i just have a lot of feelings about liam

Monday, December 3, 2012

i just have a lot of feelings about liam

The thing that gets me the most about Liam is not just his drive and determination, but how he’s managed to keep the relentlessly sunny optimism about hard work paying off. Despite growing up being acutely aware of his own health complications, being bullied, barely missing out on a spot of the England schools team for running, being cut from the X Factor four separate times and spending two years performing gigs that went nowhere, he has still kept up the belief that if he just tries hard enough, good things will come. At every turn, his response was just that he wasn’t working hard enough, that he needed to put in more effort. It’s a view that is fittingly earnest and lacks cynicism, and from anyone else would seem horribly naive.

But you know what? He’s somehow made it work, forced it to work. He took precautions with his health, actively took up boxing to be able to defend himself, woke himself up early in the morning to train, took up vocal lessons, taught himself how to play the piano and guitar, learned as much about music as he could, jumped at every opportunity to perform and took a second swing at the X Factor. And, well, at some point he got to be in a band with his four best mates, traveled the world, recorded hit albums that broke all kinds of records, performed in front of sold out crowds, and, hell, even his damn kidney fixed itself. And I’m just so glad that everything worked out and he’s got everything he wanted, if only so that his genuine optimism towards the world can stick around.

It’s like Liam is Charlie Brown and the world is Lucy holding the football, except eventually the world stopped pulling the football back and that football is still flying through the air, currently over Madison Square Garden.