It's easier for me to say to myself and others I never wanted anything, than admit I wasted my time and it's too late to start again, that this is how I chose, and choose, to live.

But really what I wanted was sloth, indulgence, unearned ease and privilege. To find a place in the world without worry or stress, and to live every day as if I were free.

To live like a poor man with money.

I had the kind of empty cleverness and superficial facility with words, a willingness to go beyond and surprise, sometimes delight, with my ability for self-abasement and self-absorption, but nothing of real intelligence.

In this I was like the vast majority of innumerate men who had hidden from the world in books and drink, occasionally sobering up and realizing what a mess I'd made of my life and what little time was left to turn it round.

But still, as was always true, and for everyone, I had the rest of my life to get better.

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 - more likely - that I've always 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.