A Totally Not-Depressing Rant About Getting Older and a Thank You

Hello sea cucumbers. 

(No audio accompaniment with this one, I’m afraid – I’ve been fighting with my laptop mic for an hour now and it’s being a total dick.)

If you’re somewhere that takes Christmas seriously, have you been having a nice one? My family aren’t very religious, but we sure are Christmasists. Stocking presents are to be opened in the morning in dressing gowns, followed by an excessive lunch, followed by watching the queen’s speech, followed by unwrapping the Proper Presents. The Proper Presents generally contain cryptic notes leading one around the house in an infuriating dance of shame until the actual present is found and all is forgiven. I trust your rituals are equally weird.

I’m writing this on a long train ride to Gatwick Airport (though finishing it somewhere in Copenhagen on New Years Eve now) and it’s almost impossible not to get nostalgic. Everything is rolling English fields and winter-bare trees and announcements about if you see someone carrying a Kalashnikov, please be a good sport and let the driver know.

I remember the kind and strange mannerisms of these people – my people really, the English - and I remember their rituals and traditions, and when I open my mouth I sound just like them, but having been away for quite a while now, it feels more like walking back into a recurring childhood dream than coming home.

Friends have gone off on their own adventures; moved away, gotten married, had babies in some cases; freaked out, found their way – whatever. 

I hung out with an old friend yesterday and he got me up to speed with what’s been going on in 5 years of my absence here more or less, and it suddenly hit me that the Era of Who Cares is over. We’d all still keep in contact, but the three-day parties and reckless trips to wherever just because, just why not, will never happen again; or, not without checking first with spouses or finding babysitters. (Nothing against spouses or babies whatsoever, I add.)

I saw a reddit post a while ago (I can’t remember the exact wording) but it was something to the effect of: There must have been a day when you and your childhood friends played together for the last time and no one knew it was the last time. 

There must have been a last party and I didn’t realise it was the last party. 

This all sounds depressing as fuck; no one’s dead, and people are going off on new adventures, and that’s natural and lovely. I guess it’s just the feeling of something irreparably lost and consigned exclusively to memory then, and a big neon sign that hangs over everything from then on reading: THIS ERA’S GONE FOREVER AND WE’RE OFF TO PLAY NEW GAMES.

It often feels to me like each stage in life is terrifying to let go of until you do. And almost as soon as you pluck up the courage, you can’t believe you didn’t do it sooner. From childhood to adolescence to early-adulthood, then God knows. And the game is different every time.

The truth of course is that getting older (probably up until the part bits start falling off you) is actually great, generally. You’re hopefully wiser, calmer, and more balanced than you ever were – and sure as hell more comfortable in yourself. I had the same stupid apprehensions about getting older back when I was going off to uni 12 years ago. The game is different; the rules are the same:

1. Don’t be a cynic.

2. You can’t change it anyway

3. It’s probably going to be fine like it was all the last times.

It’s hard not to look back on human history as the story of a child reluctantly letting go to progressively stranger phases of its development too. I often wonder when the history of our period is written from an impartial standpoint centuries from now if they’ll consider us much more developed than our Victorian or Medieval ancestors. I really doubt those future historians will view better technology as the hallmark of sophistication, but rather moral and societal progress; namely, the global proliferation of treating each other reasonably and decently, and (I hope, anyway) the recognition that by virtue of our strange and shared condition of being talking carbon that loves and fears and grieves and hopes, and is understandably very confused and frightened, and deep down really just want connection and acceptance and perhaps even a nice spot to go watch a sunrise – we are all brothers and sisters. 

Some days it feels very exciting to be living at the beginning of our journey.

Other days it feels very depressing to know one won’t live to see the rest of it. 

Well. Enough of that rubbish then. Housekeeping:

I really hope you liked the new video. I’m not enormously happy with how it turned out, but it sure is nice to not have to worry about it anymore. I’ve rather done pop-physics to death and will now gladly sit back and watch other channels do it much better than me. 

If it’s quite all right with you, I’d like to accept your kind patronage this month. If it works, I’m intending to try something with green screens and writing music. I can’t promise if it’ll turn out all right, but I’ll need to buy a bunch of puppets and footage most-likely. So your support would obviously be very kind indeed. I appreciate how sporadic and irritating my upload schedule is – or completely lack of schedule – but please know that even if it doesn’t look like it, the majority of my time is almost always going into trying to make the new thing. 

As ever, I can’t thank you enough for continuing to support my stuff. I've said it before, but I really, really couldn't do any of this without you, and if you've enjoyed any of my previous rubbish, it's probably in large part thanks to your support. (Incidentally, please get better taste immediately.) 

I know it’s customary to refer to one’s channel or team or what have you, and say cheers from them – but I don’t have a team. It’s me, the cat, and the constant hope you won’t notice I’m a total impostor at all this. 

Again, thank you enormously for the support, I hope Christmas was lovely and a very, very, very happy new year to you and all the humans you care about.

Speak soon, much love,

Ex.