How do we deal with the struggle?

Contemplative thoughts after a day off Twitter

king kong, in a suit, meditation, he is under a large joshua tree

Today is my best friend’s heavenly birthday. He would be 40.

He passed away seven years ago from an opioid addiction/overdose. There was no wake, no funeral. I used to exchange texts with his ex-fiancee, a bunch of our friends. Today, I received one. One text.

Conan O’Brien once visited President Calvin Coolidge’s grave. Here is a quote, via a Vice article from 2019, about the experience:

Sorry. Calvin Coolidge was a pretty popular president. I’ve been to his grave in Vermont. It has the presidential seal on it. Nobody was there. And by the way, I’m the only late-night host that has been to Calvin Coolidge’s grave. I think’s that what separates me from the other hosts.

I had a great conversation with Albert Brooks once. When I met him for the first time, I was kind of stammering. I said, you make movies, they live on forever. I just do these late-night shows, they get lost, they’re never seen again and who cares? And he looked at me and he said, [Albert Brooks voice] “What are you talking about? None of it matters.” None of it matters? “No, that’s the secret. In 1940, people said Clark Gable is the face of the 20th Century. Who [expletive] thinks about Clark Gable? It doesn’t matter. You’ll be forgotten. I’ll be forgotten. We’ll all be forgotten.

My friend is basically forgotten. No kids, just family and a few friends wondering what went wrong, how we could have helped. Today, just “man, he was a great guy. What a legend.”

I went off X on Tuesday, looked a little bit today, plan to stay off until Friday. I listened to the Mike Cernovich podcast on Twitter, and Mike said something that stayed with me: