I don't know anything, or how to do anything, and it terrifies me.

Looking at me now, you'd never believe I was among the smartest and most together of my mid-20s to mid-40s peer groups, and have only gotten smarter and more together since then.

Unless I've gotten too dumb to notice my decline, which is a real possibility, since the perception of the brain is limited by what the brain can perceive.

It's either that, or I hung out with some real dumb potatoes.

I have access to the same culture as the richest men in the world, and quite a lot of free time.

There's no reason beyond sloth and addiction for me to be so ignorant, to know almost nothing about the world I live in.

It must be indicative of my poverty, lack of ambition, or hunger, that all my dreams of wealth start with extravagant meals.

A beer, book, pen, paper, some music, and a view, a place to walk.

This is the setting for ecstasy.

The suicide of outwardly successful men makes me confident my life has not been a failure.

At my age I should have a more dramatic, striking face, with more sharp angles and interesting lines, instead of curves and folds that say nothing but the obvious - I got old.

And this surprises me, because I have the bones of something better, always have, the foundations of the kind of features that aren't soon forgotten, that look like I know what I'm doing.

When I was young I even looked forward to aging in this regard, certain I’d look carved of granite, not rubber and ham.

But then something happened along the way.

Because I thought I'd never win, I never tried.

Focus on the beauty, move beyond the pain.

How to weigh a life of poor decisions, often no decisions, along with sloth, in the absence of greater meaning beyond material success?

I go for a walk. I feel the sky above me, the spread of the Earth in all directions, the near eternity on either side of my small life, the sideways pull of bliss, the understanding that all of this is in me, that life is more than we can know, more than the base accounting of things.

And I am reborn, once again, outside of myself and my time, connected, once again, to the world as it is beyond Man.

There's no price on this, no profit, just the blank fact of the matter. The mystery of life, the universe observing itself.

It won’t last, of course, and is perhaps nothing but a distraction from the gravity of my situation, but as with all forms of intoxication I embrace it.

Today I have accepted life as it is. Beyond this is only theater.

That other place, where people are happy and carefree, isn’t real, at least not to me.

The old horror of ending up in a small town that people drive through without remark, and then it happens, but abroad, and after more than half a lifetime of things I can't explain, of no plans and no real direction beyond the moment, I embrace it.

Anonymity beats oblivion, the early death I escaped so many times on dangerous roads in poor conditions and bad choices made after midnight. I should not be here. I should not be anywhere.

I did not expect to make it much past 30, never mind 40, and here I am, hale and hearty in my 50s, so time to get ready for the rest of the show, to get stronger, healthier, better, to enjoy life more and look forward when not living now, in the moment, in the bloom of ecstasy as the flow of time moves through me and my head is open to joy.

This is what I’ve always lived for, those peak moments that give a sense of eternity, the secret of life.

All I ever wanted was ecstasy at all times.

The death that you experience – of loved ones, of yourself – is the same death you’ve heard about all your life.