September 10: 2001: What is it? What is this life of mine? I've spent my adulthood lost, in a search for meaning that never comes. Enlightenment doesn't exist. I can't be happy either way. And yet, I continue on, trying, just trying to reconcile my mundane existence with something greater. What can be said of a 46-year-old man—a mere high school counselor? My death would mean nothing. My funeral, unattended, my life unremembered. I would be the tree, falling in the forest with no one to hear it's sound. And yet, I continue. I must embrace this meaningless existence, embrace and cherish it.
I went to the REC center last week. Betty was having troubles with the Powerpoint. She couldn't get the blinds effect working on her clip art text. This frail, old woman, her skin, translucent, was struggling. Struggling to grasp the office tools of this 21st century. Betty, like me, trying to find meaning in this suburban wasteland. She's too old for technology, I think. She's the rotting fruit on the supermarket shelves, nobody wants her. Even if Betty did learn how to animate clip art in Powerpoint, would it matter? She's fucking 83. Too old for society. Betty died yesterday.
So, what is the purpose? I wake up tomorrow. I wake up the next day. Again, again, and repeated—thousands of mornings—the same. Someday, I will be Betty, trying to hold on, reduced to learning the meaningless tools of the next generation, some technological gadget that is completely beyond me. And when I die… when I die…
But tomorrow could be a better day. Oh, it must be a better day…