What is the nature of this life I’m living, of the things that I am, in one way or another, compelled do every day as this life I’m living gradually ticks away?
Is it all even real? Is it an incredible dream? Is it a nightmare?
I suppose that as you get older it begins to dawn on you that all of these things—the real, the dream, the nightmare—are one and the same. Life is just that way; then, it’s over.
I don’t know if this is the life that I want to be living or not. In order to make those kinds of determinations, you’ve got to have some data to work with, as a basis for comparison.
In other words, to know if you’re living the right life, you’d have to have lived a few others first. But you can’t. So it’s always the right life. Or it’s always the wrong one. It’s always far too real during working hours…and then, by the time it’s very, very early in the morning and you’re awake on your own, surrounded by nothing but the sounds of the soft breaths of children sleeping, it’s all imaginary, a figment of your own or some other entity’s imagination.
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I would never have chosen the life that I lead as a teenager. But looking back, I would never have let that teenager choose the life that I live.
Which one is right?
I am and was both of them, and yet even I can’t tell.
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So many vexing questions.
To switch profesions or to double-down on the one already at hand?
To move or to stay? And with what threshold criteria?
Am I fulfilled? What would lead me to become so?
Am I taking too many risks, or too few?
How much money is enough? What lifestyle is ultimately “the good life,” beyond which there are diminishing returns?
How will it all turn out? Am I investing in things that are destined to become valueless? Am I missing investing in things that could otherwise come to be of great value?
How is it possible to have no time to do anything, yet to get eveything done anyway?
What, in fact, is “everything?” How should this list look?
Every school of thought on every question is appealing in some way. That’s the crux of human life—it’s all too good, and too short, and then you die. No matter what your choices are, on all counts.