Let's talk about Henry Thoreau and what a bitch he was.

I'm going to ignore the significance of today's date. It doesn't apply to me.

Anyway, a sweet, well-meaning soul sent me a little e-mail which had some religious significance, bla bla bla. The important thing here is that one of the comments within the e-mail implied that in order to live a better life, one should simplify. It gave the late Mother Theresa as an example, who had very little personal posessions and still led a life many people would be envious of.

So naturally this led me to think about simplifying my life. It took me all of 10 seconds to dismiss this ludicrous thought. Egads! Just 2 weeks ago I was trying my best to be as shallow as possible,"money is everything" and all that jazz and now I'm thinking of simplifying?! What would be left of me if I started dropping all the stuff such an ascetic lifestyle would deem unnecessary?

My new goal in life is to make more money, faster. My secondary goal is to use that money to do other stuff. Stuff like learning new things, picking up new hobbies, finding new friends, doing more travel, buy new STUFF....you know what I'm talking about. If I were to simplify, it would mean dropping all those goals to work towards another goal. And what goal is that? The lack of a proper mission in life is what led me down this dark, empty, materialistic, shallow road in the first place. I don't have anything to look forward to. I don't have someone to give my life to. In absence of such things, is trying to be a little richer than I already am so bad?

Strip away such materialistic ambitions and its rewards and all you've got is a guy who doesn't know what to do with himself.

I need this. I need to work for something, no matter how shallow, or ultimately worthless. I need to know that I am doing something beneficial with myself, no matter how temporal the results. I need to shield myself from the stark reality: that I am a reluctant rock, an island I didn't mean to be.