loneliness – Nick Grant

Nick Grant

Tag: loneliness

  • All The Money In The World

    This is a story about buying happiness…

    Bitcoin miners

    It seems straightforward to me that life can be lived like this: get money, spend money. I particularly like spending money in a way which maximises the amount of enjoyment, which often involves spending money on things which benefit other people as well.

    One of the best things I’ve spent money on was a house with a garden, where I could entertain guests and have visitors to stay. I bought a hot tub, fire pit, big barbecue, lots of outdoor beanbags, patio heaters and other such things, so I could throw big parties in the warmer months of the year. I bought a yacht, which I took friends out on all the time and spent a lot of time aboard with my girlfriend, making long trips together. I bought a speedboat which provided an immense amount of pleasure, taking friends out wakeboarding and otherwise just having the thrill of messing around on the water.

    Holidays alone are relaxing, but holidays with a girlfriend or a group of friends are a million times better. I’ve never subsidised my friends’ travel, but I’ve paid for plenty of flights and accommodation so that I could have romantic holidays to exotic luxury locations with girlfriends, who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to afford the trip.

    I’ve bought my way into expensive sports, giving me incredible experiences I’ll treasure forever. I’ve rock climbed, skydived, mountain biked, snowboarded, done mountaineering and ice climbing. Vast amounts of money have bankrolled a bucket list to die for. There are very few things left that I want to do.

    Sometimes I get smart and I figure out ways to earn money while I sleep. Most of the time I earn money the old-fashioned way, by selling my body to the highest bidder. I find the day job very often frustrating, slow, boring and unrewarding work, which poses little challenge, but it used to pay for an incredible lifestyle, so it somehow made sense.

    My life doesn’t make any sense at the moment.

    I work harder than ever, but my life is nothing like it once was. My social life is non-existent. I’m single. I don’t go on ski trips or sail yachts. I don’t do much of anything except work and pay bills. There’s never any spare money left, despite the vast amount of wealth that I generate – it’s all hoovered up by “cost of living” and “cost of being alive”.

    I shouldn’t complain. I’m very lucky that whatever I decide to do, things usually work out for me. I am often in the right place at the right time.

    I also forget that I’ve lived an incredible life.

    Except I don’t forget.

    It’s precisely the opposite of forgetting: I remember.

    I remember exactly how good my life was, and I wonder what happened to that life. I’m not sad, bitter and twisted about it – I spend most of my time and effort trying to get things back to how they were, before everything fell apart.

    I’ve had moments which have reminded me of the life I used to lead. I went away with my most recent [ex-]girlfriend to Mexico for Christmas and New Year and we splashed the cash. We travelled in style. We lived life to the max. That was an excellent reward for a year of solid hard work. It tasted so sweet to enjoy the fruit of my labour.

    I’m in the process of getting my new house furnished and set up exactly how I want, so I can entertain guests and have visitors. I’m lucky enough to be able to choose what I want, buy everything and have it delivered. Slowly, my home is taking shape. I suppose I should spare a thought for people who can’t afford to even rent a little room, while I have 4 bedrooms, 2 reception rooms and a huge kitchen with a dining room at one end, which could comfortably accomodate a large family. I have brand new furniture, which is all lovely.

    None of it seems to mean anything though. I have a big empty house and my life is very empty. I don’t have a social group in the local area. I don’t have a girlfriend. Life is lonely and feels quite meaningless, despite the nice house and good job.

    I keep thinking that if I can earn even more money, then I’ll be able to relax and think about what kind of life I’d like to live, but at the moment I work to live and I live to work. I don’t know what I’m living for, except to pay bills and work. Obviously I’m glad I don’t live in a hovel. Obviously I’m glad I have comfy furniture. However, my life is very incomplete and it leaves me feeling very miserable.

     

    Tags:

  • Blur

    This is a story about trying to do too much…

    Ceiling fan

    I think I have a pretty good idea of what I want and what I need. I think I’ve got enough experience to know what makes a happy, fulfilling, complete and stable life. I think I’ve been through plenty of difficult periods when my life has been incomplete, to know what was missing. I’ve been through very happy periods when I’ve been full of joy and contentment, and I know the things that created those delightful episodes.

    There aren’t any short cuts.

    It’s a strange situation, knowing what my life would contain if I could cherry-pick all the things I needed from all the years I’ve been alive. I’d choose the huge group of friends I met in the kitesurfing community, and the exotic travel locations we went to. I’d choose living in a city by the beach, where I could have barbecues and play volleyball on a random weekday evening after work. I’d choose garden parties, dinner parties, pool parties, eating out, board games nights and sitting around drinking wine, with a house full of great friends. I’d choose a stable long-term loving relationship with somebody kind and caring, with an incredible career and fascinating educated opinions, who dazzled me with their intellect. I’d choose to have loyal friends nearby, who’d do anything to help me, and I’d do anything for them. I’d be surrounded by people. I crave company and affection.

    I hate being single. I hate that all my friends live far away. I hate that I don’t have a pet.

    I hate not feeling settled, secure, in love with my home city and in love with my house.

    I think I’m going to love Cardiff. Soon enough I’ll buy a place of my own. I’ll make friends. I’ll meet a special somebody. I’ll probably get a cat. I’ll get back into kitesurfing and wakeboarding. I’ll build a social network around me, which will make me happy – my gregarious and extroverted side will come back again, and I’ll feel like myself; I’ll feel glad to be alive.

    I don’t tend to do things slowly and steadily.

    I want everything immediately.

    I’ve set about trying to have a lovely house in a lovely area, meet people, fall in love and meanwhile carry on with all of life’s daily demands, such as working my job and paying my bills. It might sound like the regular stuff that we’re all trying to do, but you have to understand that my life was profoundly dysfunctional. Every facet of my life was incredibly damaged in some way, and I have found myself starting from scratch, more-or-less.

    Of course, there are people whose lives are decimated and they don’t enjoy the many advantages which I do, such as being able to find well-paid employment anywhere in the world. My health is good enough that I can work with limited impairment. My experiences have prepared me, such that I’m able to deal with just about anything and everything that life throws at me. I live a very charmed existence.

    As it stands, my life is very incomplete, but I’m no longer paralysed by depression, anxiety, indecision and hampered by financial problems. The feelings of unhappiness are prompting me to take action, and I’m pursuing every avenue simultaneously to fix-up my life.

    One year ago, I had a very lovely girlfriend, a great home with gorgeous panoramic views of the sea, and a well-paid job which was a short drive away. I might sound like Goldilocks, but that city was not somewhere I could fall in love with. The friends I made there who had cared very much about me, and I adored, had vanished as quickly as they had arrived in my life – an argument which exploded, and ended the relationships I had with an entire family. My house of cards collapsed, and I was jobless, single and sick, in a place where I only had a couple of friends left… and neither were particularly well equipped to help me.

    Today, I have a big empty house. I love my job and I love the people I work with. I’m becoming wealthy again. I’m in a city which I find jaw-droppingly gorgeous. Some parts of my life are absolutely perfect.

    The parts of my life which are broken and dysfunctional are being fixed. I’m meeting people. I’m no longer trapped in depressed isolation.

    Being single is particularly horrible. I haven’t had a hug in far too long. I’ve had nobody to cuddle me when I’ve been feeling terrible. For a time, I felt like I had nobody in the world who I could phone in a crisis, but slowly my life improves: a friend from work has been in contact, for example, making me realise that I’m not completely invisible… there are people who care about me.

    I know that there are people who care about me all around the world, but I promise you that it’s pretty awful being in a city you’ve never visited before, where you don’t know anybody, and you’re living all alone in a house full of cardboard boxes and unassembled flat-pack furniture. My clothes are all still in suitcases, because I have no furniture to unpack into yet.

    Of course, we must consider the great potential that my life holds. In a matter of months, the scary alien city where I’m completely unable to find my way around, will become my home and I will feel attached to the place. My empty house will be filled with my things and I will make it comfortable, and pleasant to live in. I’ll make friends and my social life will no longer be something painfully absent. I’ll meet somebody special and have a companion to share life with. All of these things will happen, at some point in the future.

    Because I’m used to living life at breakneck pace, doing everything all at once, of course I want to do as much as humanly possible. My life is a blur. I’m not doing things in a methodical, measured and sustainable way – I’m charging headlong into every problem, attempting to get what I want overnight.

    I should have been in bed a long time ago, getting as much sleep as possible before another punishing week at work on a highly stressful project where I’m under a great deal of pressure. I should be protecting the things which are the essential enablers for everything else: without a job and money, my life will collapse like a house of cards, again.

    I almost skipped writing for two days running, because I’m spread so thin, but I’m forcing myself to write now because I don’t want a single part of my life to be neglected and left to rot and wither on the vine. I have ploughed a significant amount of time and effort into this writing project, and I’m loath to lose something which is such a consistent and central part of my identity, especially when my embryonic new life is just a tiny seed – it hasn’t even begun to sprout green shoots yet.

    The problems I have are nice problems to have. I write to you, happy that things are clearly improving, even if I haven’t yet claimed any triumphs since successfully moving to Cardiff. It’s slightly more intangible to say that things are getting better, when the gains are so imperceptibly marginal; the changes are so slow and none of the major milestones have been achieved yet. However, I had a nice weekend.

    As always, I’m very hard on myself and I feel like I should be succeeding in every area of my life, overnight, but things are taking time and effort, and I will have to sustain my efforts if I want to get the things I need. It sucks, but at least I’m starting to have yet another attempt at rebuilding my life. I’ve had setbacks, but on the whole I have to say that there’s more positive progress to report than negative things which have happened.

    I seem to be finding reserves of energy that I didn’t think I had. I seem to be more capable than I thought I was. The amount that I’ve achieved in a single weekend seemed inconceivable to me, and was causing me some anxiety, but in fact everything went very well and I’m very pleased.

    Of course, there is a great deal of peril and uncertainty in my life, which will remain for some time, while I cement my gains and secure my future, but I’ve done pretty damn well at coping with setbacks recently, and I hope that I’m able to continue without any major disasters. I hope that I can keep control of my own propensity to self-sabotage. I hope that I can subdue my underlying mood disorder, such that I can plough through the depressive episodes and suppress the manic episodes, and emulate the behaviour of those who are fortunate enough to be blessed with mental stability.

    My life has been a blur. My frenetic activity is so fast that my movement is a blur. The amount that I’m trying to do all at once creates a blurry picture, as all the different activities all blend together and I find myself continuously in strange novel situations, attempting to make sense of what’s going on: mostly a passenger on a rollercoaster ride.

    Life is certainly interesting at the moment, although I am always afraid that I will burn out or break down at any moment. I’m probably over-investing in the wrong things, as always, but that’s me: a blur of activity.

     

    Tags: