Michael Smoak

This was emergent.

This was me failing forward, falling forward.

Someone once described adulthood as like being pushed down a set of stairs at age 18 and trying to catch your feet until you die.

And it does feel a little bit like that.

I'm like performing adulthood, performing competence, whatever it is.

But no, it absolutely wasn't the plan.

I didn't have any plan at all, but I really enjoyed the process of

following my passions, which I'd suppressed for a long time.

So I did two degrees at university.

I did a bachelor's in business management, then a master's in international marketing, and I did a year in industry.

So I was at university for five years, left at 23.

And I remember when I completed my master's dissertation, I finished it.

I started and finished it in 36 hours.

I'd been given the entire summer to write it, and technically the entire year to write it,

And I've started and finished it in 36 hours.

And I did it on a case of Red Bull and three bags of very, very questionable cocaine from my local dealer.

And I was so wired and just screwy by the end of it.

My housemate had had a party downstairs and I kept going downstairs to do a line to then come back upstairs.

I was like watching the party slowly degenerate as I was finishing my dissertation.

I was completely sober.