I was a shallow young man who thought in terms of cool and uncool, good-looking and ugly, a general mess who brought more pain into the world than joy. Life was a very serious business, but I was already throwing it away.

I was entitled, thought the world owed me a life, or at least a living, and so was lazy, self-indulgent and self-satisfied, going near endlessly in, rarely looking out, simply playing with myself and not others. It was my life, and I was doing what I wanted, more or less, or at least not doing what I didn't want to do.

Doing nothing compounds.

Yet it's never too late to start over in this line of work. The important thing is just to keep healthy, sane and solvent.

You get this far through life and it's clear that others have done it, are doing it, and will continue to do it, so much better. Less alcohol, sure, and more money, by which I also mean more focus and effort and drive from even a young age.

Or more luck, of course, in all kinds of ways, but let’s not forgot the efforts of that kid in class with straight As, still acing the tests in middle age. Doing the work, getting things done, while we spend the days in stupor or sloth, tripping in and out of life, exploring other paths.

There's nothing to be done, nothing that could have been done, or will be done, to escape the reality tunnel I'm stuck in, except to change my mind and become another person.

The idea is to have fun, right? A good time, and to help others have a good time, too?

It's so simple, and yet I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.

The point of being very rich is to have whatever you want, whenever you want it. Products, services, and the obedience of others, as well as the minimization of all possible delays and annoyances.

There's another way to freedom, of course, which is to come at things from the other side of the equation, and reduce one's needs and desires, to exist orthogonal to the prevailing mood and find alternative paths to joy than gluttony and dominance.

But either way you meet death in the end.

My gamble was based on the observation everyone dies.

Self-obsessed and permanently distracted, I barely listen to myself, let alone pay attention to anyone or anything else.

I learn nothing and grow like a stone.

 

I understand that I am happy, joyful even, and that this feeling of a warm glow inside could not be improved upon without mania, something which no longer appeals at this age, preferring instead to surf along the edge of it, to bask in the glisten of madness rather than fall into the depths.

The weakness - beyond poverty and precariousness - is the lack of validation, the positive reflection of myself in others, the reassurance that I'm doing this right. And I wonder about the dizzy heights above me, too, think about those times it all came together, when I saw what those at the top see, and how entirely lost I was. How everything is carried in my body, how in the end there's always this world, my world, contained in the space between my ears and down to my feet, and how it'll all end when I do, like it does for everyone.