Over time the promise faded, but not before it shamed you.

A youth spent living young dreams, and now the dreams of middle age. A safe home. A pension. Teeth and legs that work. A mind and life that haven't been wasted.

Outside, the seasons continue.

My life is falling apart, and so is my home, but inside I make the best of things.

When I first found out about Daoism / Zen I wanted that emptiness and clarity, the ability to live both in the moment and out of time, a feeling I chased forever after. And with the decades I succeeded, perhaps, in that I find great joy, great presence of mind, when I’m doing the dishes, or laundry, or some other mundane task.

Which is great, a real boon to mental health and all that, but not exactly a life of great note when seen from outside.

The guilt at having done nothing.

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.