Stolen phones, fatalism & the significance of moments

 Last night my phone was stolen. On a date. Fucking brilliant. The scene in my shower this morning was comically tragic: Pocketful of Rainbows by Elvis Presley was blasting in a mild attempt to hold myself together, but this was later overlaid by the audible clamor of “GOOD GOD WHY, JUST WHY” as the full weight of the theft and its consequences dawned upon me. I mean the harmonic ebbing rhythm of Elvis’ honeyed voice and his bloody pockets packed with joy contrasted with my mournful howls – it was just absurd. To be honest, after a rough month at work this felt like the last straw, so I shed a few angry tears and then began to laugh a little at the absurdity, not just of the situation, but of the world. Such laughter carried me to the following realization:

We could spend our lives dwelling over scenarios that ‘could have been’ but this is a monumental betrayal of the present moment and everything ‘beingness’ has to offer us. Thinking oneself out of the reality of a situation means we fail to acknowledge, embrace and experience ‘what actually is’ and so we expend all our energy into over-hypothesizing situations that didn’t or won’t ever happen because the only thing that ever happens, is that which actually happens. This sounds like a redundant statement, but I believe it is true – we can’t, in the present moment, say with any confidence that ‘if I had done this, the outcome would have been different’ and this is because we don’t have the option of trying out different trajectories of life in parallel worlds. All we have is this world, ourselves, other people and moments of time that pass us by – so why not just embrace it all for what it is and do so passionately. Even if the outcome would have been different, it isn’t what happened and so what’s the point of thinking about it? I guess this leads me to a sort of fatalism – ‘that which happens, happens, take it or leave it’ – which is a stance I tend to steer away from because I do think we are largely responsible for who we are and the actions that we take. Fatalism can sometimes dangerously absolve us of that responsibility, but sometimes, for whatever reason (or no reason at all) things just happen and we simply can’t control them. And so, I found myself sitting at the pub where my phone was stolen, thinking, ‘what if I had just put it elsewhere’, ‘what if we sat inside’, ‘what if we’d gone to a different pub entirely’, ‘what if I hadn’t have even gone’ but then I stopped myself and looked at the facts.

1) I have had my phone stolen

2) I am glad I turned up to see this person

3) I probably won’t get my phone back no matter what I do

4) There is no point going home alone trying to control what I can’t control

5) What I can do is file a police report and check CCTV

6) I’ve lost a phone, not a person – greater things have been lost (including my sanity)

7) I am sat with a person who is more far more valuable than a phone

8) Phones can be replaced, time can’t be relived

I had a choice - do I let this ruin my evening to the extent that the only memorable thing about it will be the fact it got ruined because I let it be ruined or do I want to remember this as the night I had my phone stolen and laughed about it over a bowl of pasta? Applying this on a wider scale - do I want to look back at moments in my life and think 'I should have stayed', 'that could have been great' or do I want to be able to say 'I did that and I'm so glad I did.'

Option B please - so, I stayed and just let the situation be and what it turned out to be was an oddly lovely evening despite everything. I suppose that is the beauty of moments – that in spite of everything unfortunate that can happen to us, there are little moments of time that remind us why being alive is ever so wonderful. This got me thinking more widely about the idea of fate and control in my life. How many times have I blamed myself for things beyond my control? How many times have I tried to control things I shouldn’t have? What have been the consequences of trying to control those things - have I hurt myself, missed opportunities, hurt others? When things haven’t gone well, has it been life-ending? No – life has gone on and other things have fallen into place. Because that is the nature of life – it moves like a river relentlessly – so, we can swim/take action but ultimately, we must roll with the currents that move us. This always reminds me of a Rilke quote I adore:

“Let everything happen to you

Beauty and terror

Just keep going

No feeling is final”

One could read that and think it seems a little defeatist – should we really just let things happen to us? Surely, we can take actions that stop things happening to us or that make things happen. Yes, to a degree, we can, but I think that misunderstands Rilke’s point which is to say that sometimes ‘letting be’ takes more courage than taking action to ‘make be’. Or maybe ‘letting be’ is an action in its own right – a wilful and radical openness to letting life happen around us and to us. It is perhaps only by letting be that we can feel deep love and deep pain – beauty and terror - both of which are oddly cathartic and powerful emotions, which quiver contiguously throughout life.  Then the last line: ‘no feeling is final’ – it always has such a profound effect on me when I read it and though I can’t say exactly why I think there’s two reasons. Firstly, when we feel deep pain (heartbreak, grief, physical pain) it can feel like it won’t end but, in most cases, pain subsides, and love carries. It also reminds us that love is not always unending, and that we should handle it, and the people we love with tremendous care to ensure that the feeling is indeed final, and that love can sing over the baritone hum of pain.

And so, phoneless and having hit none of my sales targets for the month, I am sat here somehow smiling as I write this because none of that really matters when contextualised in the richness of my life, which is so full to the brim with beautiful moments, fantastic people and deep love. To me, that is enough and worth more than any number of iPhones or KPIs.

Maybe I have a Pocketful of Rainbows afterall :')