What are you supposed to do with your life?

I recently tried to listen to Henry Rollins on Joe Rogan’s podcast, because I usually find the guy inspiring, but something about this discussion with him irked me. That’s fine, even better, maybe: we learn the most from people we don’t agree with, and I’ll happily expose myself to the rational intelligent views of those I don’t agree with for as long as I can hack it.

He said, more than once, ‘You’re gonna die in a cubicle!’ about office workers, as a counterpoint to the type of peripatetic life he leads. Clearly he enjoyed that line, but he seemed to offer it more as a slight than a putative wake-up call. I write this from my desk in an open-plan office. I would love to have a cubicle to die in. But imagine I didn’t want that: ‘Oh shit! I’m gonna die in a cubicle! I’d better escape from this office! Let me buy a ticket to Bermuda. Oh the site’s not working. Okay I’ll just get the train to the airport. It’s not running? Oh wait! Is the way I’m living my life such a bad thing or is society so efficient because most people beaver away at specific tasks that they perform in the same small space day after day? Hm, well when I think about it like that, I’m kinda noble. Honey? Call Henry Rollins and tell him we’re busy Thursday: I don’t think I can take listening to his stories right now.’

I heard how often he brought up many facts he’d picked up on his journeys. At first I was jealous, but I thought about it more and remembered that travel has never instinctively interested me all that much. When I think of where I’d go if I wasn’t just going there to say I’d gone there, the list is so short I’m almost tempted not to bother at all. This being true, left to my own devices I’ll underestimate how much I enjoy travelling, but if there exist satisfying lives for us to live, I have to imagine that they’re mostly available without having to travel, since we arrived before planes did.

I then realised there was a kind of desperation about Rollins’ “cubicle” line, not one brought about by the constant spectre of Death, as he put it, but more a lack of understanding of certain lifestyles, a feeling of exclusion. When he mentioned that he didn’t know why everyone didn’t feel the same panic and urgency of death every day, I thought, ‘No, you probably don’t, but that doesn’t make other people wrong.’

Reality is never that big a deal compared to what the imagination can make it. We’re also programmed for that lesson to never fully sink in, since we’re supposed to keep wanting stuff and hence imagining how great it would be. As a result, I’ve noticed that those who haven’t gone to university, for example, can tend to be insecure about it and manufacture exalted statuses for those who have, leading them to feel like they’ve always got something to prove. And Rollins’ proselytising on the importance of travel and intercultural mingling got me feeling like I had to prove why it was okay for me to stay in the same place. And, well, I’m gonna!

Who would need to do all the things Rollins has done and go to all the places he’s been in order to feel satisfied? He’s a very rare type of restless soul, one that’s mostly inspiring, but he’s also someone it’s just not feasible for all of us to be. Most of us aren’t like him, and why not? I ask that curiously, but I got the feeling he asked it jealously. High productivity comes with high restlessness, and I think the wondering isn’t ‘I don’t know why people don’t wake up and feel like I do about life’ but ‘Why isn’t your burden the same as mine?’

None of us align precisely, which is partly the point. But those of us whose spectre pokes a bit less must be more satisfied with the lives we’re leading than we realise. Truly the happiness of Norwegians, for example, is a result of their ability to gain deep satisfaction out of ordinary lives, which is a gift I don’t possess or want, though I wouldn’t rag on them for having it.

I’ve said this many times, but since it’s such a constant debate, I’m just going to mention this as much as possible: you can’t come to Norway and be as happy as a Norwegian, so relax and stay put. You just have to have been born Norwegian to be as happy as them. And there’s more to life than happiness. I’m about to go to lunch. The conversations will be about the weather, skiing or home renovation. Everyone knows life is nicer when everyone agrees. But is that the point?

I’ve learned more about people by staying in the same place for many years, which has allowed me to pile observation onto observation, and just when I think I’ve learned everything, my mind steps it up a notch and offers me access to a greater method of understanding subtler cues in those around me. This is most apparent when I sit down to write fiction and think of a city in which I could set it. I have maybe three: London, Stavanger/Oslo, Glasgow. Other people and places I don’t know that much about. I could just invent some fake city to set the story in, but I wouldn’t be able to achieve the same authorial voice, depth of world, level of characterisation, confidence in plot. This being the case, someone who skates around the globe can probably expect to gain a broader understanding of life, but not a deeper one. Of course, at different times of year, different times of the day, even, we might operate at different points along that spectrum, and no matter which most-of-the-time solution I pick, Rollins, having been on the planet longer than I have and having been engaged in life in some respect always, probably knows more than I do either about the broadness or the depth of life.

One definition of happiness, I think, is that after considering your own death at great length, you decide to return to the life you’re already living.

However, I can’t tell if indeed the life I’m living is the one I’m supposed to be living even although I didn’t really plan for it. Maybe my mind has adapted to convince me the life I’m living is the one I’m supposed to live, since this is highly conducive to my survival and, when applied on a wider scale, to the survival of humanity at large. Sometimes we’re creatures of habit to our detriment, but we mostly are out of necessity. Or, rather, we tend to be creatures of habit. Fact. Think of it one way or another: it doesn’t really matter.

Most of my days are like a 7/10. Is that maybe too high, though? Shouldn’t I be pushing myself harder and introducing more discomfort? Who the fuck knows? Time for a beer.

By the way, there’ll be a new episode of the Losing the Plot podcast very soon. It’s a venture I’m super proud of, and much like my exposure to other world views through existing podcasts, it’s a joy to challenge my perceptions by being exposed to so many different opinions. It makes your intuition momentarily displaced, but then your perceptions align with it again, even harder than ever, because they’ve been tested. Though it would do us all well, I think, to remember that inside all of us is the strongest guide to who we’re supposed to be. There are no answers out there—only refinements.