Page 110 - The Midnight Library

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‘ e only way to learn is to live.’

And she went on in this manner for another twenty minutes,
remembering as much as possible of what Mrs Elm had told her, and then
she looked down at her hands, glowing white from the light of the lectern.
As she absorbed the sight of a raised, thin pink line of flesh, she knew the

scar was self-inflicted, and it put her off her flow. Or rather, put her into a
new one.
‘And . . . and the thing is . . . the thing is . . . what we consider to be the
most successful route for us to take, actually isn’t. Because too oen our view

of success is about some external bullshit idea of achievement – an Olympic
medal, the ideal husband, a good salar y. And we have all these met rics that
we tr y and reach. When really success isn’t something you measure, and life
isn’t a race you can win. It’s all . . . bollocks, actually . . .’

e audience definitely looked uncomfortable now. Clearly this was not
the speech they were expecting. She scanned the crowd and saw a single face
smiling up at her. It took a second, given the fact that he was smartly dressed
in a blue cotton shirt and with hair far shorter than it was in his Bedford life,

for her to realise it was Ravi. is Ravi looked friendly, but she couldn’t
shake the knowledge of the other Ravi, the one who had stormed out of the
newsagent’s, sulking about not being able to afford a magazine and blaming
her for it.

‘You see, I know that you were expecting my TED talk on the path to
success. But the truth is that success is a delusion. It’s all a delusion. I mean,
yes, there are things we can overcome. For instance, I am someone who gets
stage fright and yet, here I am, on a stage. Look at me . . . on a stage! And

someone told me recently, they told me that my problem isn’t actually stage
fright. My problem is life fright. And you know what? ey’re fucking right.
Because life is frightening, and it is frightening for a reason, and the reason
is that it doesn’t matter which branch of a life we get to live, we are always

the same rotten tree. I wanted to be many things in my life. All kinds of
things. But if your life is rotten, it will be rotten no matter what you do. e
damp rots the whole useless thing . . .’
Joe was desperately slicing his hand in the air around his neck, making a

‘cut it’ gesture.
‘Anyway, just be kind and . . . Just be kind. I have a feeling I am about to
go, so I would just like to say I love my brother Joe. I love you, brother, and I