On What We Want and Whether It Matters

Photo by Stijn te Strake on Unsplash

As the year end fast approaches, one question keeps rearing its head, as it often does with me. Elloa, what do you want?

This year, I did some incredible things. I usually capture them in a letter to the future, which I send to myself via the fantastic free letter-sending site FutureMe.org – but this year, I feel like this is the best space to explore the question I’m currently sitting with.

Over the last few days, as Christmas moves further into the rearview mirror and the liminal space between it and the New Year have enveloped Nick and I, a lot of thoughts about my intentions for 2024 have been swirling through my head. I’ve been playing with different ideas about new habits, most of which centre around things that would be Very Good For Me if I were to actually commit to them. Yes, this is the annual resolutions conversation showing up in yet another disguise, dressed this year as ‘habits’, but not-so-secretly being about the turning of the metaphorical page and all the hopes, desires and urgent sense that I need to step the fuck up and push my life forward, which I encounter every year at about this time.

At last year’s turning point, I made a decision: to walk the Camino de Santiago. I won’t go into how or even exactly when that decision point arose, but I will say that I’m so glad I did it, and also that it didn’t resolve the underlying struggles I often face when I look in the mirror: a sense, however entitled it might be, that I’m not doing or being all I’m fully capable of being and the feeling as a result of a deep dissatisfaction within me that comes and goes. I’ve been much more aware in recent years of how much privilege I’m swimming in to be even able to think about these kinds of things – about self-actualisation, creativity, and yes, even my heart’s desires – and I feel some shame about that, but clearly not enough to move me to dedicate my life and hours to fighting for greater justice in the world. I kind of hate myself for this, to be honest.

I hate myself for this because I look around and think that so much of what we in the Global North are ‘working through’ in our lives is narrow sighted and ignorant. We get so caught up in how we look to others, in status, in soothing ourselves by numbing, and in colluding with all the ways of the world that are rapidly moving it to a deep and terrible period of crises and catastrophe. The number of people who have turned away from the horrors unfolding around the world – in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and Congo, to name but a few places where actual survival is the critical issue – makes me angry. But I have to include myself in that. I took Instagram off my phone and for a while, stopped reading about what was happening. Donating a few quid really isn’t difficult; it’s hardly even getting up out of the bed at the centre of my comfort zone. Meanwhile, my family and I want for nothing material, we sleep safe and sound and yes, we do it in less than perfect circumstances with many challenges, but it’s also still luxury compared to countless others.

I know life is hard and stressful for all of us but I’m also just so disappointed that we all keep carrying on with our lives whilst brushing so much brutal stuff under the carpet. I’m angry at myself that I have the audacity to be thinking about a ‘word for the year’ for 2024 when so many thousands of people’s lives have been brutally taken and traumatised. I’m worried about the impact that middle class wankers like myself are having on the climate and how we’re so wedded to the status quo that we are the ones with a lot of blood and extinction on our hands.

The question of what I want seems stupid and fucking trivial in this context. I’m not even sure I should continue with writing this. I now know it isn’t going where I initially planned for it to go about half an hour ago when a bunch of thoughts were running through my head and I realised that I absolutely needed to sit down and get some of them out.

Will there still be music on a dead planet? Will there be raves? Travel? Good food, coffee shops, books, nature to spend time in? Am I colluding by working with companies that are contributing to the pollution of the planet? And if I don’t do this, what the fuck will I do instead? I often wonder how the people working at BP and Shell sleep at night, and yet am I so different? Don’t I like making money and being able to book trips to Rome and Berlin? Am I not also telling myself that I’m contributing some good, that I’m doing my best to do something meaningful with my life? I’m sure that’s how the people who lead those companies sleep at night; because, like me, they’re raising families, they’re stressed, they’re being driven forward by deadlines and pressure. Perhaps some nights they also struggle to sleep, like I do. Perhaps they know that they’re not doing enough to change the system, however many ‘green projects’ they get behind with their dirty money.

Over the years, people far wiser than I have written things like the following:

“Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” - Howard Thurman

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” – Helen Keller

“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.” – Diane Ackerman

“When what you value and dream about doesn’t match the life you are living, you have pain.”
― Shannon L. Alder

I could list many more but you get the picture. What I like about these is that I was expecting to find a bunch of quotes by American white men and in fact, three of the ones that jumped out at me are by women. Anyway, the original point I wanted to make is that I struggle to know what my dreams are, and whether that’s a justifiable thing to invest time and effort into. But I do have some faith that if and when we listen to who we truly are, underneath the trauma and all the defence mechanisms and beyond the empty values we’re taught to pick up along the way about what a good life is (marriage, kids, property, a stable ‘successful’ career) and dare to listen to what we actually want, it would be good for the world. I don’t know if I fully believe that, but there is a flicker of it in me that feels something like true.

I was going to say something about this; this is what the original thought that prompted me to sit down was about. I was also going to share some of the thoughts that have been running through my head, and since I can’t remember the former item, I’ll proceed with the latter.

I was thinking…

Imagine if I set my working hours to 10-4, and then DJed for an hour from 9-10 each day and went to Writers Hour from 4-5pm. On days when I’m out with clients that can of course adjust, but as a basic work pattern this could be really powerful.*

Imagine if I went to a coworking space one day a week to write, but also with a distinct intention to socialise and meet people - possibly with a view to collaborating.

Imagine if I really doubled down my efforts on one of the projects I’ve started and have taken my foot off the pedal with. The Heard Space and DJing, in particular. These two things definitely answer part of the What Do I Want? question.

As always, I very much doubt I’m going to do anything about any of this. But… last year I did. I decided to do a pilgrimage, and I did it. I decided to DJ at my own birthday party, and I did it (and my sister’s wedding, and two sets I’ve put on SoundCloud, and three gigs at a Pizza restaurant in Brighton, and all of the hours practising at home). All of which is to remind myself, prove to myself really, that I can make some stuff happen if I want to. Oh, and my podcast - the thing I constantly downplay and beat myself up about and feel disappointed about, has 12 five-star reviews on Spotify, just got recommended to Nick out of the blue, and yes, it’s only had about 1.500 downloads but I do know that at least one person has been genuinely impacted by listening to one of the conversations. And that person was a woman in a very male-dominated business and industry, so that’s got to be a good thing, right?

As I’m aging, I’m definitely becoming more of an angry feminist. How can anyone be a feminist and not be angry? The world is set up to take the fucking piss out of women. Yes, as a white woman, I get it so much better than women of colour. But to be a woman is to be up against it full stop, regardless of who you are or where you live (probably with a few exceptions). I hate it. I hate that emotional labour is a thing that not only isn’t shared, but is still so poorly understood by about 48% of the population, most of whom would be fucked without us. We do SO MUCH for society and yet we’re often screwed over.

Anyway, one of the things I get angry about is the mainstream music scene and the way women DJs don’t feature on the bill, apart from as a token - unless that is, you’re in Berlin. (And again, likely other places but I don’t know enough to comment. But to support my point, look at the DJ Mag top 100 DJs for 2023. The vast majority are men and some excellent female DJs are nowhere to be seen. Where the fuck is Sara Landry on your list, DJ mag?)

And alongside my anger is a question: could I really get good enough to play clubs? Is that a possibility? Or am I dreaming and is it therefore not worth investing the time and risking the hope to find out if it’s true. Could I really see myself DJing at conscious dance events, which is such a definite possibility in this city that I now call home, where the scene is really taking root? And what would it require of me to get to those levels? Discipline. Practice. Commitment. Daily.

And beside that is a question about what to do with my podcast. I found a website the other day, UnHerd, and they’re doing with journalism what i want to do with a podcast. And they’re British. I’ve just sent it to Gemma. But maybe i can do more - perhaps I can follow through on this idea to host a site that features different writers and thinkers, under the banner of The Heard Space. To actually try to make it into something.

Because that’s what I think I want. I want to live in a way that minimises the damage I’m doing to the planet. I want to contribute something meaningful. I want to travel and explore the world with Nick and by myself, and to be not killing the planet by doing so. I want to keep DJing and experimenting. And I want to do it in front of people. I would love to be providing the music that gets people dancing and having an amazing time. I think when people are dancing, the world becomes a better place. Dancing is something we’ve done for thousands of years, and I know how important it is to me. In fact, it was one of the ideas I had for a habit - to dance every day. To see where that practice would take me, what it would give me, what it would unlock. Plus it’s just fucking fun, isn’t it? Moving to the beat, expressing ourselves, being silly, playing with others, getting lost in the beat – it’s really living. It’s really living. I can’t think of any examples where dancing is violent. It’s inherently human, and it’s good.

Maybe a dream would be to produce music. That feels soooo far away from possible but what a thought!

What if I brought some of myself to my podcast by adding a section at the beginning in the preamble where i share my favourite tracks of the moment? That would be cool. Bringing dance music into a business conversation. Ha! Bringing the different parts of who I am together. I could do the vitality sessions as a DJ set, you know… I could! It’s possible. There’s a lot of room to play…

So essentially, I think I’ve answered my questions. What I want is to dance, write, move my body in yoga, produce a podcast, commit to DJing and see where it can take me, and keep going in my career and work as a consultant and coach. What I want is to do life alongside my fiance and be excited about where we can take each other, and be a stepmum to his daughter, my beautiful, super smart, funny, irrepressibly loveable, complicated bonus daughter. She is a prime example of how sometimes you can send out a message about what you want but be too afraid to get it in the conventional ways, and the universe surprises you by leading you your heart’s desire, in a messy, often complex and difficult but ultimately truly beautiful way. In my case, the universe led me to a family that I didn’t know I was missing, a place to call home, and a beautiful girl to help raise into adulthood. I love her and I feel so lucky to have her in my life, and to be in hers. I want her to grow up in a world that’s safe and habitable to be in. I want to do my part to co-create that world because I can do more, and god knows the world needs more of us to do more.

And yes. I think it matters. And that we can balance pursuing our dreams with our responsibilities as citizens of the world.

I’m still working through the regret about my twenties and all the questions about what could have been, but I need to not let it rob me of being here now, loving what my life has become and the people I get the privilege of doing it with, and doing all I can to keep moving forward and breathe the future into being.

*I have some thoughts on discipline - which in a nutshell consist of acknowledging that I don’t really know what discipline is these days, although I think I used to in those aforementioned twenties that I regret and simultaneously miss. And, I’m a bit curious about getting to know it, and i have a feeling that being truly disciplined could really open some doors both within me as a person, and around me in my life.