Now
What I’m currently doing, feeling, and thinking about…
So, I turned 40 this summer.
I went on a solo road trip and contemplated my life in this day and age, and it’s been… weird. I’ve been single for most of my adult life—something that I know many out there don’t understand or even agree with—yet has felt perfectly comfortable to me along the way. I’ve arrived at this age quite content with my own day to day existence, despite the larger state of the world. Call it selfishness, or privilege perhaps; I’m happy and I’ve tried to make those around me happy as well. I still believe that’s about as good as most of us can conceivably manage.
However, for some reason I also dug out and went through my high school yearbooks, and honestly have been struggling with something of an identity crisis.
Flipping through these archival pages of decades ago, I was abruptly faced with an alternate existence of ideologies, hopes and dreams shared with people I had been very close to during a critical junction of our lives. In hindsight now, it is as if I’ve undergone a dozen transformations since then, each promising or rejecting ideas in their own subtle ways, morphing in response to shifting tides of thoughts and experiences so minute that they never felt all that critical in the moment, but have nonetheless had incredible, measurable impact.
I was faced with a myriad relationships: a dozen crushes, a handful of ex-girlfriends, acquaintances and lukewarm friendships—a few that would occasionally shift into unexpected adventures in the following years, granting brand new insights, choices, and ideas along the way. Most were nostalgic to reminisce about, viewed as entertainment from a bygone era.
Yet the worst and most haunting ideas I’ve faced were those few but critical missed opportunities. A nineteen-year-old can hardly be blamed for falling out of contact with people in the excitement of post-high-school growth, but I can’t help but wonder about what could have been:
- a crystal-clear memory of meeting an amazing girl I’d befriend but inevitably lose contact with
- an innately close connection that chose a friend over me, and I was never able to get over
- a skilled and intriguing creative collaborator with just a few too many distractions between us
All of these, and many more, haunt me despite similar experiences playing out over the years that felt conclusive or distinctly dead-ended. I truly think this is the cruel reality of aging: there are no number of experiences that can satisfy the ultimate question of “what if”. It is the inevitable inability of living life to answer every question, endure every relationship, walk down every road, that causes us to suffer. But then again, what is life if not some form of suffering?
Anyway. Here are things I’m doing lately between bouts of existential dread.
- Running a campaign of The World Below online
- Perfecting my Spanish in case it makes sense to flee southward…
- Comparing my next car choices for road trips, capable of bringing a trail motorcycle along
- Relearning Erlang with some Minsky-inspired project ideas from years ago
Updated August 16, 2025.