I grew up in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, in a working-class environment where the expectations of life were, in many respects, relatively straightforward. You found work, made a living and got on with things. There was nothing inherently wrong with that outlook, but I had always found myself drawn towards questions that extended beyond the immediate circumstances of everyday life. I wanted to understand people, how they thought, what shaped their beliefs and whether the world we inherit is necessarily the world we have to accept.
I remember being on one of my first holidays with friends when, during an evening out, one of them remarked that I thought too much. He suggested I should relax and enjoy myself. It caught me off guard. I'd never really considered that my tendency to question things was so apparent to other people. Even in social settings, I was often more interested in conversations about theology, philosophy, life and the universe than in the usual pursuits of a night out. It was an early indication of something that would become a defining feature of my character: an instinct to look beyond the surface of things.
Writing had already become an outlet for that instinct. Long before university, I was filling notebooks and journals with observations, reflections and ideas, sometimes documenting experiences, sometimes exploring whatever happened to be occupying my mind. Influences such as Jim Morrison encouraged my interest in the relationship between creativity, individuality and philosophical thought. When I eventually went to university at 23, I considered studying journalism, but chose Philosophy and the Social Sciences instead. I was always more of a thinker than a journalist, although the observational discipline of journalism would later become another important part of my writing.
In the introduction to my poetry collection Introspective Soliloquies, published by Birutjatio Sahitya Sammiloni in Santiniketan, India, Matt Turpin, drawing on his experience with Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature, reflects on what he describes as Nottinghamshire's literary 'Unholy Trinity': Lord Byron, D.H. Lawrence and Alan Sillitoe. He identifies a rebellious quality connecting these writers, each challenging the conventions and expectations of their time. Turpin suggests that this spirit remains alive in contemporary Nottinghamshire writing, describing my own work as drawing upon influences spanning centuries and continents while remaining firmly rooted in the present.
I find that really interesting because rebellion has always seemed to me to be about more than opposing authority. In its earliest form, it can be an assertion of individuality: a refusal to accept that our upbringing, the expectations of others or the conventions of society should determine the boundaries of our thinking. But maybe there's a more complicated question beneath that initial impulse. If we define ourselves by what we resist, do we risk allowing the very things we oppose to determine who we become? And is the purpose of rebellion ultimately to stand apart, or to discover the freedom to become something beyond the expectations placed upon us?
That question brings me to one of the philosophers who has had a lasting influence on my thinking: Friedrich Nietzsche. In Beyond Good and Evil, he offers a warning that has stayed with me: “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.” I have always been captivated by the way Nietzsche challenges us to examine not only what we believe, but what our beliefs and actions might be turning us into. His warning can be applied to rebellion itself. When we spend our lives fighting against something, there is a danger that the struggle begins to shape our identity in ways we don't recognise. We can become so defined by what we oppose that we end up adopting a new set of rules, expectations and behaviours of our own.
I think there are stages to this process. Initially, rebellion can be a necessary response to the restrictions placed upon us. It allows us to question, resist and establish a sense of individuality. But over time, rebellion can become an identity in its own right. We begin to recognise the familiar image of the rebel: the attitudes, the language, the things they reject and the way they are expected to behave. What began as a refusal to conform can become another form of conformity. At some point, we might recognise that we are performing an identity rather than thinking independently. The challenge then is to question that identity too. This doesn't mean abandoning our principles or becoming indifferent to the world around us. It means keeping our wits about us, retaining the capacity to recognise when our thinking is being shaped by the very things we once set out to challenge.
The further we explore ourselves, the more opportunities we may find to understand one another and in that recognition, the distance between Mansfield and the universe may not be quite as great as it first appears.
Maybe the ultimate act of rebellion is to stop performing rebellion. For me, independence of thought is not about maintaining a fixed image of who we are, but remaining open enough to question ourselves as well as the world. The aim is not to spend a lifetime standing apart from everything, but to find a way of standing within the world without losing our individuality. Over time, I've become increasingly interested in what happens when that individual search for identity begins to open outwards. The experiences that challenge us can also make us more conscious of the experiences of others. Disappointment, loss, rejection and uncertainty are deeply personal, but they are also part of being human. They don't automatically make us more understanding, but reflection can help us recognise something of ourselves in other people. The instinct to resist can develop into a willingness to understand, and eventually to contribute.
One of the literary relationships that has helped me explore this question is the confluence between Lord Byron and Rabindranath Tagore. I brought their writing together in an essay for Gitanjali & Beyond, an international, peer-reviewed journal published by the Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies in Edinburgh, which explores Tagore's work, influence and wider literary and cultural legacy. I was interested in understanding something about myself through the apparent differences between them. Byron represents a powerful rebellious impulse, an individual challenging the conventions of his time. Tagore, while no stranger to questioning social and cultural restrictions, offers a more contemplative humanism, with an emphasis on connection, creativity and our shared existence. I don't see these outlooks as mutually exclusive. Maybe the challenge is to retain the courage to question while developing the capacity to understand.
The Persian poet and mystic Rumi offers another perspective. His image of a field beyond the divisions of rightdoing and wrongdoing has often been understood as an invitation to encounter one another beyond the boundaries of judgement. This isn't about overlooking injustice or abandoning moral responsibility. It is about recognising that the labels, beliefs and divisions through which we often understand the world need not be the limits of our relationships with one another. These ideas have become more than literary interests for me. My own experiences have taken me beyond Mansfield, including to Santiniketan in India, where my collection Introspective Soliloquies was published. I've also found unexpected connections through creative work. One of the most meaningful came when I was invited to Germany to recite We Are Made of Stardust, a poem of mine, at the funeral of Damo Suzuki, the Japanese-born musician and former frontman of the German experimental group Can. It was one of his favourite poems.
There was something significant in that experience. A poem that had emerged from my own reflections on our relationship with the universe had travelled across borders and cultures, becoming meaningful to someone whose life and creative journey had taken a very different path from mine. I was there, in another country, sharing those words with people gathered to remember him. It brought home to me how creativity can establish connections that geography, nationality and cultural background might otherwise seem to separate.
I don't regard this journey as having reached a final destination. I'm still learning about my place in the world, and how to reconcile the independence of the individual with our relationship to something much larger. But perhaps that is where the personal and universal meet: not in losing our individuality, but in recognising that our individual lives are connected to others, and to the world beyond ourselves. I began in Mansfield, with questions about the world I had inherited and the freedom to think differently. Those questions have taken me into literature, philosophy and conversations across cultures. The journey continues, but its direction has become clearer. The further we explore ourselves, the more opportunities we may find to understand one another. And in that recognition, the distance between Mansfield and the universe may not be quite as great as it first appears.