Reflections on failure and being a pathologically lazy millennial
I thought I took enough psychedelics in my twenties to kill my ego, but I've been mortally wounded by a relatively minor setback.
I failed at something I tried really hard to not fail at recently. By trying really hard—I mean I spent 45 minutes a week studying. I recently started up my YouTube channel again and was entranced by all the shiny new comments and followers. I spent 10 hours a day researching my current hyper-fixations and the rest of my waking hours scrolling on twitter and working on YouTube content.
Despite dropping out of middle school, I’ve always been an avid reader and had strong political opinions. I went vegetarian when I was 8, weirdly identified as a libertarian by age 13, and by 15 I was volunteering with my local Food not Bombs. I’ve always had a burning curiosity to find out what is really true about the nature of reality, why people are the way they are, and what is the best way to organize society to maximize well-being.
Nevertheless, I was surprised at how much this recent failure affected me. I felt profoundly sad. I went from totally fine to ready to throw my life away over this setback. It was a medical editing test that I needed to pass to get hired at an agency. I took a little class on the topic and was the top student, so I felt fairly confident in my abilities. I’ve been clean from fentanyl/crack for 7 months, lost 30lbs, and was ready for something good to happen. I was ready to be good enough for a job that doesn’t involve taking my clothes off or making lattes (no shade to those career paths, I’ve met many brilliant people in those industries who are all capable of much greater things).
I thought I had taken enough psychedelics in my twenties that my ego was mostly dead by now, only occasionally rearing its ugly head to embarrass me. But boy, was I wrong! I was mortally wounded by this failure, this rejection. If there was a button I could have pushed that would have ended it all-I would have pushed it. I instantly grabbed my phone only to remember I have no dealer contacts anymore. It was too much of a hassle to walk all the way in the cold to my old dealers house (who I also owe hundreds of dollars) so I grabbed a few extra gabapentin, took the rest of my methadone, and drank my brothers disgusting IPA from the fridge. I cried and chain-smoked. I talked to my best friend on the phone and calmed down after a couple hours of freaking out. Then I quietly cried myself to sleep.
Why was this so injurious to me? I think it struck a particularly sensitive corner of my soul that worries that I am simply not good enough to make it in this world. I’m not incompetent or incapable, but my competence is worthless without discipline. At every turn I’ve chosen instant gratification over long-term happiness. Most of my life I lived by the punk ethos of “live fast, die young”. My life plan was to be a drug-addicted musician and then die young. Fortunately, I survived long enough for my frontal lobe to develop and I decided I wanted to make a decent life for myself. I wanted to be better. I wanted to be there for my loved ones. I wanted to reach my full potential and ideally have some kind of positive impact on the world.
I was in the process of getting my life back on track when I reconnected with an ex who was an actively-using addict. I had been clean from heroin for 8 years when he offered me fentanyl. My brother had recently passed away, then we got hit with the pandemic, so like many Americans-I was extremely vulnerable. I got instantly hooked and man that shit had me in a fucking chokehold for 2 years or so. Once I got clean, I started taking this medical editing class and that was my singular goal. That was my first attempt at normalcy, at trying. Not to mention I need a fucking job yesterday. But I really thought I had found my escape. My path to a better life. Everyone was so proud and impressed by my rapid progress. I was clean. I was taking a class. I had a goal. It was the best case scenario for me.
I had absolutely nothing else going on and yet I still couldn’t make myself study editing. To my defense it was painfully boring material, memorizing a million weird quirks that compose the AMA editing style that agencies go by. I spend hours and hours studying the topics I’m interested in (lately its genetics and evo-psych, yeah yeah I know, don’t come at me) but I could not make myself do this thing I didn’t want to do. I had so much riding on me passing this test and I just didn’t have the discipline to consistently study. I reviewed the material here and there, studied for a few hours the night before the test, but nothing near what I should have been. I felt like I had a grasp on the material, but alas here we are.
As I’m typing this from my bed, I am surrounded by garbage. Dishes, empty cans, cigarette butts. I’m a chain smoker but I’m too lazy and broke to pick up an ash tray so I just ash in empty diet coke cans. Sometimes I am too lazy to walk 10 feet to the bathroom, so I’ll pee in cups and then leave the cup sitting out for days. I am fucking disgusting. That is who I am. I’m diagnosed with ADHD, bipolar, depression, PTSD, Lyme Disease, it all blurs together into a blob of meaningless labels that feel more like embarrassing excuses.
What does it even mean to be mentally ill? I don’t know. I don’t really identify with those labels anymore. I’ve been sick for a couple weeks, so it’s been extra hard to function lately. But ultimately, I always bounce back. I keep treading along. I am 80% recovered from this most recent failure and trying to stay in my highest vibrational level of experiencing gratitude for my sufferings and failures.
Considering where I was just months ago, I really have come along way. But I have a long way to go. It’s all just exhausting, isn’t it?