I still haven’t come to any conclusions

This post will most probably be very disjointed, for reasons that pertain to a dreadful bout of weekend insomnia.

One of the things that I’ve been thinking about a lot just recently - but, curiously enough, haven’t written about here - is why, as a supposedly mature 32-year-old, I am still consumed by late twentysomething / thirtysomething angst. Why am I here? What’s my place in the world? Why don’t I appear to have any direction in life? Will I still be doing whatever I’m doing now (or perhaps not doing now) in another ten years? Why have I been writing inane gibbersih on the net for nearly three and a half years? And why, unfortunately, is my most common everyday emotion one of slightly weary apathy?

Grow up. Or rather, I should have grown up by now. I should be over this questioning phase. But no, I’ll barely have come to terms with the boundaries of life as I know it before there’s more to come. Apparently, this may well engulf me again when I turn 40. I need that like a hole in the head. I’m the questioning sort. I’ve been questioning since I was 18 years old. If it goes on until I’m 40, that’ll be 22 years of solid questioning. And no answers. Jesus wept. I’ll be knackered.

Don’t get the wrong idea. This is just an observation. I’m beginning to misunderstand myself, so I don’t expect you to fare much better at comprehending this excessive verbiage. God, I’m tired.

This evening, thanks to a long, unexpected and wide-ranging telephone conversation with one of the few people I can honestly say seems to understand what I’m going on about at least some of the time, and whom I’m lucky enough to call a friend of a number of years standing, I’ve discovered that I’m not the only one who thinks like this. By the law of averages, that also means there must be other people who think the same way too.

It’s not Generation X, though. Heaven forbid. That’s yesterday’s news, and Generation X was always rather too self-consciously cool for me. I think we’re more Generation Y.

You don’t need me to explain the double meaning.

There’s got to be more to, er, anything and everything than this, hasn’t there? Yes, there must be. The only problem is that we’re not sure where on Earth to start looking, and we’re also feeling rather apathetic about the whole project, if we’re honest. Banal Saturday evening TV will get us first. Run away, run away, it’s Davina McCall come to suck the blood from your last brain cell - and you don’t care.

All the answers that we always thought were the answers to everything, and therefore hoped would be the answers in days to come, aren’t necessarily the answers we wanted. You want answers. I want answers. We all want answers. Confused? You will be.

Questions, though. We can do questions. Oh yes.

Still questioning. Still no conclusions. Fuck. I’m still thinking. Still thinking, even when I can’t really be bothered. Other times I’m just (as the song says) pretty vacant.

Sleep? Yes. Probably a good idea.