Jack Bradshaw

A human. An animal. A life. An honourable life.

A stem. A bond. A connection. A real connection.

The familiar comfort.

The breaking glass. The cheering crowd. The shrieking child. The ringing phone. The throbbing song.

Overwhelming chaos.

"What can I get you?" Snap. Open. Present. Hello Waiter.

A simple question, a complex answer.

Steak for them. Salad for me. Reality check for everyone.

Suddenly alone.

First, the awkwardness. The moment of silence. The broken eye contact. They know what I know.

Politeness draws us close.

Second, the small talk. The undeniable undercurrent. The unspoken disagreement. They know what I think.

Apprehension pushes us apart.

Third, the excuse.  Species. Hubris. History? Tradition. Intelligence... Entitlement.  DIVINITY! Authority. They know I'm not buying it. 

Anxiety for them. Anxiety for me. Anxiety for everyone.

Overwhelming chaos.

A moment of silence. A moment of noise. A moment of choice.

Choice for me. Choice for them. Choice for them.

The familiar trap.

Dissent or dismiss. Critique or condone. Engage or endorse.

Failure or failure.

Just disengage... it never works. Just let it go... and eat your plants. Just-

Just? Hardly. Enough is enough.

Frustration simmers. Indignation brews. Patience wears thin.

The defences grow.

The absurd philosophies. The baseless ideologies. The twisted hypotheticals. Ridiculous distractions.

The tangential topics. The unrelenting rationalisations. The blistering prejudice. All irrelevant.

Dissonance. Dissonance. Dissonance. Endless dissonance.

Enough to fill the room. Enough to drown the conscience. Enough to end a life.

A body. A mind. A soul. A person. A life.

The plates arrive.

A steak. A snack. A meal. A taste. A moment.

Enough!

Anger. Malice. Fury. Where did these come from? Rage. Indignation. Frustration. Where is this going? Bitterness. Disgust. Vitriol. Where do I put all this?

Overwhelming chaos.

Stop being polite. Speak the truth. State the obvious.

"THAT is a fucking PERSON!"

Underwhelming simplicity.

Shock, mouth agape. Discomfort, eyes wide. Silence... silence.

Regret. No, wait, it can't be...

A hint of horror, recognition? A sliver of disgust, acknowledgement? A gentle inwards turn! Acceptance!

Please... please... no... of course not.

A grimace of disgust, normal. A frown of contempt, always. A sneer of disapproval, understandable.

Failure. Again.

My words disperse. Their defences distract. Our bond decays.

Snap. Closed. Distant.

No more may be said. No more will be heard. No more can be done.

The vegan crossed the line, politeness must quell passion. The vegan broke the contract, tribe above the truth. The vegan disturbed the peace, harmony at all costs.

But most importantly...

This life began with hardship and adversity, and for many years only the spirit of perseverance sustained me. It kept me alive and led me across continents, before slowly turning inwards and becoming a deep appreciation for all life. My journey showed me the inner workings of my own soul, gave me the tools to truly connect with others, and revealed several paradoxes at the heart of society which seem both necessary and intractable. I have come to believe our universe holds mysteries beyond anything we can imagine, and I wish to explore them with you but face a bind. It must be resolved before we can truly begin, so let's explore it together.

What I have to share, by its very nature, is best expressed through conversation and connection, but as reader and writer we are bound together by monologue without recourse. We cannot ask each other questions, we cannot prompt each other for new thought, and we cannot replicate the nuance or closeness that dialogue fosters. If only there were a way for us to directly connect across time, then we could speak intimately and avoid this problem, but alas we cannot. We are stuck on either side of a chasm, with nothing but ink between us and no way for you to be heard. I feel tempted to simply remain silent and journey on alone, but it’s deeply human to pass something on, and my nature compels me to share in a form that will not wither and perish as I do. This drive comes from deep within and simply will not take no for an answer, so I’m stuck between the nature of my message and my unyielding need to share. A frustrating place to be, as you can imagine.

You might wonder, what message could be so poorly suited to monologue? It’s not so much what I have to say, but rather how my work unfolds. I feel drawn to complex questions, imagined scenarios, and heartfelt contemplation, all of which require steeping ourselves in subjectivity, keeping one eye on the objective, and rejecting all dogmatic certainty. It’s a delicate balance between temporary truths and limitless possibility, and progress is found by suspending certainty and making space for the ambiguous. It contrasts sharply with publication, which leaves the tentative world behind and forever raises some answers above others, even if stated as hypothetical. It all comes down to new information, and where conversation and meditation allow changes at will, putting ink to paper sets one path in stone forever more. All this to say, how can the flexibility of my process be honoured when ink is indelible?

This flexibility is essential because subjective meaning is not found in a library; it’s found in the connections between individuals and people are rarely fixed in place. It emerges from the differences between us, the symphony of cultural exchange, and the genuine respect forged between people when they share their stories and resolve their conflicts. We change over time and all bonds require yielding to discovery, but when only one of us can speak, how can we achieve this fusion? I need your perspective to build enduring understanding, but have only mine on hand. It’s quite a challenge working only with monologue, and there are ethical considerations beyond the technical difficulty.

If we proceed without the back-and-forth of conversation to aid us, then we open the door to misunderstanding and misrepresentation, and I wonder just how many people have been led astray by well-intentioned authors. How will people react to my work when the cultural lens has moved on, what happens when my ideas become their own antithesis, and what prevents opportunistic vultures from intentionally twisting my work to deceive you? These concerns tempt me to remain silent and leave you to voyage on alone, but again, my nature forbids it. I have to wonder whether my concerns are premature, as I have no readers, but ethics requires forethought, and like a tiny butterfly flapping its wings, my work could have unintended ramifications. We’re all responsible for our consequences, however distant, and our willingness to consider others is the only difference between empathy and apathy. How though can a decision be made when the consequences of both action and inaction are entirely unknown?

It's a complex bind, but the exit isn't found in analysis or calculation. It comes by letting mindfulness wash away concern to reveal the supple joy of putting ink to paper (or finger to key, in my case). It's a wonderful feeling which flows from deep within, stretches back to our earliest tribes, and creates a community that spans millennia. From here I saw humanity as a single whole, one vast mind divided by time and united by text, endlessly reading, writing, and passing something on to itself. A little poetic, perhaps, but it renders a simple perspective: We live when we put our faith in each other and let our voices flow without inhibition, and we die when we lock our voices behind fear and keep them to ourselves. My message may eventually become brittle, some may find confusion, and others may twist it for their own ends, but that's the risk we must take to live. A rather obvious conclusion, in hindsight, but not easy to reach for someone with my past.

The drive to publish my work has been building within me for many years, but a voice has always kept me silent. This voice is woven deeply into my mind and I have come to know it as my inner critic. It relentlessly keeps me and my work hidden away with fear and shame, but over the past seven years I have been relentlessly and mercilessly dismantling it. Today marks a turning point where my own mind is no longer working to silence me.

In the past my critic would have stopped me by now. It would have nit picked every sentence, every word, and every syllable. After perfecting those, it would have focused on the tone, the flow of the words, and the style. Eventually those too would be perfected, only to meet with the critic’s most desperate defence: Appeal to futility. In the past my critic would have me believe nothing is truly worth doing and everything is ultimately futile, but not today. I am resisting those messages, and I am choosing to publish not in spite of the need perfection and the assurance of futility, but in defiance of them. There are words worth publishing, and they do not need to be perfect.

The lies of the critic have wasted and discarded years of my work. Pages shredded, files deleted, and ideas thrown away. Notions dismissed, possibilities discarded, and potential squandered. All this because my critic needed me to be isolated and alone. Not today though, today I’m changing the script.

I have overcome the critic’s stranglehold by cultivating a new sense of self and building a place within my mind for the free expression of thoughts, feelings, and possibilities. This mental space was once a mere hollow, a sanctuary from the critic’s endless torment, but it now encompasses the majority of my mind. It’s a place of wonder, and nowhere in the physical world could ever hope to compare. This garden with in my mind is home to my joy, my curiosity, and my will to grow beyond my limitations. This space is far beyond the critics reach, and from here there are no limits.

If you are reading these words, then my critic failed today. It fell by the wayside, a victim of its own failures, and hereon out my life and my publications are within my control. A new chapter is just beginning, and the critic is no longer a character in my story. So I will simply say to it, so long and good riddance, you we were never welcome and I’m not sad to see you go. This is the end for you.