The decision to keep living.

A walk through Greyfriars Kirkyard after a big show in Edinburgh.

Thoughts on grief, fatherhood, touring, indecision and the strange weight of being alive.

A friend takes his own life.
A conversation in the car about how decisions are made.
The pressure of trying to build a meaningful life while staying present for the people you love.

And why I’ve started to believe that maybe there’s no perfect decision waiting somewhere in the future.

Maybe life is just the accumulation of small decisions to keep going.

If this resonated with you, I’ve been building a quieter corner of the internet called The Sanctuary.

https://enterthesanctuary.net

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

So yesterday was a funny day, and I want to tell you guys the story of yesterday as it connects to this week and what's been happening. I hope you guys are good. I'm lying in a graveyard, Grayfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh. I'm actually going to do a concert here in December this year. I've wanted to do that for ages. And it is just there's something about graveyards that just feels so good. Like it feels so good to be just reminded of that impermanence. It's funny how I'll talk about this and people tell me they think that's depressing. I can't think of anything less depressing than the aliveness of like, you know, I saw a gravestone here from the 1700s, and uh isn't that just amazing that I get to be alive, just get this brief moment on the planet to feel the wind and eat food and look at these crows and uh make my music and reach people and do stuff with my life. And so it's one of the things that I just love about living in Edinburgh is all these ancient buildings and these ancient graveyards. So I'm chilling in this graveyard, I've got a little bit of time. We played Edinburgh last night. There was it was a big gig. There were 300 folk there. Um and you know, I'm feeling very full up of that experience, and I'm about to head up to King UC in the Highlands, but I wanted to come on and have a talk with you guys and and check in. I had a strange day yesterday. I got a message from a good friend to say, uh sort of mutual friend who you know I wasn't super close with. My friend Tommy, who got in touch with me, was real, really close with him, um, had taken his own life yesterday. And it's just such an unsettling piece of information. Not that I'm saying I was super close to him, he's a really good friend, but more just the the reminder, right, of that that life is so impermanent, and um my friend Hamish, who Hamish, who does sound, quite often talks about how we break spells. There's certain spells that we break, and the biggest spell that we break has to simply be that life is permanent because it's not, right? And what's so complicated about uh Brian taking his life is that was a decision, right? That he made. He made one decision, and that was the decision to end his life here, and and what a what a massive uh decision, but a decision ultimately just coming from a moment that he was having, and I I find that really devastating because there's a there's a high chance that in a different moment he might have made a different decision, you know. And I've been thinking this week a lot about decisions. We were driving in the car the other day, and all my shows for the year are pretty much booked at this point. There's a couple little bits in November that I haven't totally, totally booked, or I hadn't at the time, a few days ago. But um Lauren who sings in the in the band and sings her stuff and she's my friend and and in the band, she asked, Well, how do you how do you decide what to do? Because I was talking, I was saying November is looking, I don't know, it's not totally locked in yet. My schedule is like I'll have Rosa half the time, and then the other half of the time I'm doing gigs, so I'll do like four gigs in the weeks where I don't have her. And um November, the two chunks of four, I've done a lot of outreach, but hadn't totally locked them in. And I'd actually been considering going to Europe at one point, and then also considering just doing some nice kind of UK stuff, right? And so Lauren was like, How do you make those decisions? And that question kind of uh broke my spell a little bit because as a business owner, right? Like, I mean, 99% of really what I'm doing, literally, statistically speaking, the 1% of the time I get to of my life, I get to go on stage and sing songs, but 99% of my life is living through the lens of business and making decisions and operating and making decisions on where are we gonna stay? What are we gonna eat? Who's gonna be on this gig? What's the venue? How much can I spend on the venue? What should the ads look like? Um, how many people should I email about these gigs? Should these people come and join the listening room? Do I email them after the gig? It's just a it's a constant stream of decisions, and in some ways, like the muscle for me of decision making is just constantly exercise. So when Lauren said, Well, how would you make a decision about that? It really made me think, how do you make a decision about where you're gonna go and do a gig or when you're gonna go and do a gig. And one of the best things I ever heard in my life about decision making that kind of transformed my entire life was that the decisions you make are not as important as your ability to manage your mind about the decisions you make. So, for example, the other day I wanted to see a movie, and there were two options, and I just got into that space of like, oh my god, which one? You know, as if just that horrible, icky space of like, oh, I don't want to be in this place where I chose the wrong thing. But that is the place to manage your mind about a decision, right? Because there's not a perfect decision. I can go to the Lake District or Germany or London or the Highlands or Ireland. And for me right now, like a chunk of how I'm making my decisions about my work are really just to do with me being a dad. I'm just gonna walk a little bit, move over here. I was just lying down there. I just want to move my body a little bit. A chunk of the the way I make my decisions now is like, how can I make a good living, make good money, look after my daughter, and like be around for her, you know, be in her life when she needs me. Because she's eight years old and she needs me right now. She needs my influence, she needs my presence in her life. So for me, success is not to be really externally successful and go and do loads of concerts, but then not be around for my kid. That's not success. I don't, I'm not interested, you know. For me, it needs to be both. It needs to be that I'm getting to live my dream and provide for her and live in an amazing bit of town and and make enough money to give her access to a good life and a good school, right? That's like the the core decision, the core value. And what is a value? Value is just like a decision that you keep making over and over again, like uh a belief is like a thought that you keep on thinking over and over again. So right now, my value system is doing short runs of impactful concerts in the weeks where I'm not looking after Rosa, and then when I am looking after Rosa, I'm not gigging mostly. You know, I might do the odd thing, but really I'm just kind of being a dad and being around and taking her swimming and hanging out with her, and yeah, I've got my laptop and my phone, and I'm working, and I work a lot, but I'm with her, and hey, if you need me, I'm here. You can come ask. Whatever you need, I'm here. And there's no amount of money anyone could offer me to change my decision about living in that way. I don't want to. I want to I have everything I need. I have I'm making good money, and I get to be there for Rosa, and I get to live my dream and make my albums, um, but it's not perfect, right? I don't make albums in the way that I used to because I got to be more efficient with my time and my energy. And um what I would say is what I've noticed, it's really interesting because musicians often, not all, but a lot of musicians float around in this space of kind of taking time and indecision, right? I naturally would probably live a bit more in that kind of way. But what I realized was if you want to be a really good dad and be around and not miss out on the childhood, then the cost of that is the ability to just make decisions quickly and move forwards. So the cost of having everything is actually the the the muscle developing the muscle of decision making. Now, so many people I know, so many people I see around me, and this is not a criticism, it's not a it's not a judgment, it's something I notice. And I say it's not a criticism or a judgment because I used to do this too, um, and I know that it can change. Like if you want it to change, it can change. But so many people I see around me, it's like, what's happening with your thing? Oh, I'm still deciding about this or that. I'm still gonna I need to give it a bit more time to come up with the name, or I need to, I don't know when I'm gonna release it, I don't know which area I want to go to and do this tour. I'm just not sure. Like that energy is not the energy of someone who gets to do all the things that they want to do. So in in my experience so far, and really it's parenthood, honestly, that's taught me this. In my experience so far, with regards to decisions, has been like if you want to get everything you want in your life, right? Let's say you want to have a really lean body and lots of money and a great relationship with your kids, and you want to be fit and healthy, and you want to have a really good, uh loving, romantic relationship, um, you can, but there will be a cost. If you want to be successful, you can, but there will be a cost. If you want to be mentally healthy, you can be, but there will be a cost. And for me, it's like parenthood kind of forced this rate of speed and failure. Like I no longer have the privilege of I'll take my time and not fail. I just have to fail and keep going, and I have to make decisions, sometimes bad ones, often bad ones, right? But a bad decision in my experience so far has been way, way, way more beneficial and created way more progress in my existence, in my life, in terms of my life energy and what I have and what I can do, than a perfect decision that I just keep waiting, keep hiding, keep not making that decision, keep putting off that decision, and that's the false economy. Is if I don't make the decision now, I'll have the opportunity to make it better later. But all I want to offer from my perspective as someone who who you know I do a lot. I've made 11 albums, I've I've built one of the world's biggest music and creativity Patreons, you know, I've got a million followers, I make my earnings are in the top 0.5% in the UK, and I do it all while parenting a little an eight-year-old, um, which I did on my own, by the way, half the time for many years. Um, obviously now I have my girlfriend Jen, she helps out a lot and is a major source of uh support. But my point is, and also by the way, doing this all as someone who grew up around abuse. I experienced trauma, you know, I've processed a lot of my stuff in therapy, so I'm absolutely not saying any of this, and we're crippling ADHD. Um so I'm not saying this as any as someone who's like perfect and someone who has had a bunch of advantages. I'm not I know I've had a lot of advantages in other ways, but I'm also just saying, like, I I get it, I know it's hard, I get it, and um I am as guilty as anyone of not wanting to make decisions and be clear, but I'm brought back to the just devastating news of Brian, who was one of the most talented artists who I've ever seen and known personally, um, and he took his own life, you know, and he took it because of a decision. Isn't that just trippy to think about? Just a decision. So what is a decision? A decision is you know it's the choice to to live. And obviously in Brian's case, that's a a a tragic and extreme example of the decision not to live. It's the worst kind. And also how many of us are living with these unmade decisions because you don't know what your book title is, or you don't know when you want to leave your job, or you don't know when you want to ask that person out, or leave that person, or whatever. And how many of us are actually unconsciously choosing not to live through a fear of you know making the wrong decision. But what if there's no wrong decision? What if it's just learning? What if no one knows, you know? At the highest level, no one knows, no one really knows. So you just have to pick something and keep going. And um the best thing I can do to honor Brian, Elf, one of the best artists. Like I say, I've ever had the privilege of meeting, and he was so encouraging to me in my early years as an artist. Um, the best thing I can do to honor him is live and make the decision, you know. Make all of the little decisions to keep on living. That's what I got. Take care.