One Day, We Will All Be Gone
Morbid, but also deeply human. Wild.
Hey readers - this is a bit of an existential post. If that’s not what you want today, I totally understand. Tread lightly, and take care of yourselves. Yx
It got me, y’all. This week, the romance show of the season struck me down and brought me to my creaking knees.
If you haven’t yet seen ONE DAY on Netflix, well. It’s a cracking watch, but fair warning. Be emotionally prepared for the heart wrench.
I was fortunate enough to attend the premiere screening earlier this Tuesday, but I hadn’t been planning to write about the show, certainly not on this Substack. To be honest, I’d not even heard of the book by David Nicholls, despite it being a six-million-selling international best seller. I went into the screening sans expectation, but after watching the first three episodes of the 14-episode series and listening to a panel discussion with the creatives, I raced out of the cinema impatient to inhale the whole thing.
The lead performances were exquisite, the tale it told of friendship, love and loss meaningful and moving. But for me, what felt most compelling, the aspect of the story that left me breathless and strange, was the keen, terrifying reminder of the banality of time.
Time, passing. Our inability to do anything to stop it. The inevitability of age, and grief, and the desperate, feeble, humanness of it all.
Author David Nicholls talks about the inspiration behind the book and series in a recent interview with the Times. ‘I’d recently turned 40 and become a parent and so was much obsessed with the passage of time,’ he says, of beginning the novel. ‘A father, a writer — neither of these things would have seemed plausible to my 20-year-old self and perhaps there was something in that journey from there to here, the people who change the course of it.’
Nicholls (a fantastic screenwriter as well as novelist) had been adapting a piece of work at the time, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, and been reminded of a passage in the book he had been obsessed with as a teen:
“She philosophically noted dates as they came past in the revolution of the year. Her own birthday, and every other day individualized by incidents in which she had taken some share. She suddenly thought, one afternoon, that there was another date, of greater importance than all those; that of her own death; a day which lay sly and unseen among all the other days of the year, giving no sign or sound when she annually passed over it; but not the less surely there. When was it?”
(emphasis mine)
Isn’t that thought chilling, and so utterly human? We have a birth day, and a death day, but we of course, have no idea when that death day is. An anniversary we will never celebrate, or commemorate, and yet will shape the narrative of our life…
What are the other anniversaries are there, lying in wait around the Gregorian calendar, of moments and events we do not know yet?
The show has turned me existential, y’all. I meant to be doing other things today, and all I can think about the horrendous, profound potential of EVERY DAY OF OUR LIVES!
I turn 33 this year inshallah, an age old enough to say things like ‘oh that happened over a decade ago,’ but young enough that you’re still not quite sure how things will ‘turn out’. In my twenties, 30 felt like this enormous watershed moment we were hurtling towards. It felt like the person you are at 30 is the person you will be forever, you are set on a fixed course and nothing could possibly change it. Of course, you get to 30, and you realise that (inshallah) there are decades stretching ahead, waiting to be filled. But with what? Drama? Loss? Joy? Love? Some of the choices we make now will take years, decades even, to play out, for better or for worse. How are we meant to make sense of it?
It feels like attempting to comprehend the size of the universe. My brain does not contain the capacity to imagine how the black drape in the sky continues to expand, and even less capacity to comprehend that one day, one day, it will all come to an end. Will I have regrets, I wonder? Will I look back from my non-earthly plane as I meet my maker and wish I had said something different, did something else, made other choices? Will I have wrung out every bit of juice from this brief and glorious ride? Is it arrogant of me to even want to do so, when so many around the world will never get the chance to even try?
‘You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read,’ so said James Baldwin. I am almost embarrassed to admit these reflections, ashamed of how earnest and naive they sound. There is a lot more going in the world than these ordinary penny drops on the fleeting nature of life. I’m not the first, I won’t be the last, and yet… the knowledge of its mundanity makes it feel no less urgent. This is, I suppose, part of the price of being human. Each and every one of us will have our own unique relationship to the passing of time, to the choices we make (or don’t). After all, we’re all doing life for the very first time.
I have no neat conclusion today, dear reader. I don’t think there is one to the condition of being human. But perhaps there is something to be said for the power of art - even a Netflix show - in moving us, making us feel, even when we are not expecting to. I have been known to wonder if the sentimentality of romance dramas are somehow cheap, or dishonest. I have known myself, while watching a film or show from the genre, to let my cynicism in, invite it to cuddle up with me on the sofa, listen to its whisperings, chuckle at its sly, cruel remarks. But occasionally, when my guard is down and my heart left ajar, something else slips in. Not for long, but long enough. Warmth in my belly, heat behind my eyes. An ache in the chest, a pang as I remember how short my time is on this planet. And I find myself changed. Perhaps not for long, but for long enough. Isn’t there such painful beauty in that?
1. Read: Giovanni’s Room
I’m currently reading the James Baldwin 1956 classic for a panel I’m doing in a couple of weeks, the Hay Festival February Book Club. It’s virtual, so you’re welcome to join us! Talk about a book exploring all the intense feels - a singular piece of art.
2. Watch: One Day
It would be a bit ludicrous if I didn’t recommend the show now, wouldn’t it? Available on Netflix now, the trailer below for your viewing pleasure. Also: my tiktok reaction video… enjoy ;)
3. Listen: Dreams by The Cranberries
Oh, my life
Is changing every day
In every possible way
And oh, my dreams
It's never quite as it seems
Never quite as it seems
A song that is currently on repeat. It features in the aforementioned show, but also poignantly in the last scene of the Northern Irish show, Derry Girls.
Bonus song: Until We Are All Free. Released this week and featuring a dear friend of mine, ‘Until We're All Free brings together over 20 artists in response to the ongoing crisis of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza. With a strong union of Palestinian, Arab, First Nations, and artists of colour, the song stands as a testament to the healing power of art that is deeply grounded in our shared realities. #CeasefireNow.’
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Thank you all so much for visiting this little corner of the internet. Until next week inshallah,
Yassmin
Lots to think about in your words but I offer this story: https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/an-account-of-the-land-of-witches/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
After being wrecked (in the best way) by reading it when it came out, I don't know that I can put myself through the show (my heart bruises a lot easier these days). But the urgency of living each day and telling people they matter, because it might be the last time I get a chance to do so is one of my drivers. Paradoxically, thinking about not knowing when I'll die gives me a strange sort of joy--the insignificance of life only makes it more precious. I think about this every time I see a butterfly--ephemeral but so beautiful and free and fully itself. And I think about Neil Gaiman's Death saying "you get the same as everyone: a lifetime." It's not morbid, though sometimes it fills me with pain and dread. But that certainty that it will happen, at the same time that we live not knowing when it will? And being conscious enough to think it and find joy regardless? Is one of the wonders and gifts of being human. Thank you for writing this piece and making me think!