Of course I’m utterly ordinary, leading an uneventful life in a quiet town in a European backwater, with nothing interesting to say, nothing interesting to do, just biding my time until there’s none left, almost none, when then I’ll look back at what I did and didn’t do, the hours spent unproductively, when none of it will matter.

Over time all that 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.