Why bother you? You’re eating, too.
Some people thing I’m independent. Others think, what wrong with that guy?
The truth is, I feel there may be something wrong me. But I don’t know what it is or how it happened. But, being human, I can’t just let a mystery sit there. I have to know. And if I can’t know, I need to invent an explanation. I need something to hang onto.
“Mark, would you go down to the basement and get me my drill?” Dad asked.
I flipped on the light and ran down into the basement. Where the hell is that drill? And dad reached past the basement door and—absentmindedly, I think—flipped off the light. But how could he forget so quickly? It had been only seconds ago that he asked me to run downstairs into the basement.
I wasn’t surprised, but this pushed me past the point of no return. Why bother? Why try to get through to people? I’d been invisible before to many people. But if I couldn’t even register to my own father as existing, why bother with people? Why ask—for anything, ever? No matter how trivial or routine?
People do what they do. Maybe it’s a choice, maybe it’s an instinct, maybe it’s a manipulation by advertisers or politicians. Doesn’t matter. What matter is what you—or in my case, I—do.
And I go it alone. That gives me a sense of agency, of control. Love, work, even leisure…whatever. Others can do what they want about these things. I’ll do mine.
What am I planning now? Don’t ask.