The smart kids from good homes – by which I mean, almost entirely, homes that understood career paths, the importance of money and good habits – focused on better goals early, and worked to achieve them.

Instead I kept my eyes on the prize, an orgasm while stoned immaculate or a cold beer on a hot day in a beautiful place with nothing but time and a book in my hands.

I wanted to go straight to the point of it all, to lose nothing, gain the world and so on.

In this I may have been mistaken, although of course by now some of those smart kids will have died, some perhaps even by their own hand.

In such cases I guess I win, by default.