January, almost done.

A twelfth of the year, gone Keyser Söze.

My 2023 has got to slow up, but just doesn’t want to. I drink my celeriac sea-salt smoothie and feel grateful. At one with the universe on this tiny spinning rock. My screen-time is down to eight hours. I can breath-hold for 35 seconds. New Year’s Resolutions? For me.

Can you fix what isn’t broken.

I ditch my time-keeping devices.

Time is illusory. I wake when I feel, stay up all night when inspiration calls. My muse can’t keep her hands off me, the channel is open like never before, heaven is a playground and my creative mind is frisky. Some ideas are too wacky, I can’t get them down, what would people think. Lol. People tell me I’ve changed, talk about a ‘new me’. I’ve always been like this.

Just didn’t believe the hype.

Life begins at 40.

I’m 39. A mix of wisdom and childlike playfulness floods through me. 2023, the year of emptying out. Fill your cup to the brim and it will spill, says my daily stoic reminder. I take a carefully filled glass of VOSS and sink into my meditation app.

Meditation clears the mind. But I like to spend it thinking about what people think of me. In that restful state I go over past ancedotes, brunches, jokes that landed, being the funny guy is fine but I must give others space to bloom. I finish my shower with 3.5 seconds of cold water. Every cell in my body explodes with heamoglobin.

The codeine from the co-codamol gets to work. We all have our peccadillos. I feel fantastic. This is what my favourite thinker Sam Harris calls ‘wellbeing’. My haiku sharing circle is in the evening, they’re not the brightest bunch but I hope to inspire with my offerings.

The leaves in Kyoto sway
Cherry blossom all around
In the air pink heaven

I can’t stop reading. Audiobooks.

My book seller knows my tastes and sends bundles to my door. Wall deco. I love the tactility of a first edition but where’s 2x speed on Bernadine Evaristo when you need a decaf ristretto takeout. Who even has the time to sit with a book these days. Some novice gives me the wrong coffee and I lose my shit. What part of quadruple do you not understand, I shout in her face.

Out in the street epiphanies come knocking. Wardrobe makeover. What shade of aquamarine to buy my clothes in. Uniformity is confidence. Don’t look outside yourself, the answer lies within, pings my app on eastern wisdom. I look to the sky and muse. Should I go inside, I think to myself. I think so. It’s freezing.

This year is about simplicity. Every day the same lunch. Kale, pine nuts, tumeric oil, can of kombucha. On Wednesdays and Fridays I’ll eat a baklava, I like the Turkish culture but more than anything I’m a fan of supporting local business. It gives me bad wind, must be my chakras clearing.

Back to the grind.

I got into tech last year, ventures came to nothing. Crypto too unstable. Lots of avenues, no dice. I met some good people. This year, I’m focusing on writing. Thought-pieces, confessionals, that sweet spot between the share and the overshare. The written word is powerful. AI knows my style, we make an impressive pair. Start your own pod! someone implores me. I’m looking into home studio options. They say the market is saturated but please, not all voices need to be heard.  

Being a writer means 30 minutes of concentrated work daily. Any more and the quality dips. YouTube tutorials on procrastination help the focus. The algorithms know me too well, the ads are perfect.

I buy a blender.

Music lives in me. I can’t breathe without tunes so I’m always on the hunt. I’m getting into classical, feel myself responding to the subtlest melodies. The best of Beethoven is a touch. In need of new expression I research the jazz-keyboard all afternoon.

*

Some days I get angry, so angry I don’t know what to do. I sit in it seething, feel myself sinking deeper. I want to break something. I’ve upped my co-codamol. The doctor says he can’t keep prescribing so I’ve started steaming. It helps. The feeling of the cold plunge after a long session, namaste.

*

Girls?

Five in the mixer. None of them text. Game-players. I can’t blame them, I intimidate. Everyone has baggage, mine is reputation. Sensitive. Firm. An intellect. I’m 4th wave, don’t believe in men making the first move. Maybe I aim lower, equality of opportunity.

Three nights a week I arouse myself without climax. On Thursdays I take a zoom-class on boiling pasta. 10 weeks to professional al-dente. Gio from Bracknell is impossible to understand. At night I eat the pasta from the pan with oil and pepper. I’m getting really good.

I almost call my mother but don’t.

I watch a nature doc and scroll.

*

The fucking thermostat is playing up.

Every morning I wake up sodden.

I need new skies, mull over a long weekend in Tokyo, the canalside of Nakameguro, the steam rising in the cold air of the morning, mochi. But I’m off the gram now, what’s the point. You can’t go on a trip like that and not share it with your people. Invite them into your way of seeing the world. I do miss checking in, the likes and comments, that feeling of connection. I haven’t seen most of them in years.

What if I go. No, too self-indulgent.

I almost reactivate but stop.

My exes have to heal. They can’t move on, seeing me living my best life. I think of them thinking of me. What’s the saying. If they love you, set them free, that one.

I spend the night scouring London for late night chemists. My dealer gives me some garbage. I send him abusive messages into the early hours, block his number. I heave in bed in sweats, awful dreams.

*

2023, the world it keeps on spinning.

Dry Jan, not for me. If you need a month not drinking maybe you’re the dry one. Rich & Smooth or Round & Plummy.

Decisions.

My SleepAlign Orthopedic pillow is painful. I stare up at the ceiling. A moth drives me crazy. Eastern wisdom app, ping. Krishnamurti, some old Indian guy. Nice name bro. It’s the answer I’ve been looking for, fills me right up. I am on the right track.

Bullseye.

It’s only when the cup is empty that it can be filled.


Only when the mind and heart are totally empty, then it can comprehend, then it can live.


To be so completely empty, is the highest form of intelligence, the highest form of love.

*

That’s me. Emptying out.

Closing in on 40, never felt so empty.

Not like this.