How I could save the world. . . . With Owls

Things are changing at the moment. I’m not sure what’s caused it. Maybe it’s the time of year, maybe it’s the time of life, but something doesn’t feel quite right. I’m getting twitchy, and I’m not sure why.

Somewhere around, very well hidden, is a list of things I want to do with my life. Some of them are very well known others less so and one in particular is not known at all. The problem with when you’re feeling twitchy is you then go to your “life list” and start looking at what might change the growing unease you are feeling. Here lies the problem.

When you are younger, adults know everything. They always know the right thing to do; they can answer (almost) any question without a flicker. They can cook, comfort, cuddle and buy ice cream. They can do what they like, when they like without getting into trouble and you can’t WAIT for that. As you grow older, blundering through your early and mid teens, you wonder when the hell the knowledge will hit you. You wonder when you will stop making stupid mistakes and when you will start instinctively knowing right from wrong. Milestone birthdays pass and the knowledge doesn’t hit. You tell yourself it must be the next birthday, then the next. At some point, you tell yourself, a shaft of light comes from the sky and the epiphany hits. It’s a life defining moment when you realise that adults don’t know all the answers and make the same cock ups as you do on a daily basis. My epiphany was at 20. I realised then that this was it. I was never going to get any better than I already was at dealing with the crap life threw at me. Or, if it did get better, it would be a slow process – not a thunderbolt from the heavens suddenly instilling the wisdom of adulthood.

So that’s the issue. I don’t know what to do. Everything on my list contains some element of risk - as every decision does. The problem is that when there are 2 people involved there is twice the risk of problems with one being unhappy or other problems along the way. I got to think about this while trying to sleep last night. It would be great if there were some kind of cosmic indicator system of how the decisions you make would affect you. Owls would do.

If something you were considering was a great idea and going to work out really well, a beautiful Owl with wonderful feathers would fly through the window and land on your arm. You would stroke it for a minute or too, revelling in the fact that you are making the right choice and then off the owl would fly to deliver its next affirmation.

If the considered change was viable but going to be a bumpy ride, the owl would arrive slightly ruffled, with a few feathers out of place and looking a bit worse for wear but otherwise healthy.

If it was a terrible idea, a dead owl would crash land on your lap.

This may seem like the random ramblings of a strange mind, and they are. But if you go past the slightly Harry Potter nature of the idea it makes sense. The economy would be in the state it’s in if Owls had warned bankers that they were being dicks. The regulators couldn’t have feigned ignorance of their activities if every bad decision had been accompanied by a dead owl – you couldn’t have moved in central London for the weight of dead birds littering the place.

Dead Owls could save the world by stopping people from making cataclysmic fuck ups, like the recession, the war in Afghanistan and Kerry Katona. Unfortunately the cosmos never thought to ask me for my thoughts, so you’re all doomed to a life of your own mistakes.

Sorry about that.