What to do? In this city, in this world

Edited version of text originally posted in Autumn 2016.

I got the express train across the pennines.

I’ve always wanted to reach the Metropolis on the other side, only to repeatedly realise it’s no lost world, no place where things are done differently, after all.

“What spurs me on to travel to other towns and cities?”

The rain mocked any escape plans I’d had. Maybe my anxiety to “get on the bus and get out” isn’t so much a desire to travel through space, but a desire to travel purely through time. I have a deep longing to leave these times, and traveling allows for a temporary confusion of time with space that throws fools gold in my direction.

The embarrassing urban anxiety kicks in. The pursuit of something which leads me to the same point I departed at. What to do in this world…today – this city? I become plagued by Joy Division lyrics about crippling indecision: “Don’t know which way to turn. The best possible use”.

The meaningless of my time causes a paralysis of worry which makes me scared to show my human face to an homeless man, despite managing to chuck him a quid. But I’m stunned into shy teenage mumbling when he speaks of his plans of getting through the night ahead of him. I turn down the other railway station, stalling as the minutes pass along, knowing full-well I’m aiming for one of the few pubs I know in this city. “What to do in this world…today – this city?”

“An empty seating area in a pub on Friday teatime, a familiar jukebox soundtrack, and I’m regaining mild rays of confidence.

In an age where companionship has been turned into a highly valued resource, made to feel in short supply, we are left to feel ashamed of our loneliness. The weekend is scarcity-central: everything begins to feel in short supply, our time, but also the company we seek.

As Friday evening begins, it doesn’t matter where you are because if you are alone YOU ARE ALONE. Every seat in every pub, usually for a rendezvous with stable solitude, is taken, and every space for daydreaming is swallowed up in the weekend fever.

I walk back and forward, like a stuck soundtrack, only noticeable to the homeless, the only static bodies in our hasty times. I bump into a friend in the railway station rush.

It’s awkward. “Just what am I doing?” These whole endeavours seem so pathetic under the weekend’s spotlight. “The city can be a lonely place” – an old piece of wisdom digs itself up to the surface, more like woodworm than earworm.”