Triumph of the Now is 10! lol whoops

cw: suicide ideation, mental illness

Ten years ago today, I began this blog with an introductory post that offers a rather bleak statement of intent.

I opened the blog by railing against the introductory question that so often – then and now – greets a social encounter with a stranger, i.e. asking about work.

To centre that first salvo on a negative, on something I didn’t like, was an evolution of my aborted first blog project of a few months earlier, “things that have made me angry today” (I think I deleted it off the internet a while ago – certainly I couldn’t find it quickly just now)…

It’s not all negative, tho, that introduction does go on to offer a brief list of personal identifiers, including gendered language that I would now avoid (but what’s the fucking point when I have to dress conservatively for the job I have atm lol whoops).

There is a list of absences “I rap but I’m not a rapper, I write but I’m not a writer” type comments, so I suppose the one positive comment that comes from ten years of very regular blogging (and less regular writing and publishing more seriously elsewhere) is that I’d never dispute with myself that I am a writer any more.

(It’s been a while since I’ve rapped, but it’s been an infinity since I rapped well, so maybe nothing has changed for that one.)

I mention, too, in that introduction, having floppy hair, having a cat I love, drinking lots, listening to jazz and proudly identifying as a misanthrope. I still listen to jazz, but none of the rest of those are true any more. I wish I still drank lots: the rare moments when I do – more accurately, the hangover afterwards – are about the only times where I feel the edges of existence, where I feel alive. That physical body shock is an incredible thing.

I wouldn’t call myself a misanthrope, tho, because I’m an adult now and I’m not cruel.

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If asked “what do you do” now, I’d always – and have done for a few years – say “poet” first, because I don’t prioritise whatever humiliation I’m currently financially dependent on as a source of self . I suppose that is something my younger self would be happy about? (I also avoid socialising – especially with strangers – to a psychologically damaging level lol whoops)

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In those ten years, nothing has changed as much as I would have liked it to have done.

I’ve never started a meaningful career or had a job I genuinely enjoyed; I’ve had better jobs, definitely, than the terrible office job I had in March 2013, but still… other than maybe the teaching English they’ve all been various shades of masochism and I’d love to think that maybe one day I’ll be able to be financially stable while not having to debase myself, but I can’t see it happening soon and I can’t see it ever happening in fucking England, a place I hate hate hate and feel such gross and overwhelming self-disgust every time I remember that I left and then came back here.

That’s the biggest change, maybe: I’ve given up on trying to convince myself that contentment is just around the corner. It’s fucking not. Misery, different misery, is just around the corner.

I’ve been medicated in all sorts of different ways, I’ve been diagnosed in all sorts of ways, but what it all boils down to is that being alive isn’t a pleasant experience for me and existing, dully, in a place where I’ve been the most miserable I’ve ever been is no way to live.

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Triumph of the Now has been quoted in the New Yorker. I have been ‘Highly Commended’ in the Forward Prizes for Poetry. I’ve had three books and a pamphlet published by little indie presses. I finished those novels the me of a decade ago wanted to write, tho I never got them published. Instead I got better books published, so that’s, I suppose, something to be grateful for. Hashtag blessed.

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This blog was with me while I completed an MA, while I partied all my hair out, while I had multiple breakdowns, while I walked the Camino de Santiago (probably the highlight of the decade, no offence to my dog and current lover who are both great but neither are the Camino de Santiago, which is a walk), while my politics and ideologies swang about as I cast for a sense of the world, while I read some incredible literature, while I visited some strange places, while I, in essence, grew up, without ever managing to grow into myself or find a place for me in the world.

The only place for me in the world is here, Triumph of the Now. It might not be exciting or hot (any more), it has some stupid, ignorant things on it from when I used to be a little more hot-headed (and believed in the progressive possibilities of parliamentary democracy lol whoops), it has some idealism, some wisdom, some great gags, but it also, alas, is a decade long record of the various ways in which I’ve failed. Failed to find meaning, failed to find a place that feels like home, failed to build on the handful of opportunities I’ve had, and failed to, I dunno, generally enjoy myself.

What I haven’t failed to do, tho, is maintain this as a regular practice.

It’s not much, but it’s something? Right lol whoops

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When I started typing this, I was planning to type “ten years ago I started a blog. I should have just killed myself.” I can’t deny that there isn’t a part of me – the rational, analytical part – that totally agrees with that statement (my life atm really isn’t worth living lol whoops and it’s been that way the vast majority of most of the previous ten years of moments when I think about it), but it doesn’t matter. I’ve failed to kill myself, and that’s ok. (I mean, it’s not, but it is, y’know?)

Because ten years ago, I did start a blog instead of killing myself.

Will I still be doing this in ten years time? I don’t know. But I think if you’d told floppy-haired, Sazerac-downing he/him Scott Manley Hadley (with capital letters) that I’d still be doing this ten years on, I probably would have been impressed. Or – ideally – so terrified that I immediately jumped in front of a bus.

Oh, the dreams of an unlived present.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

scott manley hadley

bald poet, bald blogger, bald bpd bastard