Why do young Americans try to prove that they are more mature than they are? I’m talking about the type that will not hesitate to tell you situations they’ve been in that made them grow “faster” than their peers.

I had a coworker who would always say he’s worked since 16. Or this girl would always tell me she’s lived abroad and is “different” than girls her age, and another who kept bringing up the painful child divorce and how she had to go to school and work at the same time (the horror!). With all that experience I’m surprised they missed visits to countries where 10-year-olds work on the street for food while living in garbage bag tents next to the bus station. I think in that case they’d find their experience to be pretty damn timid.

I’ve done a couple interesting things but it’s never crossed my mind to use that as proof of my value as a person. Your past doesn’t speak for you—you speak for you. Speaking up your past is the fastest way to get labeled as a “douche” if you’re a guy and a “nerd” or “drama queen” if you’re a girl. It’s like that guy who puts his BMW key chain on the bar in a lame attempt to get attention from females.

In the end there is no substitute for the number of days you’ve lived, whether you spent that “living” abroad in some other country during college or not. There’s the claim of experience and maturity and then there’s who you are. One you can lie about, the other you can’t.

The faster you realize will not change the world the sooner you will stop doing things for everyone else and start doing it for yourself.

Do you know how advertising works? Through repetition. You’re infected without being aware. When the opportunity arises you will buy the product your brain is already familiar with. Those who think they are immune to advertising are most affected because they make no attempts to block it.

TV is to program you. That’s why it’s called programming. Turn that shit off.

You’ll be dead before your dead. Your spouse will die and your adult children will visit you once a month. You’ll be scolded by a minimum wage immigrant whenever you soil your pants. Life is long, but there is a window you need to take advantage of.

No one will complete you. People can only increase or decrease your happiness level. No more.

“Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meager life than the poor.”

Get a medium sized box and put all the possessions you need in life inside. If you can’t say goodbye to all that other shit, well that shit owns you. In one year get a smaller box and do the same thing.

Buy nothing day? How about buy nothing month. You’ve been trained like a monkey to buy since you were two years old.

There is no God. You will die and that will be the end of your existence. All that you are will disappear forever. Remember that every time you stall, hesitate, and fear.

Enjoy it while it lasts because it’s going to end. I guarantee you it will. Take a deep breath because the pain will pass or you will adapt. I guarantee that too.

Do you think you’ll be playing golf in Florida at 65? You’ll be lucky if you can hold a golf club. Don’t believe the lies, don’t believe the 40-year work plan, don’t believe in retirement. Right now is your retirement. Don’t believe your real estate broker, don’t believe your investment adviser, don’t believe your boss. They are using you for your money, time, labor. Use them instead and get the hell out.

That so-called legacy you want to leave? In just a few generations your descendants will be as genetically related to you as a random stranger off the street. Do it for the right reason.

What’s the one thing you can do to put your life on a more fulfilling track? Don’t ask others for advice, don’t put it through committee—just do it now. But you’re lazy.

Remember it’s the journey, not the end result. No end result has changed any man.

A poor Argentine man I met travels by juggling at intersections and asking restaurants for leftover food. What was your excuse?

Do not work a day more than you have to. Are you sure that 401k is going to be worth it to you some day? You’re betting the prime of your life that it will.

If you want to be unhappy, all you have to do is try to impress other people. If you want to be happy, don’t do things which you are told makes you happy.

If you’re spending more than your income, you will work until you die. How many years of college and work have you put in so far? If you quit right now, how many years would you last without having to work? Do you see what the problem is? But you’re rich all right because you can go out to the new restaurant serving fusion dog shit and down $15 cocktails at the club with people carrying business cards.

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.”

Tell me you are not sleepwalking through life.

This is the best Youtube video I’ve seen all year. The South Park guys animated a recording of Alan Watts.

There are five others.

My Dad has a special dining room chair that only he can sit in. The regular chairs are plain, old, and without ass cushioning, but my Dad has a fancy chair with a large cushion and a carved design on the back. It’s a few inches higher than all the other dining room chairs. His wife (my stepmom) bought it for his birthday.

When my Dad comes home from work around 5PM or so, the house is clean and a pot of tea is ready for him. He drinks his tea and plays with the kids or reads the paper while my stepmom cooks dinner. She cooks dinner at least five nights a week, and during those nights my Dad doesn’t enter the kitchen except to get a class of water. He doesn’t do any cleaning either, and even if he wanted to there is nothing to do by the time he gets home. Everything she does is to make his life as comfortable and relaxing as possible, setting up a pleasant environment for him to continue providing for her and the kids.

The concept of “me time” is foreign to her; it’s family time twenty-four hours a day. It’s hard even for me to imagine her asking my Dad to watch the kids while she goes out with friends. It doesn’t happen and I don’t think it ever will. If she wants to go out, the kids are going with her.

When I cook my own meals, my stepmom likes to clean up after me as I’m still cooking. I’ve had to fight with her many times to not do my dishes, but she does it anyway. And even if I clean up my own dishes, she thanks me. “Back in Iran, the man doesn’t do any cleaning,” she says to me. She was taught this from a young age. American public schools have taught me to clean up after myself so it feels weird that someone else wants to clean up my mess instead. Well it did feel weird but I’m quickly getting used to the Iranian way of doing things.

I know what you are wondering. “Is she is happy?” I can tell you with very high confidence that she is extremely happy. For a woman who grew up in a small Iranian town, coming to America, marrying a stable provider, and having two healthy children is like hitting the jackpot. I’m sure that there are women here who hit the American jackpot of marrying filthy rich that are much more unsatisfied than my stepmom. Living in a townhouse and driving a four-year-old Toyota to Ikea is the pinnacle of life to her. Imagine that.

In this country there are 17-year-olds whose parents have given them more material wealth than some of us will ever get to see. They have a “family” credit card and live in an upper middle-class McMansion that they travel from in a new car they received for their sweet sixteen birthday. When you have more than 99.5% of what other human beings have before you even start work, your view of life becomes distorted. In creeps entitlement and poor work ethic that affects your consumer habits (nothing is truly valued), how you view fun and pleasure (it can be bought), and how you approach human relationships (people are disposable).

My Dad has been hinting that he wants to return to Iran, but my stepmom keeps telling me how she doesn’t want to go back because she loves life here. Happiness is relative, perspective, and expectation—thinking too much is detrimental to happiness. Besides, you’ll just hurt your head (existential depression is considered a medical condition). I doubt my stepmom wonders about those bigger questions of life. Are the kids fed? Is the house clean? Is the spouse happy? Is there food and shelter? Then life is great. But for a lot of my peers and countrymen, that simply is nowhere close to being enough.

You decide to go for five mile run. No mp3 player or pedometer or stop watch, just your shoes and your clothes.

An 8 minute mile pace is not fast but not slow either. That’s a 24 minute 5K, a time your doctor would appreciate. Five miles is a warm-up to a marathon runner, but to 99% of the population it’s difficult. Forty minutes of legs moving.

The first mile is easy. Your breathing doesn’t fall into a cadence yet and you just enjoy the breeze. It’s surprising, though, that there aren’t scores of other people running outside like you. It’s a nice day and these suburbs are dense. Maybe they have treadmills at home or are at the gym.

Your breathing starts to sync up to your steps. Blood flow is being diverted to your muscles. You’re tired now after two miles and would prefer to stop. This needless work is using up precious resources, your body says. You notice your first cramp.

You’re halfway through and this hill is really getting you. Your legs burn like bee stings and your breathing becomes more rapid. Stopping seems so nice, but you can’t stop—you will collapse before you stop. But you need to slow down. You’re doing a 10 minute mile now, but at least your legs are still moving. There’s a lamp post over there, just reach that and you can think about stopping. No, you can keep going; try for that bus stop.

Your body is weak, it wants you to stop. But your mind is strong. Trick your body with your mind. Your body must not know you will finish, or it will punish you with more cramps and more pain.

It’s just you out here. The cars fly by as you smell that plain suburban air. The sidewalk is covered with blades of cut grass and sticks and twigs from past storms. Does anyone actually walk on these things anymore? This landscape is sad, isolated; you can’t see any human beings outside, just people in moving pods, in a hurry to go somewhere, nowhere. This is better than the landscape at a gym at least, better than running next to someone who just put on floral perfume.

You feel like you can run a 10 minute mile all day. What a difference those two minutes are, from body breakdown to breath catching. Back to the 8 minute mile. You’re at mile four now, just one more to go. There is no one holding you hand. There are no words of encouragement or support. You are your encouragement and you are your support. No one else can do for your what you can’t do for yourself.

Nevermind. Another half mile and you’re back on the 10 minute mile. It’s just too hard and it hurts too much. Your arms are barely moving now, gimp-like, they just hang there. Your hands flop around, to conserve energy maybe. You see the end though, a yield sign you started at over thirty minutes ago. You can see the end of pain. Your body can see it too.

Your legs start moving much faster now, faster than it’s moved all day. Your body wants to end this. Your body, that son of a bitch, could have moved like this earlier, since maybe that lamp post. It lied to you.

You don’t feel right, but here’s the end. Welcome to yield. A few large stomps to slow down. There’s your heartbeat, in your head and in your neck, pounding. Walk it off and breathe, it’s over. You did it, on your own, and no one held your hand. Because no one will ever hold your hand, not even you.

My 3-year-old brother thinks he’s slick. Every time he comes into my room he brings a toy but doesn’t take it out when he leaves. My room now has Spongebob Squarepants, colorful trains from Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, Laa-Laa, and a very naked Ken doll. As long as it looks like he’s not about to break anything expensive, I let him do whatever he wants. The idea of applying discipline is not compatible with someone who has a problem with authority; I think a better model is rewarding positive behaviors and ignoring negative ones. Of course raising kids is a lot more complicated than that, but it’s a ideal start.

Once a week I make a large batch of tuna salad to feed me for lunch. My 10-year-old brother was watching me and remarked how disgusting tuna is. “Have you ever had tuna salad before?” I asked.

“No,” he said, “but it looks gross.”

I made him taste it through threat of big brother violence. I told him if he doesn’t like it then he never has to eat it again, but he needs to try things before he makes up his mind. He tasted it and said it was “Okay,” but a couple days later I noticed a large can of tuna on the kitchen counter. Turns out he liked the tuna salad so much that he asked my dad to make some. I decided to keep it real so I took him to eat sushi with me at Tono Sushi in Woodley Park. I told him that, yes, technically sushi is raw fish, but it doesn’t taste like fish at all. “It tastes less like fish than tuna, which you already tried.” He was down.

I wish I took a picture the moment that first piece of tuna and avocado roll went into his mouth. It looked like someone nailed him in the stomach; pain, fear, and confusion was painted on his face right after the first chew. He wanted to bring it back out, but I encouraged him like only an older brother knows how: “Chew! Eat it! Close your mouth! You better finish that!” He ate only a few more pieces but I was very proud of him, like a parent would be after watching a child’s first step. After all, I didn’t try sushi until I was 21, and let him know that he is far ahead of me in becoming a real man. I stressed real man one more time, adding that you need to try new things even if you fear it. How else will you find out about things you could like?

My dad spends hours a day with the boys, teaching, talking, and playing, but there are so many parents who drop the ball at being a positive influence on a child’s life. And you wonder why so many adults are messed up. From what I see, the key to raising a decent human being is to treat them with respect and give them attention and affection. Sound familiar? Don’t dumb things down and don’t push away their concerns or questions. Don’t let the television compete with them for your attention. Don’t tell them “Because I said so.” The only reason I would make a good dad is because I’d copy what my parents did to me, which, except for my mother’s occasional broom beating, seemed to work out pretty well. The last thing I will do is buy a parenting book from a writer/expert/businessman who has no investment in me or my family.

“So what do you think of sushi?” I asked.

“It didn’t have a lot of taste. But it was really cool!”

Yes, little brother, it is cool. Now when you turn 20 or so, there is this book I want you to read…

I remember not too long ago I would count the days until the weekend arrived. But now every day is the weekend! I present to you my average weekday:

11:30: Roll out of bed, shower. Do a 30 minute Spanish audio lesson. Eat breakfast/lunch. Check local blogs, Washington Post, Huffington Post.

2:00: Walk to Starbucks at nearby strip mall. The baristas welcome me and my “shift,” which averages between 4-6 hours, spent writing or editing on my laptop, reading books, and staring off into space. Total cost is $4 (tall americano and warmed lemon iced cake). Sometimes I study Spanish or run various chores (e.g. getting my car ready for sale.) If it’s Monday or Thursday, I go for a 3-4 mile run (8 minute miles).

7:00: Go home and eat like a king (my stepmom cooks Persian food every weeknight). Spend quality family time.

After dinner, sometimes I drive to the late-night Barnes & Noble in Rockville, drink with friends, or try to make intimacy with some broad. But if I stay home…

9:00: Tinker with blog. Put finishing touches on the next day’s blog post, making sure there are no errors since I will be sleeping when it goes live. Reply to emails. Read Slate, Digg, Reddit, TPM, NY Times, and various message boards. Browse internet videos. Chat on AIM. Download music and porn torrents.

12:30am: Eat third meal of the day. Do another 30 minute Spanish audio lesson. Read some more. Watch a Netflix movie.

2:30: Productivity rapidly declines. I start to check sites I already checked, hoping for something new. Contacts getting dry.

3:00-4:00: Sleep.

*all times are approximate

I’m productive for about 6-8 hours a day, where I do more than just eating, shitting, and masturbating (i.e. existing), as opposed to 2-3 hours a day when I had a job. Most of what I’m doing right now will not have a monetary payoff, but I’m enjoying myself and it feels like my awesomeness is increasing at a more rapid pace. This isn’t for everyone though: the average person needs a lot of entertainment to get through the day without experiencing boredom. Movies and books will not be enough. If you don’t have an interest that take up several hours a day at minimal cost, being funemployed may not be as great for you as it is for me.

Not only is shit getting done, but life is slowing down in the process. I don’t know what the date is and clock time has become a rigid abstraction. From now on I will be needing at least a one hour arrival window for appointment and dates.

Margarita Island, Venezuela

The cowardly belief that a person must stay in one place is too reminiscent of the unquestioning resignation of animals, beasts of burden stupefied by servitude and yet always willing to accept the slipping on of the harness. There are limits to every domain, and laws to govern every organized power. But the vagrant owns the whole vast earth that ends only at the non-existent horizon, and her empire is an intangible one, for her domination and enjoyment of it are things of the spirit.

Isabelle Eberhardt

For most of the past six years, my job has been fermentation process development. I did experiments with cells (bacterial, yeast, and mammalian) in reactors up to 400 liters in size to maximize the production of biological agents that were engineered into those cells. I’ve worked on drugs aimed to treat anthrax, cancer, HIV, lupus, chlamydia, and arthritis, of which most are still toddling along in clinical trials. The work was interesting but not exciting—it was highly technical in nature and just not something that I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Plus I never felt motivated enough to be a corporate go-getter. The highlights of my day were lunch and checking my email after lunch.

I’m about to buy a one-way ticket to South America, a place where I can travel while saving money at the same time. I want to start in Ecuador, go through Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, and then settle in Argentina for a while before I visit Brazil, Venezuela, and Colombia. I want to get there in July and stay for at least six months. Don’t worry, the blog will continue.

When I come back to the U.S., I want to try to live somewhere else, maybe Austin or Miami. It’s time to move on from this area. Much of the next couple of months will be spent with my family, playing with my little brothers, having serious discussions with my Dad, listening to my Mom complain about my stepmom, and joking around with my 20-year-old sister. It’s going to hurt that they will no longer be a stone’s throw away from me.

My only goal is that when my time has come, when I know that I don’t have much longer to live, I have done everything I could to have a meaningful and purposeful life, one lived to the fullest potential given to me. There is no one goal, one experience, or one accomplishment that can make this happen, but a way of life that enjoys it with rich experiences instead of things and cubicles and kitsch and money. I don’t believe in waiting until I’m 65 to do this. My health is good, my sexual drive is good, my savings is good, my mind is good—the time is now.

After I bought my first pocket digital camera, I would take it with me every time I went out with friends. But after about four years, I noticed I was taking pictures that were just slight variations of ones I already took. There are only so many different ways you can capture the same cast on the same stage with the same backdrop. Same as life. It has become too comfortable, too familiar. It’d be nice to experience something new and challenging.

Don’t think that safety is being locked up in one’s home. Don’t do what I did. I’m too serious to be an amateur, but not enough to be a professional. A more miserable life is better, believe me, than an existence protected by an organized society where everything is calculated, everything is perfect.

Steiner (Alain Cuny)

La Dolce Vita is a movie that follows Marcello, a gossip rag writer who lives a fast-paced life off Via Venito in Rome. He has a pretty girlfriend, interesting friends, access to beautiful women, a decent job, and a dream of being a respected writer. “Now that’s the lifestyle I wouldn’t mind living,” I thought, halfway through the movie.

But things weren’t so great beneath the surface. His relationship with his smothering girlfriend was draining him, most of his friends were vapid parasites, the beautiful women had nothing to offer him but their beauty, and his job was wholly unfulfilling. And when his most respected friend—the only person who was in the position to help him—committed suicide, Marcello simply gave up and became the type of upper-class garbage that he wrote about, defeated by bitterness and cynicism.

This movie does not tie things up for you in a neat little package. It does not tell you what the sweet life is, what is right or wrong, and who is good or bad, but it does make you think about your own life. Am I living the life that I want? Is chasing my dream going to be worth it? Does it even matter if I reach success, whatever that is? Like life, the movie does not provide you with clear answers.

What did it mean when Steiner, the most successful character in the movie, kills himself and his children? Then I read that quote up top again. While the movie had many themes, I think the main one is entrapment. The main characters are trapped in some way by their desires or their lot, unable or unwilling to get out. So the sweet life is about being free? That’s part of it, but sweetness for me will not be sweetness for you. It’s the freedom to go for long-term meaning instead of short-term thrills, of not letting yourself to be held back, and of avoiding comfort. It’s the opposite of how most of us are living now, and this movie was made nearly fifty years ago. I suppose that makes sense because the human condition does not change.

Marcello thought being a respected writer would make his life better, but it’s really the attempt, trying to be something, that would have made the difference in his life. He was looking at the end result, comparing himself to other people, when he missed out on the journey to becoming one, the most important sort of travel that a human can make.

By the time you are reading this, I have submitted my resignation letter to my master at work. I probably did it at around 10:45am, the time I usually stumble in. Two weeks of coasting and I’m out.

I’m moving in with my Dad tomorrow. I’m going to be there for about three months to wrap up my book and prepare for something I’ve been thinking about for almost two years now.

I do not have another job lined up nor am I looking for another job.