And I have used this day much as I have used all too many others, in lethargy, listlessly going about the business of no business. Pretending to do homework, only leaving the house to cash a cheque issued two years ago. Intending to go to buy groceries but wasting my time on the Internet and losing my opportunity. Failing to decide what to do and where to go for a birthday celebration mandated by my father (not an event I’d like to take place, but there’s no disputing it; for his orders are to be obeyed, his will to be carred out, always, even on my birthday, even as he protests this isn’t so, that he is reasonable and fair, and woe betide me in the morning when he returns from vacation and finds his quota of at least four friends of mine invited—no less!—hasn’t been met.) Chastising my family’s good-for-nothing dog, so desperate to follow me about everyplace lest I perchance offer her food (and taking that which I haven’t, cf. the dinner of egg omelette I made myself, in one of the rare instances when I bother to cook for myself or indeed exert any effort of any kind on any task—an omelette made, of course, of no fewer than four eggs, perhaps half a block of cheese and surely more oil than was required, and which will likely kill her before morning’s light.) Studiously making sure not to apply for any jobs, not to actually complete long-overdue assignments, not to do anything remotely indicative of a working ethical compass or a sense of responsibility or even a pulse.
Wasn’t there once a time when one was expected to be an adult at twenty years of age? To be mature, decent, competent? Sure, many of those about to turn 20 are as mired in lethargy and complacency as am I. Sure, many couldn’t find their ass with a map. But does that give me any more of an excuse to be so venal and stupid? Especially since so many monumentally misguided people have praised me to the skies since I was a wee lad for being precisely the opposite?
At risk of sounding fatuous and self-pitying, let me take stock of my situation. One is oft-encouraged to dream of great things. To set goals and achieve them. To believe that anything is possible. Surely some measure of optimism must be preferable to the glib and glum dimestore nihilism I’m feeling in this last hour of my nineteenth year. But what if one has no goals, no dreams, no zest for life? What if one abhors his past, fears his future, sees no meaning in life or reason to continue living bar the societal prohibition on suicide, and an unwillingness to sadden his relatives, and a recognition of his comparative safety and affluence relative to starving African children? That is, no reason to stay alive that has anything to do with the quality or meaning of his life itself? What then?
