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Molly Furey: It takes some amount of notions to admit to writing for a living

Our flagrant fear of being accused of notions is good at keeping us in check, but what are your 20s for?

These few years are uniquely placed for you to take risks, try things on for size, maybe even pursue a dream. Photograph: Dara Mac Donaill
These few years are uniquely placed for you to take risks, try things on for size, maybe even pursue a dream. Photograph: Dara Mac Donaill
Molly Furey
Wed Mar 20 2024 - 06:00

We have so many different ways of calling out notions. “Isn’t it well for them?” is observed with a nod of the head and raise of the eyebrow. With a scoff and a finger-wag aunts are wont to exclaim: “Tis far from it you were reared.” A personal favourite of mine was my mother’s confounding call out that “if you were a Mars bar you’d eat yourself”.

In essence, notions are a not-so-masked way of asking “who do you think you are?” when someone appears to do or be slightly different from what we expect of them. I enjoy this element of Irishness insofar as it manages to keep most people level-headed and at least somewhat self-aware. It makes it difficult for the worst of us to get too big for our boots and maintains a level of cop-on in the best of us that is, if nothing else, the makings of a cracking self-deprecating joke (for which the Irish are beloved around the world).

I am, of course, a prime notions candidate. I grew up in Dublin, went to Trinity College, have a lot of tote bags and in my past, I’m sorry to say, I have worn hats for non-functional purposes. In the interest of full transparency, I should also note that I enjoy almond milk cappuccinos and when I moved abroad I got a fringe. Quite frankly, I am about as notion-y as they come.

[ I went to visit my old school. Big mistake. At 25 I now feel ancient ]

Most recently, I have opted to “pursue a passion” which is, of course, the epitome of notions. When I admit to writing and making films for a living, I can see an Irish person’s eyes glimmer at the sight of prey. A smirk cracks across their lips and sweat gathers at their hairline as they wait, impatiently, for me to just shut up so they can put me in my place.

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“And when are you going to get a proper job?!” they burst out with at the first possible chance. There is a nudge of the elbow and a roll of the eyes before they inevitably wax lyrical about how there is a storyteller in all of us and sure, wouldn’t we all like to do that for a living? I must have some amount of notions about myself to actually give it a whirl.

I still have people asking me “would you not think of doing the HDip?” and many more reassuring me to not worry, all hope is not lost, the “the Big Four” are interested in hiring arts graduates as consultants! At a relative’s funeral, I had a stranger roll his eyes to withering effect as he disappointedly observed that I was “one of those who likes the intangibles”. He said his niece is the very same – as if we shared the same notion-based affliction.

These comments make me laugh but I would be lying if I said they did not chip away at my resolve. Notions, at their best, represent a great egalitarian ideal – but my god, at their worst, they are a dressed up way of dressing someone down if they do not fit our idea of what they are supposed to be.

Of course, giving people the benefit of the doubt, the question of “proper jobs” can come from a place of well-intended concern. But one cannot deny the familiarly diminishing, paternalistic tone of it all that squints hard at you and dares you to answer that all too accusatory question: “Who do you think you are?” And when you’re in your 20s, that is as confronting as it is mocking.

These few years are uniquely placed for you to take risks, try things on for size, maybe even pursue a dream. You are supposed to be figuring it all out, going through trial and error, making mistakes and seeing what sticks. Come to think of it, what are your 20s if not the time for having and taking notions?

I am not inviting my brother’s cowboy boots to dinner, but I am making a case for respecting the wild imagination and radical optimism it took for him to put them on

All of this is to say that our flagrant fear of being accused of “notions” is good at keeping us in check, but it can grate against the changeful, transitory nature of just growing up.

Let me be clear, I am not making a case for some lawlessly notion-ful world. My brother recently attempted to casually rock up to a family dinner in a pair of cowboy boots and I would never refuse anyone the opportunity to guffaw at him as we did at the sound of his click-clacking away to the bathroom. There is no world in which he should be let away with that and I am not advocating for one.

What I am wondering is if there are some notions worth having and taking in the name of self-discovery. This suggestion is, easily, the apex of my own notions but it is also the result of one too many people condescendingly asking me when I am getting a proper job. I am not inviting my brother’s cowboy boots to dinner, but I am making a case for respecting the wild imagination and radical optimism it took for him to put them on in the first place. Surely, that is what this decade is all about and, ridicule aside, is something to be admired.

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