So, what’s it all about ey? How often do you think about life? Your life. Life in general. THE MEANING OF BLOODY LIFE! It’s problematic isn’t it; in the words of that famous old pop song – “Will I be handsome? Will I be rich?”. Maybe it’s best to just say “Whatever will be will be”. But is it a good thing to think about it all and to consider who we are, what we are and where we are? To put things into perspective, as much as we can make out so far, you the individual, in the grand scheme of things are merely a tiny cog in a giant cosmic engine.

Annoying. Possibly true. Possibly untrue.

Loads of people have lived before us; ‘Great’ people – Einstein, Socrates, Joan of Ark.’Terrible’ people – Hitler, Henry the 8th, Saddam Hussein. ‘Average’people – John Smith, John and Jane Doe. Then there’s all the ‘great’,’average’ and ‘terrible’ plants and animals to add to the never ending list (I’d like to think we can put Baloo the bear into the ‘Great’list). And do we count deceased volcanoes in this too? Actually where and when does the cosmos end, and if it does, then can I get a prawn sandwich with cheesy chips for my last meal, so I can enjoy it all indulgently and with great pleasure.

You can see why people feel the need for an ‘identity’. On a purely personal level it can make everything feel worthwhile. It helps one to engage in life. It gives purpose to our somewhat piffling existence.

Now me. Well, i’m just one human being, in a current population of seven billion, with about a gazillion people before and after me. And like I said, then there’s animals and plants and bacteria to take into account. It’s all just a bunch of ponge. You can ask me about ponge if you want. It’s a bit like nonsense, except way more existential. Me and Robert yoghurt (Rogurt) came up with it when I was 10.

Anyway, as a person in this world, well, I just like to record my existence in this world I live in. Arty people call it the ‘Zeitgeist’. Tis a German word meaning ‘of the times’. And what is art anyway? Well, for me it’s a quest for truth.

I enjoy playing around with satire and bathos; I like being serious about stuff ‘cos’ it makes things proper, and then I like stripping it apart and poking fun at it all. Let’s create a pedestal, put something on the pedestal and look at the thing on the pedestal. Let us think about it and come to a decision. Is it worthy of such exalted status? Is it ultimately ridiculous? I mean, look at Cricket’s ‘The Ashes’. A trophy that looks like an eggcup. It’s not a storm in a tea cup, it’s a gentle sport played by moderately well behaved people in white clothes that want to win a glorified eggcup. What a load of bloody ponge.

And then there’s the essentials. If you’re a boy you have a willy and you’ll grow up wanting to mate with everything. If you’re a woman, you’ll have boobs and a fanny and will be wanting to be mated. Either way, you’ll be wanting to procreate. Like everything else on this earth, you will be compelled to try and reproduce. But first and foremost you will have to survive. Survival is important if you want to be alive and mate and look after your sproglings. That’s it really. That’s the essence of everything – become alive, reproduce, die. Everything else is fluff. But it is fluff that cushions the soul from the harsh reality of nature.

I think nature is everything isn’t it. We are everything and everything is intrinsically cosmic. Everything is real and somehow unreal – everything you do will appear in reality and everything you achieve will eventually decay and be consumed; an essential law of nature – Everything living has an ephemeral existence.

So where does that leave ‘you’? A person lost in a infinite sea of intergalactic ponge – a collection of quarks organised into a human figure; a brain inside a body made of flesh and blood – primal and emotionally driven. Something more than an ant or a blade of grass or a puffin? Is it our lucid consciousness of our world that defines us to be more than just a collection of atoms? Who knows. Only nature knows. But all I know is that I don’t know, and maybe the wisest thing would be to admit that I know that I just don’t know. But in the meantime i’ll have a good time trying to find out.