June 27, 2026
I need a wipe
The way up is down. This is the kind of contradiction that often comes packaged in epic and cryptic flavors, especially in religious and mystical stories. I personally have always been quite susceptible to this kind of rhetoric. So I’ve discarded my thoughts regarding these things and turned my head as often as possible. That’s how I bamboozled a very pragmatic woman into marriage, and generally fit in socially in both France and America. But I still feel the tickle. A lot of tickling lately.
What happens when you’re no longer graduating into obvious new roles? With no more rites of passage or obvious milestones, I’m impatiently looking for the instruction manual. A hint. This chapter feels too long. Filled with a weirdly uncomfortable drama. Like one of those TV-show filler episodes.
I’m not saying it was better before, though it was more obvious. Society and religion used to hand you a script. It is different today, probably for the better. So what is today’s flavor of ritualized self-injury?
I thought having kids would be a huge milestone. In many ways it was. My ego took a hit, but it recovered. I left big tech. Friday afternoons still feel the same. Not because of workload or the work itself. Because I’m emotionally labile and stagnant at the same time.
Right now, I’m out of decent ideas to break out of my identity shell. The more I try to break my ego, the less meaning I find. That’s what led me to entertain more-or-less dubious ideas like moving to Australia, therapy, a full-fledged hobby, or a silent retreat. I don’t like how radical of a choice moderation is these days. A good life is chosen, not tolerated, right?
Perhaps I just need to wait. I’m still in the thick of it. The bottom of the smile curve. Someday my lack of attention will cost me something cathartic. That loss could be the shift. What a bummer of a theory. Every book tells that trauma is baked into the human condition. Before something sets you free, it often makes you miserable, doesn’t it? Is that what retirement is about?
Good parenting is delayed gratification. What’s true for kids is also true for adults—whatever teaches us from above and within. That’s my gospel of good enough. I hope I am, because that’s all I’ve got, however disappointing that is. I’m occasionally shitty toward people I love. Not rarely enough to avoid deeply acknowledging my anger. In all honesty, I have only displayed run-of-the-mill mediocrity, nothing pathological. I don’t mean this only as a mea culpa. Working on it is as important as forgiveness. I feel the injury, the injustice, the dance of life.
During a recent heated argument, I felt like a breaker went off. I felt uncertainty in my neck and shoulders. Things seemed to be going south. I hadn’t had that feeling in a long time. Not that I have a particularly sunny predisposition. I’ve historically bounced back fast and easy. I used to feed entertainingly morbid thoughts semi-intentionally. When I was on a temporary visa, I contemplated how being deported back to France would not be that bad. If my anger made me do something truly regrettable, I would have had a pretty good run.
That same thought experiment fueled my travels, dating, side projects, cardio workouts, and more broadly the sunk-cost fallacy that is my career. The famous opening lines from the 1967 soul classic hit hard: “Am I a good man? Am I a fool? Am I weak or just playing cool?”. I think I’m a pretty typical fool trying to be intellectually rigorous.
Marriage isn’t hard conceptually. It’s a very reasonable investment. So is a career. Like every investment, the holding is the hard part. In the process, torture comes in the form of questioning whether there are enough memory lapses, forgiveness, and grace to keep us together. I’m starting to regularly contemplate how my short memory might be a direct physiological response to my shitty self. “I don’t remember” sounds way too convenient. I drop so many balls. I dance. So far I think I’m only 49% wrong at worst.
I never wake up on the same foot. Like how one never steps in the same river twice. And yet it’s often familiar. Like the Ship of Theseus. Whatever my feelings and decisions, it feels like more of the same. It’s the same boat. But when I pay attention, and through others, I can feel the new wood, subtle layout changes, the patches in the sail…
My oldest son likes to wear pants and sweaters whatever the weather. It’s a safety thing. He has always been like that, needing to hold some random nicnac. He whines to get long sleeves when the forecast announces a hot day (most days around here). Like if he is doing some kind of heat stress training. So when he is all sweaty and soiled, and unsurprisingly, unstable, I get empathy sweat and think of the power of the mind. Then he melts down and yells asking: “I need a wipe.” His little brother can only perform cute tonal grunts, which I prefer. Meanwhile, I’m trying to wipe my feelings with words.
That barely works, but that’s all I’ve got until I fully understand that the way up is down.
Acknowledgments
Much of my thinking on the matter of personal (spiritual?) growth is the product of rumination induced by the savage mentorship of this, mantra-like, nugget of wisdom: Nothing ever goes away without teaching you what you need to know - Pema Chödrön. Which sounds like the equivalent of “God works in mysterious ways”. Or what the Buddhists call Samsara. I wish that kind of deep insights came to me while meditating, or something intentional. Truth is that it hits me while stressed out at my desk, while pushing the stroller, in grocery stores. Chödrön’s one liner stuck. Is it selective memory, true wisdom, plain stupidity? Don’t know - don’t care. My wife insist it’s lame to close on a quote from a famous author. Good writing suggests and invites. She says my stuff is bloggy and borderline self-help. Once again, that all I got.