Call the Midlife Read Online Free PDF Page B

be?
5
What do I have that I really want?
4
How do I get rid of what I don’t want?
3
Who do I love?
2
Who do I like?
1
Do I like me?
     
    There are more questions than answers.
    Wrong!
    There are more answers than questions. Answers are reactive whereas questions are proactive, which means they are more original and therefore more difficult or effortful and burdensome to think up.
    That said, I love questions. I wander around all day, every day, wondering out loud what, why, when, where, how, how come. Questioning things makes me feel at peace because it’s indirectly telling me I’m giving my life the time and space it needs to breathe. When I’m too busy or too distracted I never question anything.
    Constantly questioning things is also the reason I have trouble getting through books. Or even getting through a single paragraph of a book. Sometimes there’s little if anything I can do to prevent mymind wandering off to the great thought bubble in the sky. Perhaps this is how come my subconscious master planner has become so adept and efficient over the years.
    We really don’t need to concern ourselves with the exhausting process of ‘coming up’ with an answer if we feed in the question thoroughly enough. We are full of answers like a vending machine is full of snacks. What we need is the correct change and item number to access whatever it is we’re after.
    Again, once we have properly and earnestly worked on feeding in the question, quiet, breathing and relaxation is all we need to ‘hear’ the answer.
    As a result of affording myself fair old slabs of all three of those prerequisites over the years, three subsequent ‘answers’ have made themselves known to me:
     
1
My father’s death and the way my mum covered up his illness made me very grateful for my life on the one hand but also very distrustful of people on the other.
2.
My constant energy comes from not wanting to miss out on anything while I’m still around to witness it.
3.
Most of my habits, tastes, dreams and aspirations come from the movies I escaped to when I didn’t have anyone around and available for friendship, confiding and conversation.
     
    What does all this mean?
    I am yet to have my heart broken in adulthood, having had it smashed to pieces as a kid.
    I am very happy in my own company but ideally like to be on my own while still around other people. That is to say I am happy alone but preferably not on my own.
    For years, my favourite three things in life were women, cars and alcohol.
    Which is fine where women and cars are concerned but when alcohol is thrown into the mix – that’s when the situation can get a little sticky.
    The problem with waking up when the ‘beer buzz’ is still in full effect is its endless optimism. The false hope that gives rise to a thousand new beginnings, not a single one of which has even the slightest suggestion of how it might end.
    The beer buzz is one of the world’s most uncelebrated catalysts. All the possibility with not a whiff of sustainability or exit strategy.
    My own casebook of evidence includes the morning I bought a massive house in Chelsea, which I never moved into, before selling it to George Michael, who also never moved into it, before selling it to Puff Daddy, who never moved into it either. Were we all beer buzzing at the time?
    Add to that various major car purchases, like the time Tash and I were particularly buzzing one morning in Italy and decided to go to bid on James Coburn’s old Ferrari California Spyder. The day before I had no intention of going anywhere near the car. It was tatty and scratched and I hadn’t researched it AT ALL. But waking up with the beer buzz negated all that and . . . two hours later, there I was sitting at the front with my hand in the air as the hammer went down.
    My beer-buzz scenario ofter involves the presence of a female. A Bonnie to my Clyde, if you like. Almost literally, as my love for and fascination with the opposite sex is down to