May 05th, 2026

       Midlife Monstrosities: My Secret Desire to Give Up and Be Like                                                    Everyone Else
I turned forty-four a few days ago—April 27th to be exact. That’s not one of those big milestone birthdays—six more years until I have another of those—but it still is a reality check. I can remember, for instance, when my parents were in their forties and I thought they were getting old. And I can certainly feel my own age—soreness in body, fatigue, a bit of bitterness over the gulf between early life expectations and what I’ve actually achieved.
A lot of that is no doubt due to the extra miles I put on my body in the Army—especially during that year overseas in Iraq. Some of it, though, is undoubtedly just due to the reality of the human condition. Medicine and science have advanced quite a bit over the centuries, but there are still limits, even in this time of seemingly limitless wonders. Go ahead and upload your consciousness to a digital substrate or do the old cryogenic deep freeze, but it’s looking like immortality is destined to remain on the horizon for some time. You and everyone you know are going to die, and before that your bodies and minds are likely to betray you in painful and sometimes embarrassing ways.
That’s the reality I couldn’t help avoid thinking about—even if such thoughts were mixed among sentiments of gratitude—while I cut the cake this year.
And there is, in fact, much for which to be grateful. Not only am I still alive—many of my friends are not—I am also in relatively good health. My dream in life was mainly to survive the ordeal of Iraq, make it home, and become a writer. I didn’t expect to become a bestseller like James Patterson; I merely wanted to prove that I could write something, sell it, and see it published, which I have done now many times over.
I make sure to remind myself of that quite often, especially during my darker moments and those times I surrender to self-pity and self-loathing.
And still, despite this acknowledgement of gratitude—despite continuing to write in spite of all the obstacles—something is starting to grind me down, wear on me in a fundamental way. What is it? I’m not sure. I only know that it has always been there, but until now it has mostly existed in the background. Now, however, its presence feels much more constant and powerful, and while in the past I could mostly ignore it, these days I can’t help but hear its increasingly insistent voice and even concede its wisdom.
“You’re right,” I say to the voice in my darkest moments, usually late in the evening when I’m lying in bed but sleep eludes me. “This is pointless, and I should give up. To delay the inevitable is just to give the monster chasing me more time in which to afflict me. Why not deny it the satisfaction it achieves in so sadistically pursuing me, even if ‘it’ is merely my consciousness, i.e. ‘it’ is merely me?”
There are times even when I think of ending it all. Understand, I have no concrete plans to end it, and I’m pretty sure that every sane and sentient creature at least idly considers suicide from time to time. It’s an out—an option—that keeps the weight of being locked into existence from becoming unbearable.
 I suppose there’s a bit of a paradox to be explored there: the ability to commit suicide gives one the strength to continue on with life rather than ending it.
You want to know something I’ve been thinking about that’s even more disturbing than suicide, though?
Becoming a stockbroker, maybe getting involved in day trading, or giving penny stocks a chance. It’s true, don’t laugh. The other day I bought “Investing for Dummies” and opened a Charles Schwab account. Not only that, but I’ve been thinking of chucking this whole writing thing in the trashcan and instead devoting all my remaining time on Earth to making money. And why not? It’s the American Dream, is it not?
I suppose this is my version of a midlife crisis, and I’d be happy to call it that if I thought I had a good chance of reaching eighty. Most likely the midpoint of my life is already somewhere in the rearview. Life expectancies, after trending upward for decades, have now begun to reverse, especially for white men in my age cohort and older.
And thinking about my death naturally leads to thinking about all the things I failed to do thus far in my life, things I may never do: far-away exotic lands I may never see, exquisite foods I will never sample, beautiful women I will never fuck.
Do I really want to spend my remaining time here on Earth writing stories hardly anyone wants to publish or read?
Simply put, I’m frankly a little tired of struggling, eking out an existence as a writer, barely making it from month to month. Gas being $5 a gallon isn’t helping. And although I can pretend to be above the fray—an artiste, ladies and gentlemen—I find myself ground down more and more these days by feelings of basic inadequacy. Unlike in the past, I actually care that my cars seems to be ten years older than every other car around me when I stop at traffic lights. And during those same nights I spend staring at the stucco ceiling in self-negating silence, I yearn for the basic material things that all men want. It’s not just a sleek German luxury automobile, or a sprawling many-roomed mansion with acres of property surrounded by rolling green hills. Nor is it just the kind of woman money can buy, the kind of woman who may (no undoubtedly would) only be with me for my money but would also be beautiful enough in a superficial way for me to not even care.
It’s all that and more, the extravagant hedonistic joys so delectable that they can even make me forget the central fact of the human condition, if only for a short time. Celine was right when he said that there was really only one reason to get rich, and that was to forget. A rapper’s gold or platinum chain seems like an extravagant waste until you recognize it for what it is: a talisman they can clutch whenever childhood memories of poverty emerge, a precious metal totem that can ward off such painful thoughts.
Of course, I’m being ridiculous, and even if I commit myself to this other path, my chances of somehow getting rich are fairly slim. But in addition to my ridiculous dream of wealth—which I suppose we all privately harbor—there is a more basic and practical desire simply to have enough money not to worry about basic necessities. Being able to have some dental work done, having my car’s AC repaired so I don’t have to sweat marbles during the long, hot summer months tooling my Hyundai around Cincinnati. Not fearing that I’m going to end up living in a tent under a bridge and shooting fentanyl on account of a couple minor disasters—washing machine broke, dog with hacking cough needs medical attention.
And yes, the desire for some minor creature comforts—nice meals in gourmet restaurants, trips abroad to practice the languages I’ve been learning over the years—would also be nice. Because I used to survive on tips—delivering pizzas—I also enjoy tipping well, and believe in tipping karma.
There’s a part of me that’s deeply embarrassed to be admitting all this to you—the two or three people who might stumble onto this post over the next several years. But there’s also a part of me that recognizes I’m being overdramatic.
For writing, as the great Arthur C. Clarke once observed, is at most a part-time job. And there’s no reason I can’t trade stocks on the side or make a few sensible, unsexy investments, and still spend the rest of my time still writing. And I’m not sure the desire to have a little more than I have—or even to harbor a desire for obscene wealth—even makes me a monster. It might make me a douchebag, but even if that’s the case, I’ve got plenty of company.