In Defence of Jedward

There are times when the chaos seems so ripe. A new day in Glasgow feels like the dawn of a new universe, borne from a big bang; a rubbish van reversing or shutter slamming open, the city rises fiercely. Its streets are at once swarmed and animated by its inhabitants who appear to move as an extension of their environment. Forces of nature. Each with their own destiny, drawn willingly towards it as the morning releases from beneath them. Then, it all becomes clear, in the moment when thought sits back and the heart denies control, where my eyes are all that seem to engage with the world that surrounds me.

 

That being said, paper corridors that could consume minds beg the question. Only in a place where so much knowledge sits untouched and unattended. Where is it we come from? The question rang at me for weeks before being spelled out by the book walls of the library, in an unfashionably brown haze. Is it even possible to know what we are unless the trajectory of that self is in some way illuminated? The more I see, the more it becomes clear that everyone is just as consumed by confusion as I am. What is it that attracts me to the colour blue? It has something to do with being one of those few colours available to me, I don't doubt, and yet I feel more myself when covered by it. Although, the Romans wore rags for long enough to feel like themselves, so maybe repetition is the simple answer. I’m not opposed to red, but there is something so angry about it. I don’t want to be wrapped in such a bashful shade. Troubled by confusion and adorned in rage. I can remember the time when blue still felt new, confidence that wasn’t built in a day.

 

I think about those eyes so invigorated by life, the laughter of it. That bellows from their belly, and that the skin on their face seems to struggle to contain. Bending and contorting on and amongst itself. Showing them as they should be, dispositions that don’t fear the disposal of time. Laughter that consumes a room and eviscerates its contents. Fear and thought and tension. In his eyes and in hers. Sadness subdued like far distant lights concealed by nighttime. Full of pasts renounced and carried forward, to uncertain futures and undetermined paths. 

 

Who are we? Who am I? There is a generation lost between the life they live and those lived around them. Voices that echo from further than down the street. That pierce, at the speed of endless sound and intrusive light, through the earth’s core, ceaselessly everyday. Who am I now that I can be anyone? Now that I can see everyone and feel everything? What am I supposed to do now that I am not supposed to do anything? 

 

I fail at containing my emotion, I don’t know who I am and because of that I don’t know what I’m allowed to feel. There was a moment it made sense but that crumbled like Rome. I only wish I knew why. It could be too much grey coupled with much less blindness. For which the infrequently uncomfortable glasses that sit, rectangularly, on my frequently inconsistent face, are entirely responsible. Maybe there is mould in my walls or spiders in my sleep that eat away my strength and nibble on my feet. It's possible I should stop imagining mouldy spiders that eat me in my sleep. Three years ago I wanted to play football. Three years before that I wanted to be a firefighter. Six years later, I study law at university and have a blog. I don’t know what that says about time or about my confusion. 

 

What I am certain of is that I feel I fall short in a world that demands more and expects nothing. Yesterday I saw a man get half way across the 5th floor of the library before realising there was a ribbon of toilet paper the length of half of the 5th floor of the library stuck to his foot. Sometimes I feel like him, at once embarrassed and obnoxiously unaware of the mark I leave behind me. One obvious to everyone else and somehow invisible to me. The important fact is that by now, one day later, everyone who had the pleasure of witnessing him pass has most likely forgotten it. Apart, obviously, from myself who is now immortalising it on my blog (arguably just as upsetting). Shame, failure, and embarrassment are natural occurrences in life. For some reason we have engineered a shared conscience that has made such setbacks taboo.

 

It is my great theory that forgetting this is what makes animal videos so funny. When a cat falls off a roof it reminds us not of their humanity but of our own inhumanity. That we are still animals, that somewhere on the evolutionary road to consciousness and sentience we still maintain a tangible link to our natural core. Maybe that is why we fear awkward failure so much. We expect ourselves, and others, to have surpassed foolishness and mistake. This is contrary to the essence of existence. I think that we probably are supposed to fail, as much as humanly (and naturally) possible. Failing forwards has been the motto of civilisation as far as civilisation has existed. Biological evolution, natural selection, gravity, Jedward, that one year everyone was wearing skinny jeans - all to reach where we are now. Undeniably better than the Jedward skinny jean years, and yet just as lost. The likelihood is that there may be no answer, no perfect self, no absolute identity, no unshakeable core, and no amount of fashion changes that will ever answer our questions to the universe. At least not in the sense that constant criticisation suggests there might be. The only meaningful response to any confusions of existence is that there is and never will be one resolutive answer. 

It seems clear to me that I should continue to fail, shamefully and obnoxiously, so that I can one day hope to no longer fear change. Or the colour red, or Romans in togas, or Rugby lads in togas, or just togas generally. So that one day all my days might seem chaotic and ripe, full of big bangs, magnetic destinies, and converging paths. And especially so that one day, on a far distant plane, I might no longer fear Jedward.