The creative light

"Meaning is not what you start out with but what you end up with."

Winter’s not over, of course, even though the planet has for almost two months now been steadily tilting its northern parts back towards the sun, but I feel there is enough distance between the solstice and I to impartially reflect upon what transpired both within and without one day this past December.

It wasn’t anything crazy. In fact, it was about as mundane as life gets . . . That is, if you are, like many these days, impressed by whatever’s most shiny.

As some readers may know, the past six months have been quite a time for my family and me. John Barry, my father, passed on the second to last day of August, one month after my little brother’s 23rd birthday, one month before my 25th. And near the end of October, I traveled to Boston for heart surgery, from which I spent the following two months at home recovering.

I mention this not for sympathy—which my father always made sure I knew could be found in the dictionary between “shit” and “syphilis”—but merely to depict to you the circumstances that colored my condition at the time. I would, as writing convention suggests, show you instead of telling you, but I am lazy and not always fond of grounded thought.

All you need to know, aside from my cerebral disequilibrium, is that as a result of this surgery, I was not allowed to drive for six weeks and consequently could not earn money since the only way for me to do so while I was home was by delivering Uber Eats.

Not having to work might sound to some like a relief, but because I am generally restless, judgmental, and prone to that unhealthy habit of comparison (me being a 25-year-old man who’s not got a “real” job nor any significant sum of money at all, unlike most of my friends and, indeed, friend’s little siblings . . . perhaps even their dogs too), not being able to make money for six weeks drove me a little up the wall.

While recovery from a surgery is always physically painful, many will tell you that, especially if they are like me, what’s far more torturous is the waiting—the sitting around, the anticipatory and aimless sauntering of the mind, the inability to do what you feel you have been like a wild beast meticulously designed to do.

Though I’ve endured several surgeries before (and so knew already what I was up against), it is the case in life that some things just suck, no matter how much forethought you ineffectually put towards them. You could imagine, then, if you consider how quickly you yourself might fall victim to negative thinking in slightly dire circumstances—like on a cloudy day or when the barista pours a little too much cream in your coffee—how deeply I could have plunged, to what dismal lands my mind could have wandered during those six weeks.

While I am admittedly blowing things out of proportion here (it seems through all my pains and failures and losses, especially including that abiding suspension of any hint at proximity to meaningful achievement, Life had sculpted me in preparation for these times, knowing in Its omniscience of their imminence), it is true that did venture a bit. For a period of that period, my world was a little darker than it ought to be, all things considered, for someone as lucky as a Napervillian¹.

And so, it was on that one day, or that one night, that lowly night, when the calendar came finally to the day that marked six weeks since operation, thereby granting me the freedom to drive, that this happening happened.

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In all honesty, I’m doing my best here to sound as dramatic as possible. It was, as I said, not outwardly dramatic in the slightest . . . What was really so dramatic about it all, you see, was not the fact that I could drive but how affected I was by this fact.

For in taking that first step forward, in breaking through that barrier I had for six weeks sat ravenously behind, in delivering that first meal, my world flipped upside down . . . or right-side up, I suppose.

A place that was before to me near oppressive became nothing short of my very own oyster. Darkness turned to light; what was dead spontaneously enlivened; the town I sought so desperately to leave became the place to be. I felt exactly how I imagine my non-American friends, who have articulated to me on multiple occasions just how lucky I am compared to children of most other countries, must have felt when they moved to the United States.

My relationship with my environment, in several blinks of the eye, transposed from one angle to its polar opposite. Where there was yesterday no hint of any opportunity sat today a purposeful, invigorating path forward . . . It was there the whole time, really, shrouded by those lenses I had just removed or, perhaps, illuminated by those I’d just put on.

What I thought for those six weeks was little more than a bland and aimless splatter of matter across a continuum, most of which I was hardly aware, instantaneously ordered and structured itself so that I became a part of it—or so that it became a part of me.

In my phone’s notepad, I wrote excitedly, childishly while driving around, “There are always at least two ways to see a thing.” I surely wasn’t arguing for moral relativism; I’d say it was more something like no matter what side of the moon you’re looking at, it’s still the moon . . . but depending on which angle you’re looking at it from, you’ll either catch it in light or dark . . . and if you catch it in dark, you won’t see it.

I myself changed from the inside out, becoming a fountain overflowing, talking to hosts and hostesses for no reason other than, I don’t know, to enjoy myself? I certainly had no intention! Beautiful girls who yesterday would have intimidated me became mere human beings with whom I was sharing that incredible experience.

Life became a game that I was winning. And so I danced. Naturally, without effort, without thought.

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I’d end this post right there if there was a better ending to the story, if something actually happened, if my life was profoundly different from that point on.

But it wasn’t, really. My recognition of what transpired was little more than an indiscriminate gust of thought.

Since then, I’ve succumbed to a host of wanes, most of which I’ve encountered before; I’ve assumed in various instances that the grass is greener on the other side—that I ought, instead of watering the land upon which I stood, to relocate altogether; I’ve embodied the same mindset that consumed me while I was at home recovering from surgery; I’ve been utterly hopeless and just as hopeful within this very week.

I did not, at the time, contrary to what you might assume after having read what I’ve written, pick up on and integrate the lessons distilled by my experience.

Things, as in my waking experience, my worldview, my perspective, only changed after slapping this all together. My life is only different—I only learned the lesson—after having written this . . . After I’ve acknowledged and set in a creative mold the whole happening.

When I started it, I wanted this piece to be about “being chosen.” I wanted to depict to you this whole insight about how I felt—and how it seems many want to feel these days—like the main character, like the boy who did this and became that, not once I’d become famous or anything crazy like that, but once I’d broken the barrier I most needed to break through, and how, therefore, we could all feel like this if we just attacked our fears and restraints . . . That feeling chosen isn’t so much about being witnessed externally by others but by choosing ourselves, or what’s best for ourselves, over those things—impulses, fears, comforts, and any other dark psychological hollow—that hold us back . . . And that, in fact, the degree to which one wants to be this oft-criticized-as-cringy term reflects how well or poorly they are walking a true path (‘cus you don’t envy what you are).

But I’m not so sure anymore that’s what this piece is about.

In his post, “Documenting Life,”

iL.

writes,

“It is only when repackaged into a form of expression, that documented moments grow beyond their frame of capture. It seems somehow, that revealing shadowed moments to plain light changes its very meaning. Indeed sharing a piece of documentation, with yourself, a friend, or the world, allows it to become more of itself. In the same way shameful thoughts become dull and ridiculous when spoken aloud, unveiled documentation becomes like an artistic exhale. When we dare to share these pieces of expression, the things we hold close can connect to the heart of another. It transcends beyond itself . . .

Perhaps, true progress can be made when we reframe documentation not as an act of preserving the past but as a means of liberating ourselves from it. To transform experience into expression, we release its weight, give it a new life, a new meaning. Memories can shift from being a burden to becoming a gift—something we can share, reflect upon, or let go of . . .

To mark down by hand or camera, audio capture or song, paint or pencil, your life as it appears to you, means to express yourself as a way of life . . .

To live with the intention of remembering the intricacies of a life lived, provides the means to a life worth remembering in the first place. If there’s anything I could say to you, dear reader, it would be to document your life. Mark down the flat moments and the bulbous ones, because even if they appear useless to you today, they may crystallise into beautified diamonds in years to come.”

That night, or maybe it was the next day, I wrote in my journal, “Is it a good or a bad life when the opportunity to make money delivering Uber Eats uplifts you like an angel from the sky?”

Then I saw it.

There I was, right there. In the light. This is it. Life. The good life. The struggling life. The true life. I was living it. And I was whole. I didn’t need a hundred million dollars nor 100,000 readers. Just my car, an app, some guy’s sandwich, and a pen to write about it.

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1. See Niche’s rankings.