Teen You Versus You You

I’m heading out to New Jersey today to interview Richie Kohler for a piece about deep sea diving, so I’ll probably be gone for most of the day. Suck it up.

But I leave you with this topic of discussion, should you choose to accept it: Someone I know recently commented that he’d been thinking about his younger, teenage self and what that kid would think of the man he’d turned into today. He thought his younger self would be pretty happy with his grown-up self, which prompted a nice sense of self-satisfaction and euphoria.

Charming, but of course the inverse applies, full of loathing and sick sweats. If you met a younger, more ideological version of yourself today, would young you be proud of what you’ve grown up to be?

I’d say that I’m already doing more and less than I’d expected out of life. I thought I wanted to be rich, and while I’m not anywhere near it, I’ve come to realize that money is only really important as fuel for freedom—I don’t know if Younger Me would have bought that. And I hadn’t anticipated being a writer at all, but I think I would have been okay with it, after I got done punching myself in the balls and calling myself a fag.