We’re all going home in an ambulance

Coughing up blood in a hospital room is not the way you’ll go out. So if that ever happens, kid. You remember that. This is not the way you go out.

How will you go out and is it as close as you fear? It’s coming to everyone whether you want it to or not. We’re all going home in an ambulance.

So you may as well assume it’s coming and act accordingly. But also assume that you’ve got just enough time to get everything done.

In the words of Viktor Frankl: “Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!”

You still have the opportunity to make it right.

And, you know what? To the people who say: “What you need to do is blah blah blah.”

Let your internal default response be, “What you need to do is shut the fuck up and mind your own business because what puts you in a position to judge from on-high when you’ve done nothing with your life and are just bitter about it?”

And to the complainers: “Fuck you. Fuck me too, but life is hard for everyone. So fuck off.”

Because you don’t get to be one thing or the other. You are what you are.

And what does life matter anyway? And where are the characters you expect to see. And what to do with life and what to do with death and what to do now and what to do next. And what did you do to get here. And what do you need to do to get where you’re going. What did you do last time round and what will you do different this time instead?

Every day is a do-over — it just gets harder on a daily-basis. But it’s still your life. Do what everyone else does and you’ll only have that to show for it. Nothing but the same old shit.

Allen Ginsberg got the insight from his shrink that the only thing he wanted to do was write, so do that. And he went crazy and it cost him his life but he did it and that was the right thing for him to do. He endured a ton of shit before being recognised. But he recognised himself first and acted accordingly.

According to David Burner’s ‘Making Peace with the Sixties’ Allen Ginsberg saw a psychiatrist in San Francisco, called Philip Hicks, who asked him what he wanted to do with his life. Ginsberg recalled his response:

“Doctor, I don’t think you’re going to find this very healthy and clear, but I really would like to stop working forever — never work again, never do anything like the kind of work I’m doing now — and do nothing but write poetry and have leisure to spend the day outdoors and go to museums and see friends. And I’d like to keep living with someone — maybe even a man — and explore relationships that way. And cultivate my perceptions, cultivate the visionary thing in me. Just a literary and quiet city-hermit existence. Then he said “Well, why don’t you?” I asked him what the American Psychoanalytic Association would say about that, and he said… if that is what you really feel would please you, what in the world is stopping you from doing it?

What’s the equivalent of this for you? Go do that.

And that’s where you’re going. To the road again. Back to the road where you must decide but your mind is already made up. There is no decision.

Do you want to live this life you can’t stand to live, just so you can go on pretending to be someone else, wanting the same old shit as everyone else?

Do you want to die? Maybe you’re already dead. You ran out of time before you were born. But you’ll never know. And just-in-time is no time at all.

Get on the road early or late but get on the road. Hit the fucking road.

Do you want to maybe just do the one thing that you came here to do? Live your life.

Do the thing you want to do every day. Drop the rest. Move to a quiet place and let the world disown you. Fuck the scrapheap and fuck all your so-called friends. All the so-called people in your life who think they know better than you how to live your one life.

Family and friends who all want to know what you’re doing, what job you have, what you want to be. But don’t actually hear that you want to be a writer, you just want to write, all you’ve ever cared about is writing, films, travel and art, or anything else for that matter.

That’s all you care about.

That you’d gladly trade most anything for a life filled with these things.

That you’d prefer death to living any way else.

And that so much in your life just feels like compromise because that’s what you’re supposed to do.

And it has nothing to do with being grown-up or mature or getting real. And everything to do with getting in line.

But a fixed system is never going to be fair. So why do it? What is the point?

You’ve wanted to do these things and to help people. But you’re not really helping people if you’re not being yourself. You’re denying the world the chance to see you for what you really are.

And people are irrelevant. This social presence is irrelevant. Your life and persona are irrelevant.

You can let it all fall away, even for a little while. Because you need to talk to you, and listen to what you have to say.

The only relationship you have to cultivate is with your muse. Get your money and get out to a closed door peaceful place where no-one can hear you scream. And let it all out.

Start now. You’ve got nothing but the time you have left but you never did. And one day spent as yourself is better than a life of nothing at all.

Enjoy what you enjoy. Love what you love. Do what you do. But do it every day.

Write every day. Use it as a weapon or as a tool.

What about just telling the world to fuck off and doing nothing for a while other than create?

Do you really want to do anything else?

As Mary Oliver said: ‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

GO.

James Garside is an independent journalist, author, and travel writer. Join Chapter 23 for the inside track on all their creative projects and insights about life, work, and travel.