Success

Curmudgeon

Would I consider myself successful? It depends, like most things. Conventionally speaking it's probably fair to call myself hopeless. There's no golden wrist wratches, no Teslas, no comfy six figure jobs. None of that. I wear cheap clothes, eat a lot of beans and cut my own hair, badly. By all accounts I stink, both physically and metaphysically. One of those guys who gets burglarized, but the robber ends up leaving an apology note in my fridge, with some money. There's nothing worth bragging about here, just ask my family. Actually, if you started interviewing all the people I ran into over the years, most of them would call me an insufferable asshole. And they would be right.

On the other hand, I've been incredibly lucky. I've got my health, more or less, and a roof over my head. Even the beans aren't that bad, compared to eating nothing at all. I imagine there's a shanty town somewhere, with a guy standing besides a stream of open sewage, wearing a ragged motto t-shirt that says "HIV positive". He would literally muder to trade places, yet here I am. Complaining about beans and his unlimited access to drinkable water. Ironically enough, he's still smiling when many of us are not. Funny how that goes.

The Carrot and the Stick

The older I get the less I understand. You think you do, but sooner or later reality body checks you against the wall and that's that. You didn't understand as much as you thought you did. That's a bit how I feel like looking at the Patrick Bateman adjacents power walking to the dry cleaner. You know, with that "I'm better than you" smirk on their face. I feel pitty, because eventually all of that will fall apart. Could take a lifetime, but nothing lasts forever. Yet here he is, leaving a trail of high octane gasoline, waiting for life to strike a match.

I'd say terms of accomplishments my biggest wins were the things I didn't end up doing. At one point I wanted to be a soldier, but I failed. Stuff like that is a blessing in disguise, even if doesn't look like it at the time. You might have dodged a bullet, kind of literally. I remember for that matter running into some old comrade of mine, telling me about so and so died in Afghanistan. Back at home I broke down and started crying like Robert De Niro in Analyze this. I just couldn't stop crying. It didn't even make sense. Either way, one of the many indicators that not succeeding was ultimately a good thing.

If I was a chameleon I've never been good at picking up colors. If everybody goes blue, I stay green. When I go green, they go red. Then there's the guys who pick up colors a little too well. Compare it to the broken window theory and the type of folks who don't feel bad about destroying an environment that's already broken. Only sometimes it's about breaking souls rather than planes of glass. So what does "making it" say about you, when you are thriving in a spiritual cesspit? Supposedly all the little devils are proud of hell and John Milton's Satan might argue it's better to rule than to serve. Maybe. But at what cost?

Bad Omens

Not going to lie, I'm a little afraid of success. Overall happiness seems foreboding. When I was dating my first "girlfriend" it all seemed so sweet. At the same time I could never stop thinking about how the relationship was ultimately doomed, like all relationships it seemed. Prolly a side-effect of growing up with divorced parents. Anyhow, happiness never felt quite right to me. Doesn't mean I enjoy being unhappy, it's more about me getting suspicious when things are going a little too well. Success and failure? Two sides of the same coin. Besides, having nice things breeds jealousy and sooner or later you get entangled playing the game.

I think true happiness is finding value in the simple things. Not in terms of attaining whatever is promised to make you happy, but being happy with whatever you actually got. Without clinging to it. It's a dance rather than a race. At least that's what I tell myself while eating my beans.