i’ve never considered myself to be particularly fortunate. when pressed, i might even volunteer my personal analysis that my history is a bit like christmas lights – each bulb representing some blazingly appalling event precipitated by a string of interrelated poor choices. you can’t call that bad luck, just poor planning.
that said: in light of recent events – among those attending grad school and generally flailing helplessly in the deep end of life’s pool – i’ve come to believe that i was in fact stupidly lucky. i was so lucky to not even know how unlucky one could be. i was naive enough to muse on the idyllic romanticism of relative poverty and the simplicity of subsistence living pre-industrialization, etc.
now sitting here with 10 dollars in my pocket i can speak frankly on the matter: it abjectly sucks. there’s nothing grand about growing up and i can’t believe i whittled away the indian days wishing for the independence of adulthood where every choice is an exercise in russian roulette: four outcomes that you might survive and one that’s certain to be more of a final solution for you.
while in the past, i used to be jealous of my future self and all the glorious freedom that was sure to be hers, now i fear my future self, and waste a great deal of time hoping time travel tech is never within her reach as i’m certain she’d travel back and kill me for inadvertently screwing over her prospects. i worry about that a lot actually. i’d like to call that a sign of healthy self-awareness; i’m sure it’s closer to paranoia.
and here i find a rock to moor my wandering thoughts: as grove notes, “only the paranoid survive.”
