

Because, well 'it's one life, it's this life, and it's beauuuuutiful'. Don't judge the present, don't dwell on the past, don't anticipate the future - live and love for now in a way that will ensure a happy sleep tonight.
So forget proclamations about life beginning at 30, 40 or whatever the new trendy age is (however old the first Gen Xs are probably); it begins when concern about your expiry date stops taking up valuable mental energy that should be spent living with passion and youthful enthusiasm.

Who knows whether Da Vinci was right in the end. All I know is he was right about how to achieve a happy sleep, and that the most peaceful moments in my week come during meditation at the end of my yoga classes, lying in Savasana, or 'Corpse Pose'. It's an amazing peacefulness, the kind of state I would like to think I'll feel when my time comes - in the knowledge I've lived my days well, and can peacefully release.

But I've spent too much time now thinking about all this. It's time to focus on something lighter for a little while!

Rain, happiness and The Wheeler Centre

What an evening Melbourne offered last night for a discussion on being happy.

Blanketed by a foreboding thunderstorm and teaming rain, I walked from work in one end of the city to the the Wheeler Centre in the other, thinking that Sigur Ros got it wrong in their song Hoppipolla - the lyrics of which apparently translate to beautifully innocent childhood moment like jumping in puddles. Then I corrected myself - jumping in puddles is fun; just not while wearing a suit. If I were wearing shorts and thongs I'd be happy. Instead I was in a damp suit with uncomfortably wet socks.

I adore the Wheeler Centre. It's like going back to a study Arts again, but without the exams and it's usually free. God bless Melbourne. But this weather?

Yesterday I finally hauled myself out of bed to get to the 6.00am yoga class. A sucker for a sleep in (or lie in), it also gave me a rare opportunity to take my time getting ready for work and stroll through the city in the morning sunshine feeling relaxed and happy. It set the scene for a good day.

Last night's session was the third night of the Sad/Angry/Happy series. On Tuesday night, I left the Angry session energised and inspired, and having made the unexpected purchase of Brendan Cowell's book. Arriving at the Happy session feeling like something the cat had dragged in backwards through a series of puddles, I hoped to be uplifted by it, though I'll admit to being skeptical about the choice of Catherine Deveny as a panellist. She's someone I've thought in the past to be overly cynical and judgemental but I held judgement (and tweets).

Sitting shoeless in an attempt to dry my socks out while I listened, I was pleasantly surprised. She was genuine and positive - even disagreeing with a cynical question/comment from the audience about the obligatory check-out chick's insincere "Have a nice day" - as were all the panel, despite the recurring theme of depression, which is seemingly closely (even inextricably) tied to happiness, as hate is to love.

It delved into dark, uncomfortable places: is a distorted reality a necessity for happiness? Is the active pursuit of happiness futile, and even a cause of disappointment? What is the difference between happiness and joy? Does happiness only really exist in hindsight? Convener, Sean Dooley, cited novelist Jonathan Franzen's claim that he was happiest in the process of writing his books, but left with a certain emptiness upon achieving his goal.

These are thoughts are some of the types that have troubled me in the past, triggering anxiety that demands resolution but also grows as you seek attainable certainty, becoming more susceptible to irrational, troubling thoughts until you either let go or wear yourself out.

Luckily I've learnt to let go and accept uncertainty much better, which actually gives me a greater sense of certainty.

Afterwards, the walk from the Wheeler Centre to the Flinders Street tram stop was a contemplative one. The proposition that it takes a certain level of depression to get a true picture of reality sat a little uncomfortably did demanded some thought and resolution: How can I be happy if happiness requires a level of delusion? I thinking about it in an anxious, fearful way was counter-productive though. The only way for me to manage such uncomfortable uncertainties is to accept them, and often they resolve themselves.

Perhaps people that explore the darker sides of life and reality are be more susceptible to bouts of sadness or depression. That doesn't make happiness unrealistic, just many of the ways we people pursue it maybe?

My conclusion was that happiness is an underlying state of mind that can withstand hits and set backs, while joy is something that comes in bursts and fleeting moments that can be either meaningful or superficial - the birth of a niece or nephew (I don't have my own kids..) or watching Essendon win a game of footy (AnZaharakis Day anyone?).

I've found the best way to be truly happy is to live in, and appreciate, the moment - even if I'm still mastering that approach.

So, now soaked wet, I gave up zipping through the rain from one point of shelter to another - it became ridiculous after I sought shelter under a traffic light - and I embraced it, strolling through the city smiling at those who walked past huddled under umbrellas. Even when, standing at the corner of Russell and Flinders Streets trying to get across to the tram stop before the tram did, a car drove through a deep puddle and splashed water over my legs I soaked it up (badoom-chh). I was just glad the tram seemed to slow to catch the red light so I'd be able to cross in time.

A businessman boarded a few stops later, shaking out his umbrella and cursing, 'Fucking rain'. His suit only only half-soaked, he clearly hadn't reached the liberating point of nonchalance.

Now sheltered, I still wasn't entirely comfortable in my saturated suit, dripping hair and wet socks; but really I'd only feel uncomfortable by dwelling on how I could be more comfortable.

Noting this, and with a childish abandon, I disembarked at my stop and walked the few hundred metres home, stepping in every puddle I could, letting rushing water wash over my shoes. I wouldn't stand in the rain all night, but I wasn't cold and the dampness of my clothes was just a sensation, and therefore sensational, right?

And besides, how good the feeling of arriving home and changing into dry clothes!