If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I’m a big fan of trains and have been since I was a kid. My dad was a railroad man for the Southern Pacific, as were his two brothers, my grandfather, and his father before him. So you might say that trains are in my blood. I remember my dad sometimes taking me to work with him and I would get to ride on the caboose while he did his shift. Of course this was back when trains still had cabooses, which they phased out in the early 80s. My dad really wanted me to go into the family business and he even set up an interview where basically all I had to do was sign some papers and I would have been in. But when I got to the interview, I couldn’t get out of my car. I could see the trajectory of the life that would mean and it just wasn’t the life I wanted. When I told my dad about it, he was furious with me, and understandably so. He took my response to mean that I thought I was too good for the life that was good enough for three generations of the men in our family. But it wasn’t that at all. It wasn’t that the life wasn’t good enough for me, it was that the life just wasn’t right for me. I wanted something different, not better, and he just couldn’t understand that at the time. All this to say, I still love trains and will occasionally even go out of my way to see one, but my love absolutely pales in comparison to someone I’ve been following on Instagram for the last couple of months.
Luke Nicolson, who goes by the name Francis Bourgeois is a 23-year-old British trainspotter, which is unusual enough in an age of digital everything, but what makes Francis unique is the amount of unbridled joy and enthusiasm he brings to seeing some of his favorite trains in person. When I first saw one of his videos I thought it was a gag—just some kid playing a character and mugging it up for the camera to get TikTok follows and Instagram likes. But after doing a little digging, it seems as if his love of trains is legit and, on the back of being mocked and bullied in school for his hobby, is ultimately what led him to adopt the name Francis Bourgeois as his trainspotting alter ego. But what started as a hobby has quickly grown into a brand, complete with a web series, a book deal, and partnerships with other brands like Gucci and guest appearances in his videos from Joe Jonas and Louis Theroux. Like I said before, I love trains, but I don’t love trains like this and in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever loved anything as much as Francis loves trains. Certainly not as an adult. He is, as Sean pointed out when I was talking to him about it, “unashamedly enthusiastic” and I find that not only endearing, but also inspiring.
Imagine how amazing would it be to be so present in the joy at seeing something or doing something you love that you can barely contain yourself. That’s Francis. I’ve watched him on several occasions run down a platform after a train giggling and howling with excitement. There’s a purity there that runs contrary to the overly guarded and often cynical world we find ourselves moving through. And he knows all too well what an easy potential target that makes him for ridicule, but the love he shows up with is greater than the risk of sharing how he shows up.
The last couple Iterations have been difficult for me to work through—and I’m grateful for that—because it’s meant coming to some pretty profound realizations about my own work. I think making some of those realizations will allow me to be more present in the work and will allow me to free up some of the processor cycles that often get used up just thinking about it and instead get back to really focusing on and being present in the creative process—the doing—which I honestly do love. I’ve allowed myself to get tangled up in the outcome of the work and to a certain extent navel gazing about what it all means and what an audience might think of it. But the truth is, what it means was never really the point. I get the value of knowing it, both for me and for a potential audience, but that was never what drove me. Not consciously at least. It was and is all about the process of solving problems—for me that’s on a panel or canvas—and letting the work inform me where it wants to go. In some ways it’s not unlike a street photographer or a jazz musician. In both cases, the artists put themselves in situations where they are allowed to use their skills and experiences to respond often unconsciously to a situation. In the case of the photographer, the situation is the scene or surroundings they’re in, while for the jazz musician it might be the other players on the stage or in the room. But in both cases, the artists are responding and allowing the art to move through them and manifest itself into something new and maybe something that they wouldn’t have been able to produce consciously.
I’ve been experimenting more creatively in the last few months than I have in the last few years and regardless of how the work turns out, the doing is where the joy is. Whether that means I’m in my studio with a brush in my hand, or I’m recording a conversation with someone whose life experiences differ from my own, the doing is where the joy has always been. Elizabeth Gilbert said, “Creativity asks you to enter realms with uncertain outcomes.” I couldn’t agree more. The challenge for me is to keep working through the uncertainty without losing myself in it and risk not being able to find my way back to the joy.
When I was a kid, I used to love playing with slot cars. My grandfather actually had a terrific 1:32 scale track that he passed down to me. David Beattie makes one of a kind slot car tracks that are like nothing you’ve ever seen. One in particular is a track built into the shell of a Porsche 917 Le Mans racing car and it’s just as awesome as it sounds. It’s even painted in the iconic blue and orange Gulf livery that Steve McQueen used in the film Le Mans.
This one hit me because the answer is “I don’t know”.
I recognize joy when I see it in others (Francis is an irrefutable example), and I think I know what joy felt like when I look back across time, transported by a photo or middle-aged memory. Although in the latter case, I wonder whether I was actually experiencing joy at that moment (given my penchant for existential unease, there’s a good chance I wasn’t, or at least not consciously aware of it), or whether nostalgia’s vantage just shows me that I was in its presence.
But these days I tend to walk around in a bubble of numbness, bumping up against a world that I know, logically, contains plentiful joy but which I only ever seem to experience as muted vibrations against the bubble’s membrane.
I’m not quite sure how I’m going to penetrate that membrane, but I think posts like these (and really, your podcasts in general) certainly serve as guideposts.
“The challenge for me is to keep working through the uncertainty without losing myself in it and risk not being able to find my way back to the joy.” This is the hardest part for me (also, not listening to the inner voices who have their own opinion about my creations).
Thank you for another great post. Really enjoyed this one (like the last ones too).