the utter
the utter
an introduction
9
0:00
-10:49

an introduction

to my newest book
9

We are afraid of small things. Large things. Dead things. Things that are living and persistent. Things that we must do but keep putting off. Legal and numerical things. Filthy, delicious things, so deadly they seem like fun. Things that move gently and in secret. Slow-moving things. Ill health. Death. Things like The End of the World. Things that we don’t and will never control. Things that will almost certainly happen, and things that may not.

I see you and I recognize your fear. You see me and you understand mine. We are accustomed to its moving shapes and many sounds and we have been living among each other for too long to not understand that we have them in common. Though our specifics vary, our fears are family. When we open our mouths to speak, fear scratches at our throats, and then it is carelessly present, turning the air a grim and unremarkable colour. This is why there are times that we avoid each other. You remind me of myself— of my uncertainty and anxiety and all the other painful things that I’m afraid to look at. When I catch your eye, I am often alarmed at my own tender reflection.

Fear itself is hardly the enemy. Fear is, in fact, an excellent indicator of where we are and what we believe to be true. It is too much to watch it at work sometimes. It’s uncomfortable to see the fear escaping our lips, reverberating in the space between us. It is obscuring our view and everything about our lives. And I am tired— and are you tired?

Every single day of our lives, we are sold “remedies.” We are sold all these urgent methods to disguise the fear. So many that we get confused. So many that our heads are spinning, and we can’t tell our own thoughts from those that are coming from outside. You can’t see what you want to do. I can’t tell what I want to be or care about. Wherever we go, TV and books and advertisements shout out what to do to conquer this fear, what to do to feel more alive. HOW to be good. How to be better. How to survive. How to stay in charge and inside of your body. How to feed and preserve your body. How to dress your body and sell it. How to succeed, leaving others behind in the dust.

These hows and how-tos are everywhere we look, in every place of retail, fitness, worship, and entertainment. These hows are flexible and glossy, know how to live, and keep getting all of our money. They tell us exactly what to buy, and where to buy it. They sound like promises and they look like lifelines. We are obsessed with them because they are flawless and stylish, fitter and cleaner than us, highly curated, and frighteningly relevant. They are political. They do superior activism, think critically, have wonderful social lives, and they know how to organize. We see pictures of them on their backs in impossible, sun-filled locations. They succeed and prosper, while the rest of us are simply getting by. Just.

They look just like us; that’s the problem. These hows are extremely vulnerable when it pays to be, and tremendously private. Perhaps they bought the house you have always wanted, perhaps they have the partner of your dreams. They are saintly and sexy with hidden limits. They are oh so perfect, and of course, they are a lie.

These hows will evade you, and they are built to do so; to keep you on the outside looking in, impressionable and wanting. They are so loud and fast and distracting that it is impossible to keep up. Every so often you think you find a way into them, but in a matter of time, you are lost. 

In a world so filled with voice, how to ever be sure of your own?

We are drowning in so many hows that we cannot find ourselves;

and when all we are told is that we do not know how,

all that we feel is weight. 

LOSE WEIGHT NOW GAIN MORE OF YOURSELF BUT IN ALL THE RIGHT PLACES BE IN THE MOMENT PLAN FOR YOUR FUTURE GET MONEY AND THINGS STAY FIT KEEP YOUR BODY TIGHT BE LOOSE HAVE SEX FIND A RELATIONSHIP DISTRACT YOURSELF KICK THE HABIT LOOK YOUNG AND SMOOTH GROW OLD GRACEFULLY LOOK HOT ALL THE TIME LOOK AS THOUGH LOOKING HOT JUST HAPPENS TO YOU NATURALLY AND WITH NO APPARENT EFFORT BE UNIMPRESSED BUT POSITIVE DON’T CARE TOO MUCH BUT CARE ENOUGH TO BE A WORTHY HUMAN BEING BE RADICAL NOT PREACHY HAVE STRONG POLITICAL OPINIONS BUT REMAIN MALLEABLE ENOUGH TO PUT THEM ASIDE FOR THE NEXT MORE PERTINENT CAUSE BE OUTRAGED (BUT DON’T BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS) BE CONFIDENT AND HUMBLE OUTSPOKEN BUT ON‑BRAND RADICAL AND WARY NO‑NONSENSE BUT SPECULATIVE REMAIN OPEN TO THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW MORE ABOUT IT THAN YOU OF WHICH THERE ARE MANY CANCEL THOSE WHO ARE TOO SLOW ON THEIR JOURNEY TO KEEP UP WITH THE WORLD’S NEW AND EVOLVING KNOWLEDGE WORK HARD AND OF COURSE TAKE IT EASY 

(ii)

We have absorbed so much of the outside. It is a mass to unlearn, a voyage back to centre. When you go to list your dreams, do you draw a blank? 

By and large, over time, we have talked ourselves out of what we really want. Why do we do this? Why do we talk ourselves out of our great ideas?

It begins early. As we grow, we are told that the things we want are impossible. We start to believe that what we dream of does not exist. “Who do you think you are?” our circumstances scream, as they whip us into shape.

We can hardly blame those who raise us. They do their best with what they have been taught by the people who raised them, imposing their rules, standards, and ways of living. We inherit these ideas, to a fault. We learn to be realistic and sensible, and we travel far from our imaginations. We grow, afraid to ask for those vivid, forgotten things: the things that we honestly desire. Instead, we focus on what we think we can get. The things that we end up settling for. We learn to be actors. We get used to hiding our true selves, and often, we erase our own memories, letting go of the deep wishes of the soul, abandoning what we already know. We leave ourselves behind— and, God, are we feeling it today.

Perhaps we do this because we need to survive. Perhaps we do this to ensure our safety and community, by fitting in with those around us, and their own expectations and limitations. In many environments, the safest thing to do with our bodies is to slip by unnoticed, to bloom under the radar, in secret. But secrecy has its limits.

Where can we get to, weighed down like this? How far can we travel, heavy?

We need air and light. We need a reflection of some sort; to be able to see ourselves. We need space to stretch our limbs and we need to be allowed to grow. Meaning we need to allow ourselves to grow. Meaning we will change along the way. To do so, we must first leave some things at the gate.

Perhaps we have to start by remembering the thing that it is human nature to forget. Before we are to hope for any one answer, we must know there is no answer beyond ourselves. Before we are to hope for the truth, we must know there are no truths but the ones that we arrive at on our own. Developing, powerful, ever-changing truths. No one has the code for anyone else. Their work is not your work. All of us are trying to get through the days with as little or as much as we think we have. Some of us feel close to giving up; some of us think we have plans. No plan is airtight, or even close. The universe will always send conditions as reminders. Light weather, strong weather, and strange things that flood the scene.

Nobody really knows much more about it than you. Not doctors, not teachers, not writers. Not people paid to coach and speak. We come for treatment, never the cure. There is no one cure, and we know it. 

We come to be reassured, to be seen and understood. We come to be soothed. To know that there are others in this mess too. We come to be sure that we are more alike than not. 


Pre-order THE HOW here (US AND WORLD)

Pre-order THE HOW here (UK)

9 Comments
the utter
the utter
I tell stories. Some tall, some dark.
Listen on
Substack App
RSS Feed
Appears in episode
Yrsa Daley-Ward