The Play’s the Thing: On Being the Bearded Boy
For every action there’s a reaction – or, in my case, an over-reaction.
Not long ago I got some bad news: Jesus doesn’t want me for a sunbeam. My dream job wasn’t mine after all.
It was a blow, of course, and one I responded to in the usual way: I spat the dummy.
That’s it, I thought, angrily. No more working for the man. From now on I’m going it alone. As a writer. On Substack. Because ‘writers earn a living doing what they love’ on the Stack.
Okay. But which writers?
Writers like me, surely. Writers brimming with brilliant ideas.
Brilliant ideas like… The Bearded Boy!
He turned fifty last year, the bearded one. Me, I turned fifteen. Together we’re Timm – puzzled parent, partner and employee, perennial pupil and apprentice. Join us on the front line of our privileged yet perplexing life as we struggle to square the circle of existence.
Angst-ridden analysis of the absurdities of adulthood – that’s what it was supposedly all about.
No-one hates waste more than a wannabe writer. Here, then, are some ‘highlights’ from the Boy’s first (aborted) bulletin…
I just don’t get it. I’m clearly a genius and yet I’m still expected to prove it.
People won’t publish my (brilliant) books until I write them, or give me PhD scholarships until I apply for them. And they won’t give me the job I want until I stump up evidence of my awesomeness, as if I’m competing in a country fete.
And even when I do they’re still not convinced that I’m the best bloke since sliced bread – me, the Bearded Boy! It’s enough to make a (half)grown man cry (and start his own Substack newsletter).
Adult life is all about destinations, dead ends, standing still. I want to keep moving. I haven’t got time to stop and tell you where I’m going. I don’t know!
The bearded one wants me to redirect the river, so I can reach my destination sooner, so I can cash in at the casino where I’ll win big. But I just want to be washed along, to ride the rapids. Eventually I’ll arrive at the sea, where I’ll sail, like Reepicheep, into the sunset, into the next great unknown.
My genius isn’t for ‘results’. Indeed, it spurns and despises such illusions. I don’t ‘achieve outcomes’, I mess about. The play’s the thing. And I don’t do it because it’s good for me or for the world – I do it because I’m a bearded boy and I have to. (I’m playing now.)
If you get it, I salute you. Together let’s celebrate all things ineffectual and unfinished. The Bearded Boy is nothing if not half-baked. All ends are dead. Childhood is too good to be left to the kids.
And finally: When you’re finished you’re finished.
One day I might return to the Stack. Now, though, I’m off to start something else.
timm in type 