I am sat on the train from Euston to Tring. As moments in my life go, this is a low one. It is nearly 10pm and naturally, the train has attracted the drunken class (myself included). These are not the obnoxious stag-do-esque drunks that you might expect an hour or two later. Everyone is keeping themselves to themselves and my eyes are lured to a middle-aged man drinking a can of Jack Daniels and munching on a packet of crisps by himself. I wonder what his life is like. Has he just finished work and is the JD a much needed treat like my first glass of wine of the evening (suddenly this reads as a deranged character analysis of the working class)? Did he finish earlier and spend some time at the pub, now on his way home? If so, why is the final JD necessary? I fully empathise with the crisps. Three units of alcohol and I will eat everything. Has this man had a special day? Was this an outing? Is this every day for him? Does he like it? He hasn’t smiled yet on this journey, but then again, nor have I. And I don’t feel sad. I also don’t feel happy. I’m just content. Enduring this little passage from being with my friends, which I enjoyed, to being back on my boat, which I will love.

I was stuck at a red signal on the Hammersmith and City line half an hour ago. With no station WiFi and no motivation to get stuck into what will be a very tricky chapter of the book I am currently reading, I go to my regular final resort. I start browsing my phone’s camera roll to pass the time. It feels appropriate this evening to look inside the album entitled ‘Mum’. This always fills me with a cocktail of emotions. Most of the photos are of her smiling and this fills my heart with a specific kind of peace. A comforting feeling that I will always be looked after, because even death can’t take away a love like that. If my love for her can reach across the veil, then surely hers can too in the other direction. But equally, it fills me with sadness. It is a happy sadness. I don’t hate it. I don’t love it. It’s just there and I accept it as a part of me now. Following a glance through the album, I sit with my eyes closed. Thinking. These are the times that the notes app on my phone fills with pretentious monologues and insights – usually burrowing their way into the narration of a YouTube video or occasionally getting lost in the darkness of the folders of my digital diary – a chaotic journal that probably hosts more of my soul than anything I have ever produced and shared with the public world. I’m in a thoughtful head space now. Not thinking of other people though. Thinking of me. Wanky? Yes.

I have always held myself to a high standard. I have always been ambitious. But I have never actually known what I want to do with my life.

Age 7 – spaceman

Age 13 – writer

Age 15 – world ruler (will settle for PM)

Age 18 – YouTube sensation (YouTube – a social media platform that existed before the clock app)

Age 21 – scientific researcher / time traveller if things go according to plan

Age 23 onwards – literally no idea, but definitely not the previous one.

I am 27 years old and I have no idea what I want to do with my life anymore. The excitement of being a promising young 16 year old with some excellent GCSE grades and the world my oyster is wearing off. In the 11 years that have elapsed since, I have come to learn how much nurturing a minor skill needs in order to flourish into a genuine super power – something good enough to build a career out of. In theory, I’ve done this with physics, having achieved an actual PhD in the subject, but I feel no better at it now than I did four years ago and I’m certainly not as passionate. I used to live and breathe the subject. I spent every waking moment thinking about the science I was studying, the ins and outs, the beauty, the raw brilliance of the new ideas and the precisely crafted magnificence of the well-founded theories. I was so ready to punch my own stamp on the subject – a very minor mark, but a mark nonetheless. I wanted it. Then I lost interest. Life became more important. Mum got cancer and I spent the next four years spending my time thinking about that. Brushing my teeth, walking to the office, chopping fruit – the gaps between conversation. The moments I was alone in my head. I’m not balls deep inside scientific theories anymore. I’m inside peoples’ heads (it felt necessary to drop the “balls deep” part in this sentence). Inside my own head. Using my spare moments trying to understand the people around me, as opposed to the world around me. Myself included. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing half the time either. I’m completely lost. I’ve taken to writing as the only outlet I can find for whatever this is (as maths was once an outlet for my time spent pondering about the universe).

I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. 27 suddenly feels incredibly old. I now comprehend the time required to hone new skills and I can’t even decide what part of me I need to allow to flourish. I haven’t finished a painting in over two years. I haven’t ran a half marathon in over a year. I’ve stopped asking myself questions about the universe. I’m just… sort of existing. But I think that’s ok. Because honestly, day to day, I’m not unhappy. I used to make YouTube videos that got a few thousand views, but before that, I made home videos with my brother that no one ever saw except us and a few close friends. We did it because it was fun – just for us. I make videos now that only a hundred people will watch to the end. It doesn’t feel very adult to invest so much time in something that doesn’t make any money, doesn’t allow me to build a network of any sort and only allows me to develop skills that I will fundamentally only use for my own joy, rather than building some kind of success. It feels immature. Like an embarrassment. But I need to throw that thought away. I started it for me. Just like I have started writing for me.  I need to shake the idea that everything I do in life has to be for something. Because I did the PhD and it ticked all three of the boxes above, but it did not make me happy. And surely that’s what all of this is for, right? Life. Surely the whole point is to do what makes you happy.