The Nick Evans Guide to Life - Being Born

They say there are only 3 things that are certain in life. Birth, taxes and death. I have dealt with the subject of death. Taxes are something I have as much interest in as Simon Cowell does to low hanging trousers, so that just leaves the subject of birth. here is The Nick Evans guide to Birth.

I can't remember being born. I know I was because I'm sat here in my pants writing this but my memory didn't kick in until I was 4. It is impossible to remember being born, your brain isn't fully formed yet - besides there's a whole lot of umbilical chord and other stuff going on. Everyone else remembers your birth of course. I mean your mother spent hours in absolute torture trying to push you out so that would stick on the memory a little.

Birth is an odd thing. Some people are planned, some are accidents. Some have easy births, others torrid difficult affairs. We are all delivered onto this planet as tiny little people. Screaming, bawling bundles of baby. Empty vessels with everything in front of us. So many possibilities, hopes and aspirations. So many experiences and adventures. And then we grow older and become IT Consultants and wonder where it all went wrong.

Some people claim we are merely passing through lives. That we live this physical life but really it is a series of spiritual ones we live. Some people claim that's bullshit and that this life is the only one we've got.

Me? I'm not so sure. I'm on board with the spiritual concept. I do believe there is after life and there has to be more than just here and now. I reckon it's a tad conceited, ignorant and arrogant to claim otherwise. If this is all we have what kind of evolution are we? If the best we can do is Argos, Cheese stuffed Pizzas and Sky + then I reckon we're doomed forever. I have to believe there is more to life than just this. Having said that eating cheese stuffed pizzas infront of Sky + is wicked and Argos does sell everything you need, it just takes 4 days for it to get to the counter.

And what of pre-lives. Pre birth? Again I don't know on that one but it's always spooky getting De Ja Vu, or the feeling you have been here before. Personally I believe I was a dog in my previous life. I think like a dog, act like a dog and if I could reach would spend all day licking my balls. It's a no brainer on that score. I was a dog.

Having said that I don't go in for all that birth affects the way you are as a person bollocks. Whether it be a water, hospital or home birth I'm not so sure it has any impact on how you are shaped.

I do believe the 1st few days or months as a baby have a bearing on you as a person? Many scientific studies suggest it does. How you are nurtured, fed, showed the way can have a massive impact on your psyche. You may not be aware of this, it maybe subconscious but I think it does have an impact.

Take me for example. I was the youngest of 3 boys. My Mother was desperate for a daughter. In those days you weren't told the sex so when I popped out in a Nursing home in Llanelli in 1972, she was immediately disappointed to see she's had another boy. My Mum is too lovely and loving to be disappointed. She was delighted and of course full of love for her child. However she desperately wanted a girl so she effectively pretended I was a girl for 2 days. Dressing me up in pink and talking to me like I was a little girl.

Finally she pulled herself together and started treating me as a boy, but for 48 hours I was in fact a girl. Obviously with boys paraphernalia, however I was dressed as a girl which technically rendered me a tranny for the 1st two days of my life.

So did being treated as a girl for 2 days have a lasting effect? Well I consider myself to be an old school bloke who happens to look like a modern metro sexual queer. I look pretty camp but underneath I'm an old school sexist misogynist (all guys are when it boils down to it) - Don't get me wrong I'm well up for equality of the sexes and all that but ultimately when it boils down to it. Blokes should drive their woman, open doors, carry the bags, sort out the rubbish, put up shelves and talk bollocks with other blokes most of the time. It's in our DNA)

Having said all that I'm quite partial to a romantic comedy, have been known to cry at the occasional Meg Ryan film and really like chicken drumettes. Sometimes I love nothing better than a long hot soak and I'm ultra dramatic and hyper sensitive. In mitigation I'm shit hot at reverse parking and I can generally catch something thrown to me.

I'm not sure if it did have an effect. I am very sensitive to a woman's needs and have spent many years being considered that dreadful term 'ladies man', which is basically another term for a low self esteem knob head insecure little boy who needs the validity of lots of women in order to make himself feel better and boost his male ego. I should know because I did it for many years. Not now though people. #NewMan.

So does it actually shape us being born? Are we born as we are or do we learn certain behaviours? Nature or nurture?

Some people claim they were born into the wrong family and didn't feel they belonged. Some people believe they were born in the wrong era. Some people were abandoned when born or endured a horrible childhood. Some were loved and some were not. Does any of this mean anything?

Clearly it must have an impact, however I'm not one to lay that blame game entirely at the door of birth and childhood. I believe we are born with certain personality traits or defects just as we are born with certain colour eyes. It is all genetically and spiritually mapped out how we are born. The rest just helps to shape you no matter what environment or situation.

Clearly if you are nurtured, encouraged, loved and taught it will have an enormous baring on your future direction and human code but it's not the be all and end all. Some people are born with terrible physical or mental disabilities. Some with genetic imbalances, addictions or other traits we did not ask for or know about. It is harsh and unfair. Why are some luckier than others? Why why why is the eternal question there simply no answer for and I believe the real pain is not being able to accept this. That is where the conflict comes. The internal angst. The deep unhappiness. Non acceptance for what and who we are.

I for one hated myself when I was a kid. All my family were Welsh and as I far as I was concerned spoke like a combination of Richard Burton and Ruth Maddock. I on the other hand spoke like a combination of a bloke who worked in Burton's who ate Haddock. I was home counties see.

My parents moved from Wales to Maidenhead when I was 9 months old. I never had a chance to develop that Celtic lilt that all the Chic's love. Instead I had an accent I hated, it sounded to me like I was in some kind of low grade Sit com like Terry and June. I was gutted. I wanted to sound like a poet, a scholar, an actor. When I visited family in Wales they thought I was English and when I went to school in England I wanted to be Welsh. I couldn't win. Even now when I go home to Wales distant family members ask me if I support England or Wales. I'm fucking Welsh. My roots, my soul, my family, my DNA is forged in Wales and I am welsh. I love mobility scooters and high fat sugary foods and girls in leopard print leggings who hang round Asda. How more Welsh could I be?

I held onto that resentment for years, well into my 20's without even knowing it. All spurned from birth and events I had absolutely no control over. So my point is birth does have an affect on you, but it's my responsibility as an adult to do something about it. Only recently have I learned or am beginning to learn who I am. That is where the peace comes from.

I hear people play the blame game for years and it's fucking annoying. I did it. Yes some have had it awful and hard and of course deserve empathy and sympathy but there comes a point when you have to draw a line and accept, recognise and use it in a positive fashion. I was angry for years because I simply couldn't accept myself or who I was. I never even knew who I was, still don't most of the time. But I'm beginning to get a better handle and fuck me, it makes life so much easier.

We are born with a set of cards that is up to us to play. You may believe in a higher power or not. My role is to try and play my best hand as often as possible. It's effectively a massive game of Life Top Trumps.

When you're born your given your hand. You have your trumps. A certain size, looks, hair and physical traits your genetics determine, You will have a mental capacity and personality that is pretty much determined. Of course learned behaviours, education, training etc will shape these but you've pretty much got your deck of Top Trumps already. They change throughout your life but For instance my top trump when I was a kid was height and humour. I scored highly on those so I got in the sports teams and was generally well liked. Ego was fed, security & status gained and I felt OK.

However I scored low on self esteem and man tits. These were very low affecting my inner confidence and ego. Those took a pummelling when I was young. I could do well in life until my Trump of man tits was played, usually in P.E and down my mental state went in a spiral of embarrassment and ego deflation. No amount of high trumps on other areas could win. I was doomed.

Point is they were the trumps given when you were born. I love how they change over time but these are the 1st trumps your given. It's up to us to change them over time. I'm glad to report my Man tit trump is gone. 

Then of course there are the people who are 'reborn'. To most people they are viewed suspiciously. Born again Christians have a bad press, usually because the people who are Born again Christians are ultra scary. If they were like David Beckham for instance or Beyoncé, well then Born Again Christians wouldn't have such a bad image - but they are usually the kind of people who rarely blink and wear alternative knitwear. Ones to avoid.

That is not to say we cannot be reborn. I'm actually onside with that whole concept. We can go from one thing to another. We can radically change, alter our lives and be 'reborn'. Either through religion, changing lifestyle, losing weight, altering an attitude, finding love, stopping drinking or other means.

It's just most don't preach endlessly about it, raise their hands to the sky with their eyes closed and be massively annoying. having said that reformed smokers who have been reborn can go and fuck themselves when preaching how bad it is for you. Though I do look forward to joining you in the future. #Hypocrite.

I'm not a parent so I cannot write about birth from giving it perspective or instigating it, though I've had a few near misses, but I'm told it's painful and amazing in the same degree. I guess when you are a parent it totally changes your view of the whole thing. Many say child birth is a miracle and I guess in most cases it is. Just in my opinion there's far too much of it.

I'm not too sure it's a miracle when 12 little child birth miracles come out of the same family.. Is that really a miracle. isn't there enough people on this planet anyway without bringing even more unwanted ones into the world? Another little child support miracle.

Some little fuckers don't have a chance. Born into problems and end up becoming one. No fault of their own, just a mix of genetics, circumstance and society. Anyway I digress, this is not a social commentary or a political rant. There are better qualified than me to tackle that subject. All I will say is that for me birth is to be cherished, wanted or loved, not to knock out another little miracle to add to the collection and be named after a Jeremy Kyle programme. (Lazy of me to lapse into stereo types there but you get my drift.)

On the whole I'm well pleased I was born. I like my life. I quite like me in most parts. Some days I have dark times but on the whole I'm pretty fortunate not to have terrible problems physically or mentally. I'm certainly fortunate not to have been born with them. Sure I was born with the alcoholic Gene but there is help for that. Of course at certain times when I was an annoying horrible teenager I would strop and say 'I wish I was never born'. The trick is not to carry that into adult hood. Nobody likes to see grown adults throw a strop in Waitrose. It looks ugly. Aldi is fine though. Almost expected.

If I was never born I would have missed out on so much. Chesney Hawks, Argos, McFlurry's, Cheese on Toast, Rubics Cube, the new Daft Punk album and 3 way sex to name but a few.

Thank god I was born. Thanks Mum for giving me life. Just why did you have to dress me up as a girl and address me as 'Nicola' for 2 days. Now I've got the urge to listen to Shania Twain and I must go, my bath is running and I've just lit my lavender and peach soaked candles. Still I'm so pleased those first 48 hours never effected me. Now how do you spell Laboutin?......

The Nick Evans