July 22, 2019
Out of the Brew is a quaint café with blue walls, yellow stools, and the faint hum of indie music. I'm preached at its windowsill, scanning the array of chicken shops, barbershops, and off-licenses that line New Cross Road. This is the home of Goldsmiths, University of London - a colorful patchwork of aspiring youth, oddball creativity, and late-night kebabs.
As I sip my black coffee, I feel an unexpected wave of nostalgia. Maybe it’s the caffeine hitting on an empty stomach, or maybe it’s the sense that I’m trespassing in my own past.
I think back to those sleepless nights in the library, fretting over a paper that was due, the countless hours spent sitting in Goldsmiths Cafe, dissecting Liam’s* late night texts with my friends, or the late afternoons wasted at the pub, drinking and singing to jukebox songs as our collective therapy. It feels so far away now, like remembering someone else’s life.
Goldsmiths has always been a peculiar ecosystem. Known for its student protests, absurd (and highly entertaining) Fine Art Degree Shows, and the birthplace of the band, Blur. Some prestigious alumni include put-a-shark-in-formaldehyde artist, Damien Hirst, acclaimed female filmmaker, Sam Taylor-Johnson and my personal favorite, editor-in-chief of British Vogue, Edward Enninful.
Having arrived to Goldsmiths at 18, I enrolled in a Media & Communications degree - a choice vague enough to mean anything and everything. Eventually, though, and fairly quickly into our first year, we were told to pick a practical focus. I tried Journalism first, thinking chasing stories might give me a thrill. And it did, a little, especially on the days we went to court. But the rest of it was hard-boiled drudgery: approaching random people for vox pops, sticking to strict word counts, and examining the unforgiving reality of our society. It was a noble cause, sure, but a relic too. Nobody seemed to care about the news the way it used to matter, the way I remembered as a kid, it was already drowning in the hype of social media, so...
I switched to Creative Writing, where I learned to do more than cultivate neat little stories. Fiction, in its own way, is a truth-sayer - but we can leave that debate for another time.
I stayed on for a postgrad in Filmmaking, driven partly by the practical need for financial stability, and partly by a desire to explore my creative side, bouncing between the high-speed chaos of Assistant Director and the quieter, often soul-draining grind of reworking other people’s scripts as a Development Producer. That year nearly killed me. I spent so little time writing my own work that I’m pretty sure if I could’ve suffocated myself from the inside, I would’ve. Instead, I spent entire nights crying, or staring blankly at the walls. It was miserable.
But nothing is forever, right? I mean, I knew it was momentary. Whatever I was feeling would fade. Some things need to be endured and then forgotten. Life is fleeting, we’re mortal, and in less than two hundred years, most of us won’t be remembered. Grim? "Yes," says a small chimpanzee wearing a red top hat as he gestures to the black hole of our existence, "Welcome."
At the same time, not much has changed since I graduated, and I wonder if our famous alumni would feel the same. There’s a shiny new bookstore, and the Marquis has had a fresh coat of paint, but as I eavesdrop into conversations, it's all the same - someone’s starting a zine, there’s a lecture on queer politics, and have you read Durkheim yet? No, me neither.
University was truly a time of shared impermanence. Collectively chasing a sense of oblivion while also trying to build some sense of security. Nothing is forever yet we must ensure a forever! Everything felt crucial at the moment (what do I text Liam?) then utterly ephemeral (should we get a pint to forget about Liam?). All those hours spent with friends in bars, at the Green, or queuing in front of Bussey - losing ourselves, feeling invincible in our youth - was just that: the fleeting realization that nothing lasts forever.
But surely, there’s a thin line between feeling like ‘nothing is forever’ and truly believing it. Yes, feelings may fade, but actions? They stick around long after the moment’s passed.
The actions we take in the past will always remain part of the past, but they are also part of the future. If the choices we make today become the past of tomorrow, it begs the question: Do our feelings dictate our actions, or do our actions simply inform the way we feel? Should we take caution with our actions and if so, how do we intuitively know when?
To unravel this existential knot, I’d say ‘nothing is forever’ is just a comforting idea. It’s a way to avoid responsibility, introspection, and any confrontation we try to sidestep in adulthood (and probably end up in therapy for).
Maybe it’s a necessary lie we need to believe...Take those alumni - did they know they’d be successful? Could they feel it in their bones when they were students? Probably not. Nothing is forever, so I have forever. I have forever now. I have the time to make the choices that matter. And that time is now.
If we don’t fully immerse ourselves in life as its happening, then we miss the chance to do the things we want to do, to recognize what we truly value, and to learn from the process. Feelings and actions are irrevocably linked. I know this might sound like a bunch of fluff, but think about it.
If you throw yourself into fleeting feelings, paradoxically...
What you learn, how you grow, and who you become turn out to be quite permanent. In other words, your actions, quite irreversible. The best part? You never really know what you’re doing when you’re doing it.
I glance back into the coffee shop and watch all the wonderful and interesting faces around me. We are tied to the same faith and hurling with life towards it. There’s a certain endlessness in the way it all ends.
So, I suppose this is our reality:
We are mortal. Life is fleeting. And in two hundred years or less, we may not be remembered.
But today, and tomorrow, everything is forever.
Or at least, take a moment to think of it that way.
How does your life change?
What actions do you take? And how quick are you to take them?
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