Take Me to the Beach

Sandcastles and capitalism

Sand. It gets everywhere. The grit, the grain. That tiny grain under a fingernail, that singular fleck between your teeth as you chomp the stale crisps from the holiday cool-box. Why is it that sometime after a trip, you find a speck in a place you least expect? Months later, it can be found in your fingers as you plunge your hand between sofa cushions to dig up the remote. One touch of the stuff and you are transported back to seaside memories: family time, sunburn, ice-cream. On finding the grains, a spin cycle of emotions hits you, tumbling between nostalgia, joy, glee, sadness and perhaps the colour catcher distilling them all: irritation. You now need to wash and hoover the sofa cushions because someone selfish didn’t remove their socks after that long beach walk. This week, as I emptied my suitcase and found a few grains of sand, I was left with bigger reflections. 

Last week I built a sandcastle on a beach in Ireland. I also embraced my first full week of total unemployment, a life of travel, opportunity and creativity (also known as freelance existentialism). I knew it was coming, the moment the fear and excitement in my recent decision to quit my job in lieu of writing would make real sense. The last place I thought the decision would crystallise would be performing a trivial child-like pursuit. The sandcastle I built wasn’t just any sandcastle, it was a sophisticated operation: a three-person building team, a foundation bespoke with tidal moat, three turrets; a spiral staircase atop the middle one (yes, I’m not joking) and a sea-water irrigation system to rival the Suez Canal. We’re talking dams, waterfalls, bridges. No tiny, eroded stone left unturned.

I volunteered into castle-building. A solo traveller on an all-couples, all-family holiday (this, a definite contributing factor to freelance existentialism) I saw an opportunity to assign myself a role and excel in it. As an onlooker to a child in our beach troop attempting to fill their moat (and failing), I began to get frustrated. I witnessed his naive disappointment each time the water was absorbed into the sand quicker than he could sprint to the sea and back with a bucket filled to the brim and the hope the next load would be the one to successfully flood the moat. Self-appointed seaside philanthropist, I helped him move the starting structure closer to the ocean to allow for wet-sand cement foundations and a tidal-water supply. I supported him whole-heartedly in the start of this venture and rolled up my sleeves to get involved.

I did not act alone. Another volunteer, a dad in the group who grew up by the seaside, felt his expertise could support this young professional in his new project. I brought morale, he brought technical skills. We took to our spades as the excitement of this new, shiny project lured us in. We wanted to help those in need (in this case a stressed seven-year-old, out of breath and armed with only one small bucket and a watering can). We saw opportunity; a chance to change the sand-based world and we set to work. 

Like any good project, we discussed our strategy before digging and building. Dividing and conquering, we were all small cogs turning a sandcastle machine. Showcasing to this seven-year-old our well-oiled ways, we nurtured him, lowering the drawbridges for his castle-based career path and helped him carve out his vision for this structure.

After he acquired the relevant knowledge, he began his delegation. We were happy to have our to-do-lists prioritised, our focuses narrowed. What is it in our anatomy which enlists us to enjoy this kind of instruction? Is it the sense of belonging? Or is it the fear of figuring things out alone? In these early stages, we received his plaudits for our work; it motivated us. Why do we need to be validated by praise? Achievement is a construct we create ourselves; society has tapped into our neuroses of validation and our desire for the feeling of completion.

Following the foundation build, the power got to the boy’s head. The more the castle was constructed, the more our diminutive dictator wanted. He set the direction, we followed. His excitement for the castle’s developments became more outlandish, bigger, better, more ground-breaking. Literally. His work diminished as ours increased. He jumped up and down, excited by the future and his vision for this grain-based world. Somehow, weeks on from leaving corporate life, castles were imitating reality. I was completing futile tasks fuelling another capitalist icon. (My previous dictator is sixty, but their inner child still hopes to become an astronaut and go to the moon one day so same-same but different). Why do we do it? For the glory of a power-hungry person who wants to tell the world they built something? For the praise we receive from them? Or to give us something to fill our time and repeat over and over like the waves lap the shore?

I do not hugely engage myself in politics. Don’t worry, I do exercise my right to vote. I read the manifestos come election time and choose wisely, however politics in general is not my thing. The most engaged I have been with Rishi Sunak is when he went viral wearing Sambas. My core opinion of Kier Starmer from the recent press is that he looks like a terrible kisser (very sloppy looking, poor Victoria). This said, I have never empathised more with the challenging political landscape than when building this sandcastle of significance.

Our seven-year-old Sea-E-O demanded additional features: waterfalls, bridges, meandering outlets for the moat. He ordained a higher, taller, grander main structure. We constructed a requested tourist attraction of a waterfall and an accompanying stick bridge but ended up neglecting the central castle. Our foundations were left victim to the waves; walls crumbling in a state of despair. With limited resources, competing against an incoming tide and balancing multiple elements at once, something had to give. Things crumbled with our competing priorities. Soon most of our time was spent scrambling to fix. The more sophisticated our structure became, the more opportunities there were for new areas of development. With each revision, things declined in tandem. It was carnage. We needed more staff. There was too much for us to handle alone and we didn’t have the bandwidth. We forgot the basics and were left in repair mode.

We missed out on the picnic happening on the rug twenty yards from where we were building. Exhausted, we wanted nothing more than to put our feet up and rest. We were promised a break but only after we fixed the front wall, improved the turrets and added another section to the moat. The goalposts moved constantly. Us volunteers, feeling overworked and under-rewarded bonded through eye rolls, raised eyebrows and shrugs as our tidal tyrant continued to shout commands. We found ways to coast (testing the solidity of our water irrigation system by pouring in buckets of water) but also experienced small surges of motivation when promised a pizza party on the other side of dam and wall repairs. The sun had finally come out, but we didn’t have a moment to appreciate it sinking into the horizon. We were hyper-focused on our goals.

Our seven-year-old dictator saw so much scope for this structure to keep developing. There was always more that could be done. A sandcastle can always be better. I still have items on my work to-do list but I left the company two weeks ago now (looks like those probably are never going to get done, sorry ex-boss if you’re reading this).

When we finished the pièce de résistance, a three-tier turret formation, we were asked to add a spiral staircase (something, I didn’t know I had the architectural prowess for but am still quite proud of today). Then, we were granted rest. We had done nothing but campaign for respite and yet, when the time came, we suddenly felt aimless, purposeless. We felt proud. We worried about the future state of our castle. We wondered what the point of it all had been.

It’s fair to say that without some of this faux purpose right now, I too feel a little lost. I have given up eight years of castle corporations. I am enjoying being on this beach, but I can’t help but see or think about potential building around me. Why is it we busy ourselves with endless, ultimately pointless tasks? I have found meaning in my jobs, but the recent sandcastle made me think: was I building to appease the dictators? Or to appease myself? Why did I bother? Why toil so hard, when the waves will wash it all away at the end of the day?

A sandcastle may appear a child-like venture but a small feat it is not. It takes hard work, strategy, teamwork, resilience. Building can be a joyous pursuit. We can find creativity within productivity. Collaboration is fun. Sometimes, we need someone to instil us with belief to help us realise our skills. Like my spiral staircase, we might step back and reflect on the ways we surprised ourselves. However, we can’t see the horizon when we’re building. We get sucked in; we compete against the turning tide of purpose in our lives. We strive, we dig deep, we grind with grit, and go against the grain.

I have enjoyed building life’s castles. I have learnt things about myself and others. The structures gave me purpose and security but at the end of the day, we all turn to grains of sand on Earth’s beach. So, while I may come back to my architectural roots in time, for now, I am very glad I’ve decided to put down my spade, sit down, look up and enjoy the view of my changing tide.