Discussions with a friend

I remember a Tom Ford interview. A very posh man, it's almost fashionable in this day and age, where I'm from, to scorn a man like him. His expensive clothes, his accent, his almost impenetrable gaze; someone too cool to be human.

I saw that, a little bit. But I've always had this ability to cut right through people. I notice the things people say to be polite. I don't like small talk, in fact, I loathe it.

Instead, I saw a devout man. Almost religious. He said this about his marriage to his husband, and I'm paraphrasing, I saw him and I knew I wanted to marry him. It was all over.

What an unfashionable thing to say in an interview, I thought. It was so honest. Nowadays, interviews are filled with postmodern irony. Everything is a subversion to the point where being cliched is seen as cringe worthy. It was an astonishing thing for someone of his stature to admit. That he was in love like a schoolboy.

He then said something else. Love is hard. Sometimes there are bad years in marriage. But you learn to fight through them. I find, in our generation, that resilience has been lacking.

It's so easy to see the new hottest person on instagram. That puritan desire for inspiration from beauty has been turned into a mockery. Now, beauty is everywhere you look. It is more of a noble pursuit to look away, to look and capture the ugliness of life. The core of the human being is hidden. The struggle.

I wish it wasn't so. It's good to be vulnerable. It's good to open your heart to a stranger, and be honest with how life is going. To sing and have your notes be out of key. Life is a curious journey of strange beginnings and cruel endings.

Sometimes I want to delete it all. The digital identity, which persists after we die. I want to set things on fire, and keep myself sacred from the world. I want to be left uninterpreted.

We can't do that anymore. Or if we can, it is at the expense of losing touch with friends or even offending them. Your digital identity, the one that is pushed on to other people, is more real than who you are and what you do. And people are exploiting that by not giving any part of themselves away.

I know a girl, a model, who was telling me how she was jealous all the time of her boyfriend. How she wanted to be the one to reject him. The myth of the one who loves less being the one in power. It's all so naive. Like they are trying to out pretend one another by showing who cares less.

The emptiness in your heart that begs to be nourished. Make no mistake, that's the reason we try to get into relationships in the first place.

Love is hard. And we are going through a time in human history where that deters people from seeking what they fundamentally need.

There was research done to orangutans at birth about whether a starving orangutan would prefer food or the love of his mother. Every time, the orangutan reached out for his mother. This study, when I read it, broke my heart. It said to me clearly: this life is about love. And if we have come to a situation where we fear love because we don't trust it, we are doomed.

I am afraid for the future, but not for myself anymore. It seems like society is headed in an interesting place. Physical tasks will become easier but our capacity for receiving pleasure is getting more complicated. So much pleasure is gifted to us on a platter, we take it for granted over and over again, until it becomes our new reality and we are no longer grateful.

We have, in a way, become numb to pleasure.

It is in these moments of numbness that I try to get in tune with my body and do hard physical work. Lift weights, punch pads; anything to get my heartbeat up, anything to feel like I'm alive. This is how I fix myself, how I get out of my head, by recognizing that I have a body.

Sometimes I wish I could freeze progress, and enjoy the world for how it is for a few years. Other times, the wish is to be younger, to be back in time and see what this older brain would be capable of.

I don't know what death will bring one day, but I want my last moments to be a zen appreciation of self. I was a funny guy at times. A weird one too.

There are memories I have that make me tremble at their beauty. It's like when you see a good film or read a good book; it's all about the build.

We all have the capacity to leave behind something truly beautiful in this world. I have achieved many of my goals. My final goal is to do something I'm incredibly proud of. I think so far, I have been to love people with dignity. I'm pretty proud of that.