I wake up early, make coffee, sit at my desk and make no money, simply because there's no immediate path to profit from this position, and thus no validation from the world outside my head as to how my time is spent.

I have a place to live, food to eat, access to healthcare should I need it, and death as the promise of relief from all hope, worry and toil drawing closer every day, my life rolled up behind me like a rug, unrolling before me like the same.

I enjoy myself, regardless, and feel the magic within, aware that none of this matters.

Life is how you spend your time, and despite my relative poverty and objective sloth I spend mine how I like, more or less.

Now it's true there could be more travel, sex and eating out, more sight-seeing and discretionary spending, more actions that turned into stories, but I do what I want within the limits I've allowed to be set, knowing full well how my appetites and inclinations could destroy me.

I tell myself this as I do nothing once again, artfully balanced between pseudo-Zen mastery and boundless despair, adrift in the worlds inside and out, having fun at my own expense, helping no one and wasting the years I have left.

There's nothing to say, and I keep saying it.

The secret - one of the secrets - is to establish yourself when young in such a field where knowledge, skill and experience compound over the years, along with your earning power, in order to amass enough capital (social, cultural, financial) that you don't fall behind, don't fall out of safety, don't feel realistically threatened by social exclusion, homelessness, hunger and so on. To become secure in all possible areas of being.

But the way I was born I just couldn't be bothered, with my one true talent being for sitting quietly, alone, doing nothing.

A young man made for sloth and decadence, growing into his role.

You didn’t do anything, so what did you expect?

I believe you can have a great life, a big life, with little money and no real achievements, but there must be joy and celebration, even and especially in the smallest of moments - in drinking water, breathing deep and clean, listening to music and stretching your legs, watching the sunlight and rain fall on trees and imagining everything behind that.

Geologic time and the fate of an ant, the speed of light and the vast emptiness of space.

There’s greatness in being alive.

Of all the things that could be learned, I chose none.

You will always have nicer things, more opportunities, more safety. More of everything good, less of everything bad. No panic when the bills come in, no worries at the checkout.

Steak tonight, why not? And the better wine.

This is how those with less see me.

A coming to terms with the realities of life, an honest accounting of my good fortune and poor decision-making. A further retreat into myself.

I sit on the terrace, the evening sun and a light breeze on my shaved head, listening to music, a can of beer open, another chilling in the freezer, while I am writing this and breathing in and out, knowing all is good.

Now of course, in myth and legend I'd be at the head of a conquering army, horse damp with sweat, sword slick with blood, or better yet driving a supercar along a stunning road, hot chick by my side, as we head to lunch and drink and drugs in a well-appointed hotel with a view of the bay, or just cut to the chase and I'm getting my dick sucked by three women while smoking a joint and rolling hard on foxy moxy, a fourth lady doing my admin, keeping my accounts in order, a fifth whispering in my ear "you will never die".

 

I sat quietly and thought the world would come to me, as it did in dreams.