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Hey there! I am fuuuuucking knackered, sat cross legged on a hotel bed in London, and it’s probably a bit too late for me to be doing one of these, but I’m fuckin here innit tapping away, so let’s have a crack at it shall we?

Here’s a question coming in:

hi tom! my name is jack (not the other dickhead /j), and i’ve kinda grown up alongside you and your content these past couple years. i guess i’ve also taken a veer into staying stationary, and unmoving, as the world outside only gets scarier and more overwhelming. 

i have a lot of conditions that prevent me from doing lots of things, all that i’m being treated for with counselling, medication, etc. i’ve been through a lot, and at the moment spend most of everyday in bed, either listening or writing music. 

it’s hard to see a way out in a world that i feel so disconnected from, and so intrinsically disagree with. everything is so materialistic and driven by numbers, money, fame, etc. the political, economic, social landscapes – are all just a bit shit innit lol. and i feel hopeless to change any of it.

i guess i was wondering if there’s been any vice of sorts you use to move past this if you feel similar? love and the people closest to me comes to mind, and i live to see them happy – it just makes me sad we have to live in such a cruel world.

Sorry you’ve got all this on your head pal, that’s heavy innit. And all of it, yeah, all that sounds well, well heavy.

I feel like I don’t have lots of word of comfort to say on the world’s great problems, if I’m truthful with you. But I can try to provide some clarity on why your world’s important, and why you shouldn’t feel hopeless, and you should get out there and connect with and enjoy what you’ve got.

Here’s a couple things I try to stick by that keep my head above waters in the times when the world feels a little too heavy.

1. Things that gives you some peace, follow ’em with all you’ve got.

If you have those interests & activities that can take you out of your own life, they are precious. That’s connection right there. These things’ll change over time. But if they work for you right now, that’s a beautiful thing not be underestimated.

I mean, take me: isn’t it a bit weird I’m obsessed with this 75 year old man from New Jersey? Yeah! But my god, if Bruce doesn’t just speak to something deep down in me I can’t put my finger on, and give me a rich understanding and realistic perspective of this world, then that’s something special, innit? Gives me hope. I can’t really explain why. His messages and story just speak to me. Gives me great peace.

And so does doing this blog, and writing, and performing, and chatting, and drawing, and music, and many many more things.

But five years ago what made me tick and fall into a world away from this one was deeply different than it is now. It will be deeply different in five years time from now, as well. That’s the point. Listen to who you are right now and nurture the things you truly love, and then all of a sudden, the weight is a lot more manageable.

2. “What you see is all there is.”

This was something I was told by a good friend recently, and it’s really stuck with me. It’s true, innit. If all you dive into all this horribleness out there and get right focused on that, then yeah, it’s fucking horrible! It is! No sugar coating that.

Delving into & understanding the deep pain of the world can have great benefit. You can do great good. But for your own peace, a balance of exploring those subjects that suits you at this very moment is also deeply important. Because we’re all in very different places. And if you’re feeling fragile (which there’s no shame in at all), I’d make your main priority trying to get out of bed and taking that as a fuckin’ win each day. Not coming to terms with the great pains of the world man. You gotta look after yourself.

Finally, yeah, there are problems. Big ones. But alongside those problems, there’s a whole fuckin’ world out there, so many perspectives, lives, people. Fuckin’ 8 billion of ’em. All happening and interweaving and living RIGHT NOW. And at the end of the day, all we have is each other.

Maybe this wasn’t so helpful, I’m pretty spent and I’m committed to finishing this up now. I definitely could have put some more thought into this but Jack mate, I hope this cheers you up a bit and you know you’re not the only one out there focused on all the shite in the world. But you have your own world man. And that’s important.

This world is fucking brilliant and beautiful, just as it is painful. Have a balance of it all. Don’t feel guilty for what you’ve got, but please do feel very, very grateful.

——————————————————————

Mate I think I’ve done all the font sizes wrong on this and the “what you see is all there is” is slightly bigger than the other bullet point I made but I can’t figure it out and I’m tired so fuckin

fuck this im going to bed man have a lovely night everyone

Hello. It’s 4:30 AM. Today I woke up at 5PM. Jetlag is kicking my little british ass, and I feel like I’m in covid again. I am wide awake and can’t be arsed.

Anyway, I’ve been working on this post for a few days now, but figured I’d finish it up. Pretty beautifully written email from them. Let’s have at it.

how do i stop feeling like a stranger in my own life?

hi tom,

hope you’re well! i’ve been really struggling for years now with the feeling of a constant discomfort. i feel so stifled trying to do things that normal human beings do, like have relationships (platonic and romantic) and express myself. i have friends and honestly a decently vibrant social life and i’m not on the brink of killing myself or something, but this feeling is always kind of lingering in the back of my mind and i can’t make it go away.

i think the issue is being too self aware of all of my flaws, and then trying to, like, preemptively spare other people from being exposed to my own perceived awfulness. i know a majority of this is just all in my head, but how do i get out of my own head? how do i start living my life? how do i learn to live with being vulnerable and opening myself up to other people? i’m 19, almost 20, and even though i know i’m still young (relatively), i can’t help but feel this ponderous dread, like i’m wasting my life away being so obsessed with how others perceive me and how awkward i know i must come off. it’s like a metastasizing tumor. spare sage wisdom?

cheers

Fucking hell, yeah sorry mate, that sounds fucking rough. I’ve experienced glimpses of that, but never to that extent. Really feel for you.

Couple things:

1. Shut up your head is wrong mate. Course it is. We’re all on our phones being miserable letting algorithms lead us deep into the night. That’s not in our human nature. But: THIS IS NOT YOUR FAULT, and you should feel ZERO guilt about it, because we’re all in this fuckin’ digital spiral together, despite all of us experiencing different severities of it.
2. No one thinks your a nob head. Well, maybe a few people do. But people think I’m a nob head. People think my mates are nob heads. You can’t please everyone. All you can do is do your absolute best, be kind, and accept that not everyone’s gonna feel alright about you. And that’s okay. Some people are pricks, and you don’t need them to like you. Some people just don’t. That’s OK.
3. Stop reading self help books or looking too inwards. Advice is only advice, we learn so much more from experiencing it. Get out there, man! There’s a whole fuckin’ world!

Okay, but that’s just some words of re-assurance. How do you exactly “stay out of your head”?
Here is what works for me:

1. Make plans
2. Have a calendar, and have structure (even if its bullshit. My structure in covid lockdown – and weirdly right now – was every night before bed I eat toast and watch The Office. Even if it was 4am, I’d do this. We need routine).
3. Connect with people (In person, over the phone, on fuckin’ discord. The biggest thing EVER that gets you out of your head is realising everyone else has their own little world with all their own dread, and love, and heartbreak, and joy, and pain, and trauma, and excitement, and pain, and hope). Don’t matter how you do it, whenever you can, try to connect with someone. Even if it makes you anxious. You have to connect with people, it’s the way out of this.
4. Listen to loud music (This can really distracts the horrid thoughts. Yes, it’s helpful to inspect them, to get therapy, to have deep chats. But balance is equally important. And if you spend all your time facing inwards – which I have, many times – you get fucking miserable. As hard as it is to accept, the solution to this is not to sit by yourself and think.)
5. Go in nature
6. Be with animals
7. Get into communities about things you love (Online or in person or both)
8. Get sunshine
9. Eat well (Sometimes I just grab a bag of spinach and eat it. I look fucking nuts. But the effect just having some good in your system does to your head is fucking mental)
10. Be creative (Especially at things your shit at. No expectancy there. I love drawing but that’s never gonna be my fucking career. It’s just fun innit).
11. Exercise (but don’t fuckin go to the gym and become a sigma male if you don’t want to. Just go on a little walk when you can. Does lots of good to be in the world).
12. Try and be nicer to people (then you’ll be nicer to yourself)
13. Try new things
14. Try and actively think about stuff you like / love, not stuff you hate. (We will always hate loads and always love loads. Just what we hate often jumps out to us a lot more)
15. Have some fuckin’ FUN. (Whatever is actually fuckin’ fun for you, go do that. Then come back to your problems. Also, go do something that one of your friends or family finds fun. Go with ’em, even if you don’t reckon it’ll be good. They might convince you!)

If any of those speak to you, then do them. If none of them do, then fuckin’ do one of them anyway it’ll be fine or worst case a bit bloody boring.

Also by the way (side note) life is not a movie. I think the digital / social media age has made everyone think they’ll have one conversation and then be healed, because of how romanticised poor mental health is. Or that you’ll have one movie moment where the sun catches your eye and all your trauma will lift off you. Life (and especially depression) is one step forward, two steps backwards. It’s tiny fucking little steps. But hey, steps is steps innit. Movement is movement. And to quote the Big Man: “one day, you’ll look back at where you started, and be amazed by how far you’ve come“

This is my advice. Keep on going. You fuckin’ got this.

Also, really get into some good music. Listen to these if you don’t got none, these uplift me always:

(and if you want some full albums you can bang on just to go on autopilot, get on Sgt Pepper by the Beatles, or Sable Fable by Bon Iver, or of course: Born To Run, Bruce Springsteen)

Cheers guys! I am going to go and try to fucking fall asleep. I won’t. But this is the price we pay for travel. !!!!!

Goodnight and goodbye.

Hello, hello! It’s my final day in America, I fly home later on. It’s been aweeeeesome. Had a few hours to myself to finish this one up. Let’s have at it.

I Feel Lost

I’m really concerned about my future, because I’m not sure what to do! I’m 18, finished college last year and chose not to go to Uni because I wanted to make music. I’m now torn, because I can’t afford to live on a minimum wage job in the hopes my music career will take off. So I’m considering going back to education. But that feels like giving up on my dream, something I really don’t want to ever do. I suppose it boils down to stability, security or risking that in the pursuit of fulfillment and joy. Music really makes me happy, and I like writing it, I like singing and I like playing instruments. So I’m lost.

Hey! Shit yeah, that sounds fuckin’ difficult.

Well look, it’s brilliant you have something you truly love, and an overwhelming sense of direction and purpose. This is something we all struggle with at different times in our life, so you being so focused and excited and passionate about something is wonderful to hear.

Don’t you feel shit about going back to education. It’s education, it’s fucking brilliant! You’re learning, and everything you learn will inspire your music, help it, and help you! It all flows into each other.

If you truly love it, I think your music career will come. I think you should pursue it and grab opportunities that come at you with as much excitement as you can muster. But, and I think this comes underestimated when discussing careers nowadays:

It’s all luck.

Well, not all of it. But seriously, so much more of it is than people let on. Especially in this “work hard get results” online culture we live in. Sometimes you work hard and don’t get results. Sometimes you do hardly anything and get massive results. There’s 8 billion people on this planet all doing actions that will effect everyone else, it’s unlikely that you simply manifesting something is enough. Sometimes, it’s just a bit of luck.

But, really, that’s encouraging. That’s fuckin’ exciting. Because the future is not yet written. And no one knows what’s gonna happen.

Let me put it this way: If it weren’t for covid, I wouldn’t be here. The thing that killed millions of people is the same thing that gave me my fortune and my audience. How fucked is that?

But really, if the lockdown didn’t put everyone inside, I wouldn’t have found a drive to post so obsessively, and I wouldn’t have found my audience who needed something optimistic to latch onto, and I wouldn’t have created so many of the relationships with other internet friends who are now some of my closest friends in real life.

All of this, because of something completely out of my control.

But what I do know, is say covid didn’t happen… I’d be in college, studying editing, then hopefully on to university to study it more. Right now I’d just be finishing up, in some city in England, searching for a job in a film department. Or maybe I would have gone back to volunteering with my Mum and tried to get a job there. Or maybe I would’ve found a job that gets me by, having fun in the evening off.

But, most realistically, I would’ve hopefully stumbled upon something new that I love just as much.

Either way, I’d be trying my best to be fucking happy and successful, because all success is, is creating & pursuing a goal that helps you meet your individual needs at this moment in time.

So hey, keep at your music, and keep performing it. No matter how successful you get, or what stage you’re playing, those songs are yours. But, don’t worry if how you imagine it happening doesn’t come to life in the exact way you imagine. It probably won’t! And that’s okay. As long as you’re happy mate, that’s what’s most important. You never know what will come tomorrow.

Also mate you’re fucking 18 you’re so young have a pint and go just enjoy being a musician and learning at school and having a laugh. These are some wicked times, not to be wasted on dreaming about tomorrow. Cause tomorrow will come and you’ll be dreaming about yesterday. So just fucking reeeeeeelllllax and have a sick time.

Well, that’s me. Have a good one everyone, and I’m about to have a travel day so I’ll probably put up some more posts later on. Goodbye!

Hello, hello! Here I am, back to another question. This time, I’m going to just paste the full email, since I think otherwise I might run the risk of not doing it justice.

Dear Tom,

I’m Gray, i’m 22 years old and i’ve been a viewer since 2021, and your content got me through some of my toughest times that year, along with others like tubbo and Jack also being a major help.

My question is fairly simple in its basic form, how do you view masculinity? And obviously one could always say “it’s being strong and brave”, and other male stereotypes. However when i explain more i think maybe you’ll understand why it’s a little more complicated.

See for me personally, I’m a transgender man. So i was born a woman, meaning i grew up as a girl and was pushed into very strict feminine gender norms my entire life. And growing up i think i had a pretty strict view on what gender roles were, largely because i was raised religious. But as i’ve gotten older and especially since i came out at trans, these roles seem so convoluted and forced, and it’s left me questioning what actually defines a man.

Now i truthfully am not bothered by dictionary or biological definitions because gender is after all a social construct. But i am curious what it means to individuals, especially ones such as yourself who have had people looking up to you during your formative years as a man.

My gender transition is very focused on goals, i have my sights set on gym goals and presentation goals, and i have people in the public eye who represent the kind of masculinity i want to embody and i have ideas of what i think masculinity should look like within society going forward.

So i suppose when it boils down to it all, after all the waffle i’ve just gotten through, my question is what does masculinity mean to you and what in particular makes you feel masculine?

I would absolutely love it if you read this email and if it made it into a blog post i’d be amazed, but i know you’ve spoken a bit about the future for young men in tour country, and i figured this is a question you might like to delve into.

Many thanks,

Gray.

Hey. Well woah, I figured I’d reply to this one since I don’t really know my thoughts on this at all. Lots of these questions I have a general immediate answer, but this one I’ve never taken the time to consider.

I guess I don’t really know what masuclinity is. I know where I feel comfortable, where I want to experiment or try new things, where I am aware of the lines between femininity, masculinity and all in between (and even then, I know there’s so much that doesn’t fit in between). And most importantly, I know what makes me feel comfortable or not comfortable in my own skin, and how to feel safe as myself.

What I am aware of is all that masculinity is not. What typical struggles live alongside it that are vibrantly normalised and accepted. Especially in areas I’ve really struggled, such as relationships, communication & mental health.

I’ve witnessed men do and not do things, because they feel they just should. That’s just what men should do.
And that’s where I find my head goes towards when I think of masculinity. All of the things the show Adolescence brought up into discussion, and all of the issues young lads are facing today.

And I guess if I can add anything to this, it’s just saying that the should was invented by people who are just as fucking insecure and as anxious as we all are. We are all people, at the end of the day, and anyone thinks that their gender is anymore valid / important / correct than yours, is a cunt.

Yeah, so I guess I don’t really know, but that’s what comes to mind.

Whatever makes people feel comfortable, and whatever you identify with, do that innit. There’s a million reasons why you feel a certain way about yourself, but you just do, so long as you’re not harming anyone, go for what feels best.

I think Bruce Springsteen looked awesome when he was really strong so then I tried to get really strong and now my arms are a little bit bigger but the gym was fucking boring and made me anxious so I stopped going. That doesn’t make me any less or more of a man. Just means I have slightly different arms.

I guess when it comes to goals to do with your gender, I’d reccommend just making sure they come from a healthy place. Goals that will hopefully make you feel more comfortable and yourself. Long as you know it’s they are coming from there, and not from a place of “oh if I do this I’ll be enough”. Mate you already are enough. Just go towards where you think is genuinely good for you.

Well guys that looks like it’s my opinions on gender identity. I am going to go back to sitting and reading this book. Then I am going to go on a walk. Keep on sending emails to questions@tomswebsite.com, and I’ll see you later. Goodbye!

(PS: If you send me an email, I am only going to use all of what you say in it if you write at the bottom “feel free you use this in the blog”. If you are okay with that, please note that at the bottom of the email! Otherwise, I’ll just quote small phrases from it and the question you’re asking).