Last Saturday, I reneged on the commitment I had made to write and publish an article each day. What had begun with determination ended not with decision, but dissolution.

Not extinguished with an almighty breath, or a great gust of wind, this candle instead was drowned by the puddle of wax which had accumulated beneath.

I loved the pattern of writing that I had maintained. And I was feeling good in doing so. Life had been intellectually stimulating, professionally gratifying, horizon expanding, and highly sociable.

But I had definitely been burning candles from all angles. Not just from both ends, but from every conceivable end. Friends, family, writing, exercising, work – not a spare moment but crammed with a flame, all of which I deemed worthy of keeping alight.

The Friday before the one just gone, I returned home late from an exhilarating and exhausting two-day trip to New York. I stayed up later, battling fatigue to get an article up, and then woke up early on the Saturday for a day of seeing various friends across London.

I tried to write that day. I tried on the tube in, I tried on the bus across, and I tried on the train down through Waterloo to Clapham. The night gave way to much hilarity and excess, and fizzled out with this website remaining unupdated.

In burning candles from all angles, pools of wax accumulated at my feet and my busy self had failed to notice. In the cool light of nightfall, this wax hardened, and my efforts to move onward were thwarted.

Throughout the week since, I’ve been completely exhausted. Just so consistently tired. Each day has presented itself with some kind of opportunity for a couple of free hours. In the weeks prior, these would have been stuffed like turkeys with a fastidious commitment to my pledges of words and cardio.

But throughout these seven days, these hours have been gently filled with rest. Reading, baths, naps. I went for a run one day; hit a gym session another; and have casually chipped away at a behemoth of an article I’ve been working on for a while.

Getting back on the wagon, I have learned, is a trickier thing than imagined. Once one’s Jenga tower of consistency comes crashing down, it is difficult to move oneself to start again. Finding the motivation to jumpstart the engine of discipline is not easy.

I have procrastinated, attempted to redefine goals, and rationalised to legitimise my inactivity. Ought I go easier? Try and relax some of my commitments? Try and reduce the size of the circle of things I deem valuable?

Sometimes your candles will burn themselves out. But when they do, rest will force itself upon you. When you can’t do anymore, then your body will mandate a period of forced inactivity. And then, when you can, light them up again with just the same ferocity with which you did before.

On We Will Always Love You, the most recent album released by The Avalanches, an Australian music group infamous for their highly creative kaleidoscopic collage-like soundscapes – is featured one of my favourite ever songs: Gold Sky, featuring Kurt Vile.

It is a sublime cut, loaded with humbled gratitude and gloried celebration. I love particularly the sweet insights and acceptance throughout.

In his final lines on the song, Kurt writes:

“Burning candles from all angles

Again

And again

And again

And again

And again

And again

[…]

S’alright with me

S’alright with me.”

I love this sentiment. How it is to be human. Burning candles from all angles, again, and again, and again. Just stuck in our loop of constant chasing and hunger.

We can transcend this, becoming monastics and meditating on the fundamental nature of consciousness unobscured by material substance.

Or we can embrace it. Delight in the varied flavours of life, feverishly tasting all that is presented before us.

For me, for now? I choose the latter. Yes, it is tiring. Yes, it wears one out. But you know what?

S’aright with me.