Your brain is fixed by 25 right? Nothing new can enter, or mould, or re-shape. You’re like custard hit at high force; an impenetrable, delicious wall. And before that you were the same custard, except this time hit with, presumably, really slow, almost sensual force. A brain that could be explored, and mushed, and shaped, in all its canary-yellow, gloopy glory. That’s true, is it not? 

You start as a child who doesn’t care for opinion; a being that just acts on instinct. Someone who wants that thing right there in front of them, who doesn’t consider their motivations. They want the cake because it’s bright and colourful, not because they understand their inherent addictive relationship with sugar. 

Then a teenager who starts to think for themselves. All knees and elbows, sharp edges and soft stretch marks. Something that begins to run through possibilities; who they might be, what they might like, what they might think. All filtered through their own personal soap box of a crackling voice. 

And finally, apparently, a fully-formed adult. Someone who knows What Things Are. A person who has opinions about things, and only adds to their learning when it fits what they already know. That solid, smacked custard; any new thing that might challenge or directly contradict What Is Known never making it past the grumpy security guard that is the hard outer layer of our brains. 

And yet, surely not. Yes, cognitive dissonance. But also, true reality. I have been born and moulded, thankfully, with a constantly shifting perspective and brain. I could see this over-thinking wrinkle-ball as a prison of the never-known, but mostly I do think it is trying to be a chamber of the yet-to-be-known. And indeed yet, we do need to settle somewhere! 

And so, petrol stations. On long journeys, especially ones that seem never-ending, we need to stop for petrol. We start our journey eager and excited, not really thinking about what we are yet to see. What we’re going to learn about. The dogs we’ll see bobbing out backseat windows. The muffled music we’ll hear pounding out of rickety, janky car radios. With time, that excitement tires. The dogs lug their big old heads back inside. The blurry music takes on the form of an infinitely-looping symphony of nothingness. Our legs stiffen, our eyes water. And so we pull over. 

We re-fuel, we stretch those previously awkward knees and elbows, pulling at those excellent stretch marks and making little “oh yeah” sounds of relief. And then we go again. This time, we’re not endowed with the same youthful exuberance of the journey’s beginning, but we certainly feel better and ready to go again. And this cycle repeats. 

This is how I see learning and sureness and opinion and moulding. I want to stay changeable and open to new. but that also terrifies me; if I’m always open to change, what do I actually believe? 

Learning the new can be scary and unfamiliar, like the open road of a motorway, the speed building and an almost perverse delight rushing into our stomachs. But at some point, we pull over. We settle on something we know, we stretch and yawn and make temporary rest. We say with absolute certainty, “this is who I am and what I believe!”, knowing also with absolute certainty that once Mum makes her return from paying for petrol, we’ll be off again. Hitting a new part of the road, picking up new experiences and thoughts and stories. Holding them up and examining them, pressing our eyeballs so close to them that we worry our contact lenses might be plucked clean off. 

There’ll be the familiar; the same types of trees, the same treadmill of cracked, concrete road, the same zip-zip-zip of yellow road lines. These are our familiars. The things we know. 

But there’ll also be the new. The spooky house on the hill. The Sunday afternoon motorbike club, swaying and weaving between the traffic. The things that we can’t even imagine because we simply haven’t been there yet. 

And then we’ll stop at another petrol station. And once again we’ll settle, plonk our asses in the dust, and sift through these new pieces of information like a tumble-dryer on a slow spin. Add some, lose some. Allow some to fill in some gaps, and others to create new space within thoughts that we thought were already full. And decide that this is what we believe now. Part two, second edition. 

I’ve always liked hearing older people give life advice. But I also fully believe I should follow none of it.

Otherwise, how will I have any advice to give anyone else? If you don’t firmly believe at 18 that it’s your life’s dream to become a world-class plate spinner, even though your fate is to become a submarine captain, how will you ever take those steps from wobbling crockery to underwater exploration (I have no idea what steps they would be but, then again, not my life)?  

We need to be somewhat utterly convinced of something, while also understanding that in two years’ time, we could be utterly convicted of something else. We need to be able to stand our ground in conflict, defending what we know against idiots like Steve, and then two years later find out Steve was right all along. 

This isn’t advice. Please do read this and forget it. I would hate for you to learn something from me and not for yourself.