The keys (so far) to a rich life
what I believe are a few of the key things to have for a good life
Today was the first morning without David Lynch. Like many other nerds, I mourned the death of David Lynch and felt a particular sadness at his loss. It was around the same sadness that I felt finding out that Anthony Bourdain was dead when I started listening to the Parts Unknown podcast a few months to a year ago. Those podcasts got me through A-Level revision and a very tough breakup. This morning, I felt like going out to get some fresh air and something to eat. I decided to have my go to main at wagamama and then try a starter and dessert I had never tried before. Their ‘vegan k dogs’ I would give a 6.5/10 - I liked the sauce and fried noodles batter thing going on, but they fumbled deciding to go for a vegan sausage rather than a vegan hotdog inside. Their smoked chocolate caramel cake, I give a 7/10. It had a really nice rich dark chocolate mousse and the salted caramel with that? Did wonders for the flavour. There was an option of ice cream with it, but I decided to try it plain to see how it was and I think it’d be an 8/10 with ice cream. Usually, I don’t think cake needs ice cream like that, but the texture of this particular cake would’ve meant that the ice cream would give a great new texture as well as flavour profile. I spent way more than I expected, but I’m not mad at it! As I ate my meal, I decided that I would write something today and post it. After reading this lovely Substack post (shoutout to BordoLines)
I started thinking about biographies, even though it was not the core focus of that post. Honestly, please read the post, because I loved it and it’s separate to what I’m saying here, just it inspired me to write today, in part. Anyway, I’m a major biopic fan. ‘Malcolm X’ (dir. Spike Lee) and ‘Raging Bull’ (dir. Martin Scorsese) are two of my favourite films. With biopics, I’m always interested about how they depict the lives of their subject matter and how accurate it is. With biopics focusing on men in particular, I’m always struck by how vastly different the perspectives of the women who are with these men’s view of their experiences are compared to the film. The two aforementioned films don’t seem to have that issue. ‘Raging Bull’, honestly, is a film that does not put Jake LaMotta in a positive light at all and feels painfully honest, to the point that you can’t look away. Spike Lee’s take on Malcolm X’s life is one that truly captures how he went from a relaxed haired crook to one of the greatest men who ever lived, without seeming to exaggerate and yet, somehow, without feeling as political as you would expect it to. Malcolm X truly felt like he was being depicted as a man who happened to do great things, rather than a quote unquote ‘great man’. I started thinking about how I wanted to be depicted if there were a biopic of my life and I decided I wanted to be shown honestly but in a genuinely positive light because I happened to be a genuinely positive person. After a dreamless nap, I finally landed on my Substack post idea for today…
What are the keys to a rich* life?
*OED Definition of a plentiful, abundant and ample life to be exact
I’m only 19, so these may change, but I have an idea of what some of them are or should be. The first being good sex at least once a week. I don’t say that to be horny, I say that to be frank. I don’t look up the scientific proof of what sex does to the mind or the politics of an orgasm, but you can! I have seen the effects personally in two sisters. These sisters are about 70 years old and I met them at my uncle’s wedding. One of them was my uncle’s mother (to be clear, she isn’t related to me in any way, my uncle is my dad’s half brother related by father) and the other was her sister. My uncle’s mother is quite a tight lipped woman most times. You can tell who she likes and who she doesn’t. She does this face where her lips press together tightly like a child being forced to give someone a kiss who is fully ready to spit and rub their mouth a milisecond later. She’s the type of person that you only know if she opens up to you and everyone else seems shut out from her. Her sister is different. Her hair is buzzed and dyed this vibrant orange and she wears these tortoise shell glasses similar to my own. The second I met her, she hugged me and kissed me on the cheek like I was her granddaughter. When she speaks to you, she holds your hands tightly and looks into your eyes, always making room for meaningful connection. I’m usually a little afraid of first impressions, but I loved her immediately. When it came time for special announcements and speeches, she put her plate of rice and grilled fish to speak on the pillars of a happy marriage. Although I am no longer Christian, I saw the best that Christianity has to offer in that kind woman. Later, as she got a little tipsy, she made another speech to say how the key to a happy marriage is to have sex often, telling us all that she has sex about 3x a week. I understood then and there why her sister is so uptight whilst she’s a breath of fresh air to everyone she knows. The bomb sex is saving her livelihood. I know for a fact that the former isn’t getting any because my granddad lives a few hours away from her and does not visit unless it’s a special occasion. Sex, particularly goof sex, often will change your personality for the better. Though hookup guy and I did not work out, I found myself way less prone to anger getting some as often as I was and considerably more relaxed. All of my role models also happen to have good sex and good sex often. Though to me the most arousing thing is someone that loves you, just blindly good intercourse is a close second and the key to a positive outlook on life.
The mantra ‘You can’t do the wrong things with the right people’ that was sent to me in a dream
For years, I was one of those people who dwelled on how the kindness I gave out to the world wasn’t reciprocated and I kept meeting people that seemed to abuse it every chance they got. When I had crushes that didn’t feel how I felt, they expressed it in as harsh a way as possible publicly. I had friends that I would get over my own fears of getting into trouble to stand up for that did not do the same for me. It made me seek these people out years later, angry and trying to find anyone else who could possibly say they were an eyewitness and shame them. I saw the shift I had from being conditionally kind to consistently defensive as their fault and I wasn’t going to let them go unpunished. Eventually, that became exhausting so I complained about it to everyone that would hear until they got tired. Then I stopped doing that. Finally, I had a dream I cannot remember in bulk but only by the message that was given to me: you can’t do the wrong things with the right people. A lot of the time, people are trying to give you a manual for how to get the best things in life. I remember reading a rule that girls should wear pink on a first date in order to appear more feminine and the man to want you more or some bullshit like that. In order to definitely get that job interview, call the company pretending to confirm a date and time already established. Stop scrolling and listen to these tarot cards about the woman who hasn’t texted you back. Get this app to meet friends. Eating this fruit and having sex at this time with the acupuncture treatment of this doctor will give you the child you’ve been struggling and praying for. Ultimately, it’s the blind leading the blind. These things are helpful, but it isn’t 100% and it’s sad to know. You can do everything right, acquire the life you’ve always dreamed of and something can still be missing. What if who you’ve married wasn’t who they presented to be? The firm you’ve prayed to get into has a boss who antagonizes you every chance they get? All of these not quite right scenarios feel like getting beautiful shoes that blister you over time or an outfit that collects dust in your wardrobe. With all this uncertainty and a constant argument of dos and dont’s, I say the dont’s do not exist with the right people. You can’t control how people act or how compatible they happen to be with you in any sort of setting. but you can listen to your gut and think about whether this is truly everything you want. I don’t believe that you should have to compromise and let yourself feel like something is off in order to experience a dream in the name of some invisible rules. There are people out there who met and within 2 weeks, were married and were still married. There are people who left a job that seemed perfect for a job that is perfect for them. It all comes down to whatever that is meant to be, or what is meant for you, will be. The only reason I believe there aren’t a lot of examples is because a lot of people will not accept such uncompromising perfect for them scenarios in their life. I tell you: You cannot do the wrong things with the right people. If it’s meant to be, it will be. If it doesn’t feel right, it isn’t right. If it isn’t everything to you, find everything to you. In being realistic, you don’t have to accept less than what you believe you deserve. Something is ‘unrealistic’ or ‘impossible’ until someone does it.
Document your life daily.
I do not mean document it to make it look perfect. I personally do not see the value in documenting every moment based on perfection and then ignoring the moments that aren’t perfect. Then, you place value on parts of your life and fail to see the bigger, most valuable blessing: you’re here. You get to think and know that you are alive. Oh my God, I sound like a school counsellor that’s going to report you self-harming to your parents, but let me see whether I can polish it up a bit. I am a worshipper of life. The only reason why I have been able to have such a positive view of life in general is because I try and stop putting a pedestal on the moments that felt best. I think of them to get me out of low times, but I do not place my life’s worth on how many good moments I can have. That came through documenting my life. At first, it is a lot to be confronted with the honesty of yourself. Even taking screenshots of random stuff and keeping it in your camera roll can be a bit of an eyebrow raise. It feels like clutter and just proof of a random blip in your life. But for a moment, it was important. As mundane as it seems, it was enough to screenshot and keep in your phone instead of scrolling past it. Any moment that you bother to let last longer than a second is important and a good thing. Every moment that we see a picture with someone no longer in our lives and feel hurt, it’s proof that we cared and we exist because the pain is still there. If the pain is still there, or if any reaction is there, it means that we will continue to exist and feel something for someone else. Looking back on diary entries where tough times were happening, you get to at least know that you were alive and it mattered, which means other things will matter that will happen to you and you can write about it again. There is beauty in knowing that we can feel anything, even anger or sadness. It is proof that we are here and we can do something with that information. It makes you think a lot more about what you can do or how much you can feel whilst you’re still here.
MAKE that RISKY MOVE YOU’VE BEEN CONTEMPLATING
We are (I think?) programmed to be more comfortable with what’s familiar to us. But everything familiar has to begin as unfamiliar. The friends you have now did not always know you. The job you have now was not always part of your routine. You didn’t even begin life with having emotions. You began understanding when you were hungry, when you needed changing and yelling to show it. I say yelling because people actually can’t cry when they’re first born. Their tear ducts don’t develop until 2 weeks in, I believe, so babies are just yelling mindlessly. Emotions come later. But you’ve known emotions for so long that it feels like it’s always been there. Do not waste time deciding that familiar is enough if you don’t think it’s enough. There’s always another familiar to be made in a sea of unfamiliar things. Even if it’s small. Some of the best stories I know are from when someone makes a risky move, big or small. Small scale, my granddad decided not to stay up for a train journey and ended up waking up in Brighton. He just got off the train and decided to spend his day there. It was a fun day, according to him. I think he has some artwork of what he remembers that I can ask him to take a picture of for me. I made the risky move of leaving my acting school which led to an overseas opportunity. Today, I actually sent the guy I hooked up with a video of Mariah Carey singing ‘Honey’ live and told him that song plays in my head when I think of us. We’ll see if he replies. Not all risky moves will have a crazy ending or story to go with it, but it gets you out of the mindset that there is a specific script to live your life on based on the familiar. Anything can become familiar with enough time.
Try something new every week
A new song. New album. A dress in a shop that you won’t buy. That terrible smelling drink someone’s friend of a friend brought for pre drinking on a night out. Smoke a blunt for the first time. Have an edible for the next time. Go to that restaurant recommended by the Internet. Find out that it’s shit and whoever recommended it doesn’t have tastebuds. Migrate to the small local business to it that sells kebabs. Get a kebab from there and find out why it’s £7 for a kebab serving the size of your head and a basketballer’s foot. Be pleasantly surprised or be sick for the rest of the day. Book the tickets for that outing that you didn’t really want to go to. Decide to say yes to the friend you weren’t fully in the mood to see because you didn’t want to see anyone. Flirt with the waiter you find cute and either laugh at officially becoming 47 years old or find that they actually flirt back. Decide that you’ve become a cook. Book that hair braiding class. Go to that pop up with a long ass line. Go into that shop that will definitely be closing down within the next 5 years. Talk to the stranger…safely. Right now, I’m listening to the ‘Cupid Deluxe’ album by Blood Orange. Before that, I was listening to the ‘Be’ album by Common. At the very least, you get to say that you learned something new.
These are some of the things I think help in having a life that feels rich. plentiful. abundant. I’m sure the list can only increase. Let me know any contributions you may have!
-Halle