The Good Things

You missed a call. Your bills are due. Your car needs petrol. You’re out of milk. You have 1,537 unread emails. You must activate your account. Forget your password? You have 6% battery. Session timed out. 

Nope. None of that. Not here. Not now. This is where we enjoy some of the good things life has to offer. Finding the good things a little hard to get a handle on? Let’s look really closely. This is a public service announcement.

Think of the perfect peach.

Think of the platypus.

Think of the simple joy of using a nice sharp pencil on soft, thick paper.

Think of the word ‘cardigan’.

Think of the first thing you knew you were good at.

Think about the octopus. Ever seen the instant an octopus changes colour and shape on a whim? Almost defies belief. It’s a familiar feeling, in a way, the involuntary rush of colour and movement experienced by humans when seasick, embarrassed or drunk, but this huge creature does this deliberately, as a survival party trick. Watch a video of it, seriously, it’s amazing.

How great is popcorn!? Hard little useless yellow things that turn themselves inside out and become flavour-absorbent fluff clouds? What kind of world do we live in?

A moon path on the sea at night makes you want to remember it forever.

That thing where someone says “hang on, let me look into that for you, that doesn’t sound right” and you realise that you have found a person inside a bank/insurance company/healthcare provider/government agency who might actually be able to help you and you want to ask for their personal phone number/birthday/favourite album and buy them flowers and send them love letters and stuff? That rarely happens but it’s good to remember: those people exist! They’re there! Like easter eggs, hiding, waiting for you to discover them when you least expect it.

That thing where you stay at someone’s house and they put out a folded towel for you.

Trees literally eat the bad stuff in the environment and turn it into good stuff. If it were a children’s story, it would be written by Lewis Carroll or Dr Seuss.

Right now, somewhere, maybe not far from you, somebody is teaching somebody something for the first time. Recently, a woman in a local cafe was teaching a bloke how to make a coffee and all the people around them started shifting slightly away to give them space. There is something so intimate, so intrinsically generous and touching about the act of teaching another human a brand new skill - all the more impressive when the teacher is responsive, sensitive, thoughtful, encouraging. Sometimes, although this sentence doesn’t quite sound right, watching a YouTube How To video will make you feel better about humanity.

Witness the glory of toddler dancing. It’s all in the knees.

When the traffic is heavy in the opposite direction and you, my friend, are free as a bird? Lovely. 

Sitting in a car while it rains outside and you and you and your mate are still talking even though you parked the car at least ten minutes ago and the windows are starting to fog up and one of you is running a finger through the fog while making a point about something and you should probably go inside but instead you are watching your mate’s finger drawing in the condensation and listening and thinking, and the moment for going inside hasn’t quite arrived yet? These are the little moments a good life is made of.

Pavlova. With a spoon. 

Brand new, awesome, knock-em dead haircut.

And lastly, an important report from this desk: last Wednesday, a man stood in the butterfly house at the zoo, arms wide, face lifted to the sky, grinning like an idiot while two unspeakably beautiful butterflies balanced on his thick nose and stubbly chin and giggling passers-by took photos of him. Everybody - adults, children, people who didn’t speak each other’s languages - laughed together for about half an hour. The man was wearing one of those bus company name tags with Spiros written on it. Spiros, who probably spends most of his time inside a bus, drove some people to the zoo last Wednesday and found himself centre stage, giggling at some butterflies that were dancing on his face. Excellent.

Everything isn’t always terrible. Plus apparently the octopus has an incredible memory and holds grudges for years. Feel better? You’re welcome. This has been a public service announcement.

A version of this column appeared in The Big Issue. The Big Issue is entirely excellent. Support them here.