Tuesday 19 January 2016

Positive thinking.

Christ, my farts stink today. Which is a good thing. Each sniff reminds me that I am a living organism who eats, digests and excretes food - it makes me feel alive! That's me trying out positive thinking, one of my New Year's resolutions, and this is me trying out another - writing more.

But when you're trying to think positively what do you write about? How many novels go 'there was a man with a great life who met a woman with a great life and thanks to a lack of obstacles, together, they went on to have exponentially better lives'? My creativity engine has for much of my working life been powered by hatred and misery. Soz.

When I was seventeen I went through the entirely unique experience of suffering teenage heartache. I've always thought it was that heartache that gave me the drive and 'I'll show you' mentality to get myself into a half decent drama school. Then in my early twenties I found myself in a God awful call centre job and living above a kebab shop which made me a) miserable and b) fat. It was a desire to get out of that situation that led me to pour a great deal of effort into a comedy double act and ultimately made me the mid ranking performer I am today. When that double act came to a depressing end the creativity train trundled out of my station again and I achieved some success as a stand up until I ultimately came undone when faced with the 'white middle class guy in comedy glass ceiling' and an inability to write new material. Trapped in my own negative thinking about stand up and my acting career I found the new creative energy to write a book that has an affectionate pop at the acting business. You'll notice that it has stormed its way into the top 500,000 in the Amazon sales ranks.

In each instance it was a sort of anger that drove me. But now, as you can see, that has all gone. Now I'm the sort of man who sees joy in every moment and smells roses in every fart. What will become of this new positive prick? Will I turn into a gormless ball of happiness with nothing to write about? Will I no longer need to define myself by my career, move to Costa Rica and become a contented surfing instructor? Or will this new positive outlook and smiling face open up all the doors that until now have been closed to me, doors which haven't responded to my cynical demeanour and arid sense of humour? Are you in fact reading the words of the next Phillip Schofield? Possibly.

I don't think there's anything wrong with, where possible, trying to see the positive side. It's something as I've got older I've found more and more difficult though. In relative terms I'm someone for whom life has been one long blowjob. That has never stopped me from indulging in a good shoe gazing session. Now my challenge is to continue to write but to do it with a little more joie de fuckin' vivre. Wish me luck.

An afterthought - I've now realised that this puts a lot of pressure on my next post being an account of a my favourite ever trip to a craft fare or day at the seaside.

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