The first thing that comes to mind when I read about those studies into the health implications of loneliness is a sad-sack, solitary figure, face to the wall, too lonely to figure out how to get unlonely. I don’t tend to picture, for example, myself. Even though I’ve been lonely before, I don’t read about those studies and think that’s me. The lonely person is me.

I was hanging out with a sick kid recently. This tends to happen in my line of work. By work I mean parenting. This was a lie-on-the-couch-with-a cough type of illness on a cold wintery day. Mum brings you toast. You have more than one bath. You’re allowed to stare at a screen all day. That kind of thing. But the more this child stayed home doing nothing, the more the outside world beckoned. Being an aspiring soccer player half-way through a sustained period of mastering a trick, this child requested my attendance at the park, to kick a ball around. Now, in my line of parenting, this is an easy no on a sick day. It’s cold outside. You have a cough. I have work to do. Have you ever watched Mary Poppins etc.

I’ve never been much of a joiner. It always seemed that joining a group was a declaration of exclusion in relation to people who weren’t in the group. It also seemed a bit like signing up for a broad set of values could be a stitch-up. At school, for instance, if you decide to join in being a jock (because you love sport) are you then subscribing to all that being a jock in high school entails? If you’re a slightly nerdy jock and all the other jocks bully the nerds, to borrow a few stereotypes, does that mean you have to give yourself a wedgie?

I found out recently that a friend’s kid misheard ‘point of view’ as ‘point of you’ and I’ve been thinking about ever since. It’s difficult to remember that you’re just a passing character in everybody else’s stories. You’re the protagonist of your own, obviously. That’s the point of you. Sometimes, though, it can be an interesting thought experiment to attempt to switch POVs with people you don’t even know.

Sometimes I get completely lost in a phrase that I have used all my life. Like, ‘I have seen better days’. They reckon Shakespeare invented that one. And wild goose chase. And foregone conclusion. Did you know you can just make up phrases and then people say them for centuries without even knowing it? The one that got me started was: I have changed my mind. Imagine thinking that up. I had a mind that thought this. As a result of some more information or a change of some kind, it is now changed. Like a cool breeze on a hot day. The entire environment is altered.

Isn’t it great how humans report to each other? We say things like “how was your day?” which is both a time-specific report (x1 day only) and requires specific agency (it was “your” day). Americans say things like “how are you holding up?” (no time limit but a qualitative pre-assessment of your context - you’re probably struggling in an unnamed context completely out of your control). The idea that today is yours gives all the power to you. The idea that you may or may not be holding up gives you none.

I read the other day that scientists have no idea how to define time, scientifically speaking, and that, despite our linear narrative instincts, time is probably a great big mysterious illusion that we cling to in order to assert some kind intellectual control over our own utterly bewildering existence. I know, quite a confronting idea to be scrolling past, over your morning cup of coffee. And, let me tell you, it didn’t get any less confounding as I read on (quantum mechanics is quite complex, it turns out). The article did suggest, though, that not only is time an illusion but it’s a subjective one, which is why the time you fell over on stage at school assembly lasted for a thousand years but nobody else seemed to notice time slow down (they didn’t use that example, but I feel like they would have if they’d thought of it). 

I had occasion recently to look through a bunch of old photos. Being as I am (according to my young children) a citizen of ancient vintage, I am of course talking about those old fashioned paper photos you’ve probably seen on display in museums. There was one photo, gosh I look like I was having such a wonderful time, grinning and looking affectionately around at the group of lovely faces surrounding me. Such a good time is being had. The family member looking over my shoulder paused on the way past and commented on how nice it was that I had found a photo of some old friends. Which it would have been… had I recognised a single other person in the photograph. 

Like me, you have maybe been reminded recently about history. Someone maybe told you about the Spanish flu for instance, and how people wrote novels during it. Or other times in history - world wars, for example, you may have been reminded, were much more trying than what we’re enduring now. This is, of course, true, and sometimes it’s wonderful to gain a sense of perspective from the worst times in history. Sometimes, though, it’s nice to think of the times in history we don’t know about. The unrecorded. The times when people thought, “well that wasn’t much of anything”. 

It’s a cliché these days that Pixar films make people cry. Don’t know what a Pixar film is? That just means you are not intimately attuned to the viewing habits of small children. For that, you should be quietly relieved. Like, don’t boast about it, but well done. There are these films for kids, though, and they are cartoons for heaven’s sake, but they make grown adults cry. Recently, I watched one of these films, called Coco, and I may one day stop crying, but that is by no means a certainty. The film is about the Mexican celebration, the Day of the Dead, and in it, the souls of the deceased get to visit their loved ones for the day, unseen but celebrated and remembered. A lot of the film was about the grief of the living. For me, though, I kept imagining it from the point of view of the dead. Imagine! Just one day! Reunited with the familiar and the normal and the downright complicated business of life again. Even now, with all the things happening in the world, even with the mundane and the awful and the infuriating and the depressing, even with all that, imagine getting a whole day.

Well, well, well. Here we are. That happened fast, didn’t it. Everything, I mean. At once. A lot that felt, suddenly, like we were a toddler at a surf beach being surprised by a wave coming in from behind while we were busy watching a seagull. 

This one’s for when it’s all too much. Genuinely terrible. When, as it has been lately, your world feels like it’s on fire. When life feels unfair and out of control and terrible and awful and relentless because it is. 

I’ve been laid up sick recently - the kind of sick that makes you feel like a character in a Dickens novel, groaning and dabbing your forehead and passing out for days waking only to wonder why better healthcare hasn’t been invented yet. There really is nothing nice about it, and to all of you dealing with ailments and illnesses, long-standing or short-lived, all power to you at all. 

You’ve probably heard that mind-blowing fact about how when you condense the entirety of human history into a year, humans don’t arrive until that weird little period after Christmas and before New Year. 

The other day I saw a headline promising an in-depth article about why winning lots of money isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I laughed, of course. Stared into the middle distance for a bit thinking of all the terrible times I’d have if I won lots of money. I imagine you too cannot think of a single thing about suddenly owning millions of extra dollars that would make you happy. 

Do you remember the feeling of being on a team? At school, maybe? All of you together, trying to strategise your way around some problem or other? Or maybe at work - figuring out how to get things finished on time, shoulder to shoulder? Maybe you’re on a team with members of your family or your partner or your dog - going on a walk that’s a little longer than you expected and getting slightly lost before stumbling back into familiar territory and giving your team member a bit of a scratch behind the ears while you breathe a quiet sigh of relief. 

I recently saw a baby notice a statue. 

We were both waiting in line in the sun to get into an event in the inner city, this baby and I. I didn’t know the baby personally. She was looking over a parental shoulder, scanning the crowd, when her eyes fell on the statue above us. It was still and stern and pointing while riding horseback, its copper eyes staring down at the baby, whose brain was occupied, as all baby brains are, with trying to decode the universe. That was the moment I saw for the first time how bonkers statues are.

This is a true story. I was sitting in a park once, shoes and socks off, grass beneath my bare feet, sky scrolling above me like it was rewinding to the good bit. I was enjoying a lovely moment of watching people doing the various things people tend to do in parks… and I felt something beneath my thumb in the grass. 

‘Hey! Thanks for coming! Just follow me. Nice to see you. Trouble getting here? No? Excellent. Well: welcome to my life! Come in! Through here, that’s right. Oh. Yeah. Sorry. Ignore all this. Probably best to… yeah, step over it, that’s the way. Bit of a shambles, this bit. And that bit over there. And, oh, yeah, that other bit. Apologies for the noise, by the way. Getting some repairs done. Who’s what sorry? Oh that? That’s Dave. Yeah. Don’t worry about Dave. We’ve all got a Dave haven’t we. Dave mate? Give it a rest will you please. Now… when I open this next door, you’re going to notice a large fire. Do not be alarmed. We get past this bit, there’s a nice little room where we can have a cup of tea before we have to deal with the snakes. Here. Put this on. And try not to breathe in.’  

Whose side are you on? Are you with us or against us? Do you like the right things or the wrong things? Have you checked? Did you look it up? Are you sure?

Quick! Pick a team! Didn’t you know we’re at war? We can’t even agree on the facts anymore. All day every day is a struggle: who’s wrong? Who’s right? Whose fault is it? Who gets to be the judge?