From November 2001- after a special request from Mike, who awarded me the colyoom and subbed it for 27 years. This is the final visit into the pre-online archive, I promise!
Ever since 1984, I’ve been living on a 24-hour financial cycle, and it’s as tiring as it is liberating.
Rent, food and bills are always covered, and generally I clothe myself in not too disgraceful a fashion. I run a car, visit family and friends in England two or three times a year, and my house is warm.
Most important of all, my life has exceptionally good people in it, but 90% of the time I have not a penny to spend.
Beyond presents for others, and the bare necessities, I do not buy things.
Nada. Zilch.
In the past there were day jobs, night jobs, shift work, temporary, permanent, and on the fly.
I was never perceived as so ‘successful’ as when I was working my backside off as a marketing whizz-kid, for a major Japanese corporate back in the early 1980s. I was earning more money than should be legal for a 23 year-old, and fast-tracking my way up to the Boardroom.
That was when I learned an absolute personal truth: there is no point in earning moolar if it comes in the form of compensation.
So I hate my job? Well, now I can go and spend lots of money, and see if it makes me feel better!
It didn’t, doesn’t and never will.
To me ‘civilised’ means having time to live.
In exchange for the fat wad of folding green every Thursday night, I take a walk on the beach.
Instead of buying CD’s and videos, I listen to the radio and play old cassettes.
Instead of the brimming bank balance, I have all the time in the world.
The stress in others’ lives is palpable. I see the tired black rings around their eyes, listen to their frantic gabbling about how they are trying to ‘fit it all in’, and in those moments, I remind myself that this relative poverty is worth a fortune.
It ain’t all easy. This is a life as tough as any other, just a lot calmer.
My life is less about acquisition, more about introspection; less about buying things, more about less things; less about climbing social ladders, more about spending time living in the present.
Sometimes it is a lonely path, especially when I’m home alone, aware that others are out, living life on the pig’s back.
Still, I’m hardly a slave to suffering, and when a particularly smart editor places one of my features, I drive to the city and splurge a wad in an orgy of consumerist conformism, and each shared whiskey and bite of restaurant food tastes better for the utter badness and excitement of it all.
This colyoom is not pre-scented with smugness. I couldn’t look my loved ones in the eye if I suggested that my life is a breeze.
Of course I get frustrated when I want to take herself out for a posh slap-up dinner, and I feel inhibited when generous souls drag me out to the pub, knowing that rounds only go one way, but hell, they seem to love me, and who am I to say no?
Sometimes, even when you know your friend really wants to help, you just can’t accept any more generosity.
And then you get over it and say
“Well, a wee whiskey would be lovely, thanks Dave!”
©Charlie Adley
12.11.2001
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