My first task of the day is always something hard but important: I murder God.
When I get a job interview, a first date, or a shot at sex, I look the other person right in the eye and say, “I’ve been dreading this all week.”
I believe in the power of habit. Wake up early. Eat well. Meditate. Destroy your idols. Stare into the void and face the anguish of choosing who to become.
I Pomodoro to the max! I do twenty-five minutes of staring at a blank screen, thinking that life is empty, followed by five minutes of strolling around my nondescript “luxury” apartment complex, thinking that life is empty.
I cook in batches. This way, I get vegan enchiladas all week and the benefit of asking, “Do I like vegan enchiladas, or am I a poser who cooks in bad faith, to impress a woman, thereby disavowing my freedom to eat a steak?”
I lower my carbon footprint by recycling my boxes, discarding slave morality, and collapsing my fabricated self into nothingness.
I tell people about my goals. This is huge. It holds me publicly accountable and keeps me perpetually terrified that I am alienated and defined only by The Other.
Six words: Tony Robbins, Brené Brown, Eckhart Tolle. Six more: Don’t want ’em, don’t need ’em. My true life coach is any toddler who is crying hysterically, ever reminding me that life is a disorienting hellhole that defies explanation.
Whenever I feel lost, I spin in circles until I vomit. Doesn’t really help, but it’s kind of fun.
When you press any letter on my laptop, it loads a screensaver of a shabby coffin with the caption, “Coming soon!” That’s the power of keyboard shortcuts.
Whenever I hear someone start a sentence with “Why—,” I don’t wait for them to finish, I just scream, “Yeah, why!” while punching myself in the face.
My books are my friends: Camus, Sartre, and Nietzsche. My real friends are all sick of me smoking in their faces while quoting Camus, Sartre, and Nietzsche, so we don’t talk anymore.
Instead of speeding through life like a maniac, I pause to appreciate nature. I like walking in the park, sitting under a pretty tree, and staring at the bark for hours until it looks like an incomprehensible alien substance and I start vomiting.
Once a month, I run through a giant corn maze to remind myself that I’m free to take whatever path I choose but that it all leads to a bunch of fucking pointless corn.
Once a year, I dress in a giant Elmo costume and get arrested for public urination, because I am embracing the life of the absurd.
I take “me time” just to think. I think about how warm weather is nice, or a funny joke I heard, or how I want to become God, vainly lusting after a solid identity in a chaotic universe that will soon smash me back into stardust.
Shorter showers! Sounds silly, right? Not at all. That’s six extra minutes per day to wear my Elmo costume, vomit on trees, and scream my despair at an empty sky.
My bedtime ritual is all about mindful relaxation: Dim the lights. Play some Enya. A little light reading of Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. Resign myself to the hard truth that I’ll never have faith in anything.
Before I drift into a dreamless sleep, I smile a little as I realize I get to wake up tomorrow and do it all over again and again and again and again and again and again.