Geoff Beattie writes about identity, self-inquiry, and the quiet work of becoming the author of your own lifeSharing my art, thoughts and ideas from my nomadic vanlife and backpacking journey through this thing we call life. Writing about identity, self-inquiry, and the quiet work of becoming the author of your own life.
Since early 2022, I’ve lived nomadically, spending winters backpacking in warmer climates and summers in the UK living in a self converted micro campervan. This slower way of moving through the world created the space for the questions that became my first book, Whose Life Are You Living?
Much of my writing has been shaped by the people I’ve met along the way, others who, in their own way, are arriving at the same questions about what we call a life, and choosing to live on their own terms byond what many consider a normal way of living. A life that feels more aligned with who they are, and not the one assigned to them by society.
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The Book
My first book – Whose Life Are You Living? is part book, part self-inquiry journal.
It’s an honest invitation to look at where you came from, the story running beneath the surface, and whether the life you’re living is actually yours.
It isn’t a self-improvement programme.
It’s the work that comes before that.
I didn’t think this journey would include becoming a writer.
The Unplanned Path
I didn’t expect any of this to lead to writing.
At school, I remember wanting to be a long-distance coach driver. That never happened.
I didn’t plan on being a chef, a cleaner, a barman, a warehouse worker, doing maintenance in a Buddhist monastery, decorating houses, working as a CNC operator in a stonemason’s yard, designing websites, working in cafés, fitting cavity wall and loft insulation, becoming a photographer, or even a landlord.
Those roles, along with many others, simply unfolded over time.
And now I find myself writing.
Didn’t see that one coming.
The Writing
I’ve always made notes.
Songs, bits of poetry, ideas, stories, most of it just for me.
Nothing polished, nothing planned.
There’s something about writing that lets certain thoughts unfold.
The kind that start small and quietly spiral into something else entirely.
The Questions
One minute it’s deciding whether to have another cigarette and a flat white before lunch.
The next it’s wondering how we got from that to questioning the nature of reality itself.
If the colour we see in the world only exists in our mind, which it does, then what are we actually looking at?
Is what we experience reality, or an interpretation of it?
Most of us have thoughts like this at some point.
We just don’t tend to stay with them.
Everyday Reality
Instead, we return to what feels familiar.
What’s on TV.
What someone said at work.
Celebrity gossip.
The weekend’s football.
As if that’s the more “real” layer of life.
But how real is any of it?
A Different Perspective
The material world, as we experience it, is not only colourless but silent.
What we call light is an electromagnetic wave, interpreted by the brain as colour.
What we call sound is vibration, translated into experience.
We don’t perceive the world as it is.
Only as our senses and brain allow us to.
Our perspective is limited, just enough to help us navigate and survive.
And that’s before we even begin to question what this thing we call consciousness is, the awareness that all of this appears within.
My writing and ideas aren’t about giving answers.
It’s about creating space to look.
If something resonates, explore it.
If it doesn’t, leave it.