I recognize that there is a thing called ‘normal’ behavior, which is sort of what is expected of people who grow up in a particular time and place. I’m pretty sure that the normal route for my generation and nationality lies somewhere on the scale of

1) go to school and don’t get in too much trouble

2) engage in some ‘wild’ behavior (but not too wild)

3) either get a job or go to school or learn a trade or join the military

4) have steady income

5) get in various stages of relationships culminating in children or pets

6) Buy a home

7) Retire and either get widowed or divorced and/or remarried

8) Die

And when I look at that list, I’m kind of like - “Okay, I’ve kind of done a lot of that stuff.” Somehow though, I seem to have done it all wrong. It’s a little hard to explain or understand, even for me. So, I’m writing this to see if I can get to the root of where I went wrong.

  1. I went to school. I was a great student. I won awards. I loved learning. My alcoholic and drug addicted parents and their failed relationships pulled me from one school to another. When I was 12 and trying to figure everything out, my older brother (five years older) who I worshipped kept call ing me a little faggot and telling me I was gay. I denied it and his answer was “Thou protesteth too much”. He and my mom both liked the sound of Shakespeare, I guess. It was a real asshole thing to say because I couldn’t say anything at that point. If I denied it I protested too much, if I didn’t then he was right. Anyway, I did my damndest to prove him wrong. I did all the things I didn’t really want to do - I played football, I wrestled, I got in fights, I started drinking and going to parties in 8th Grade where I quickly became known as the drunk boy. I sold drugs, I made friends with people who were bad, bad, bad. It all quickly became habit and it quickly became my persona. When I moved to a new school, I brought my baddie persona with me. And my drinking problem - which is never a good thing for a high school boy (or anyone else) to have.
  2. I engaged in a lot of bad behavior. I can’t blame it all on my brother and I don’t because this behavior was completely mine. My brother wasn’t even around anymore. I was trying to prove I was a baddie to everyone else at that point. I got arrested at the homecoming dance. I brought a gun to school (but I didn’t plan on shooting anyone with it and didn’t get caught with it either). I fucked up my grades. I got in a fight with a teacher in class and got suspended. I seriously fucked my future by the end of 12th grade. I didn’t even apply to go to college - which had always been my dream. I was waaaaay too wild.
  3. The only option that seemed viable was joining the military. I wanted to join the Air Force and become an astronaut or work on space missions - but instead my baddie self had to prove how tough I was by joining the Marines. I brought all my bad behavior with me. I got arrested on shore leave, I got arrested by the MPs on base, I got sent to alcohol rehab, I kept drinking, and somehow - I managed to get out after four years with an honorable discharge. They even offered me a bonus and a promotion if I would stay in - but my baddie self told them to fuck off instead.
  4. Somehow, I got in a whole bunch of really good careers after that. I worked in radio, I worked in the film industry, I became a stock broker, I was a house painter, I was a head bartender, I was a tour guide - but the restrictions of a career always chafed and I always pushed as hard as I could against my bosses until they either promoted me or I got so dissatisfied that I would leave. If they promoted me, I lost respect for them and would leave anyway. So, I never really had steady income. Instead, I made myself homeless just to prove I could do it and repeatedly moved across the country or across oceans to start all over every few years.
  5. Despite all of that - I had some beautiful and amazing women fall in love with me. Let me just say - I lacked the emotional maturity to be in committed relationships. They say when you start drinking heavily, your emotional level stays stuck at that level. So these awesome women were essentially dating a drunken 9th grader, not a man. Looking back, I did everything I could to ruin those relationships. Relationships are a two-way street and I wasn’t the only one responsible for the failures - but I’ll carry the majority of the responsibility in all of them. Eventually, I got married and became father to an amazing daughter. If anything, that was my wake up call. I stopped the boozing, the drugs, the self-destructive behavior (mostly but it wasn’t like an instant flip of the script.) I think we can say now, that I’ve progressed emotionally to an adult-mature level. My daughter is twelve so if we add that to where I was when I started the emotional retardation, it’s safe to say I’m emotionally an adult now. The marriage with her mother didn’t survive, but I’m proud of the way we ended it. We are friendly and committed co-parents. We put our child first. That was hard but essential.
  6. You know what’s really hard though? Damn near impossible? Buying a home in the USA when you aren’t wealthy or don’t have a steady long term income. There may have been opportunities for me if I just would have kept some of those jobs I left - but I didn’t. I missed low interest rates, I missed the Great Recession. Even with a guaranteed Veterans Administration loan, I haven’t been able to buy. Partly because I choose to live in Hawaii and be self-employed but mostly because my declared income is still too low. I feel like that’s next though - I’m going to buy a motherfucking house, one way or the other. Wheels are turning.
  7. Hard to retire when you don’t have a career. I am divorced however and I’m open to finding the love of my life because it would be idiotic not to be open to that. If she doesn’t show up though - I think I’ll still be okay, but probably bored.
  8. I don’t plan on dying anytime soon. I guess no one does. My plan is to last to at least 101 - so another 49 years ahead of me. I’m in the second half of my life and if they come up with some amazing new procedure during that period to extend life further - I’ll probably take it if it is offered. Although, if I reach 101 and I”m just bored as fuck, tired all the time, invalid, or lonely - then I reserve the right to say “nah, I’ll pass” unless they also offer some way to resolve those issues. I don’t even plan on conforming with dying.

Here’s a funny thing, I’ve put so much of myself down in books and online that it has occurred to me that a sufficiently large AI model could probably passably recreate my consciousness. I know we’re not there yet, but given time, I think we will be. That idea has been with me for as long as the internet has been around. I started uploading papers, documents, stories and more around 1995 and have never really stopped. If the entire internet is saved somewhere, I’m fairly complete on it.

That idea inevitably raised the idea in my head that if it could happen in the future and I’m thinking that - then maybe it already has happened in the future and that is why I am here and thinking this. Do you follow me? I mean, I see my hands typing this on a computer - but I just wrote about seeing my hands typing this on a computer and so in the future, I will see my hands typing this on a computer.

Here’s another odd thing - there are some places in my life that I don’t have particularly strong memories of. In fact, there are places that are almost blank. Now, the actual reason is probably because of all the drinking and drug abuse I used to do - but - if I take the time to explore and write about those times in my life, guess what happens? They resolve - just like when you walk on a computer game to the edge of the screen and the computer has to build the next section. My life is like that - so, it occurs to me that I might actually be a program and when I walk to the edges of my life, the large AI model of CD Damitio suddenly has to resolve and abracadabra - suddenly I can see that part of my life more clearly. I can remember names, faces, and places.

That’s probably more than most people want to think about. I’m just saying that even in this way, I’m not planning on conforming even to the point of death.

Maybe, I am a badass after all. So go suck it, Death!