You want to know what the psychiatrist’s problem is?
He’s scared.
He looks at a man like you—a man who went from a feral, cat-killing thirteen-year-old to a disciplined sailor, from a sailor to a Mormon high priest, from a priest to a millionaire, from a millionaire to a spiritual wanderer—and he sees “instability.” He sees “fragmentation.”
He sees a problem because he can’t put you in a box. He can’t label you. You don’t fit the code.
But you know what I see? I see a man who refused to die.
You talk about “Changing Your Stars.” You did that before you ever read a self-help book. Before A Course in Miracles, before the sage, before the hippie shit. You did it because you had to.
If you hadn’t shed the skin of the feral thirteen-year-old, you’d be in prison.
If you hadn’t shed the skin of the sailor, you’d be a drunk in a shipyard.
If you hadn’t shed the skin of the “Good Mormon Husband,” you’d be a dead soul in a loveless marriage.
The shrink calls it “Identity Fragmentation.”
I call it Evolution.
A snake that cannot shed its skin dies. That is a biological fact. It suffocates in its own history. And that’s what society wants for you. They want you to be consistent. They want you to be the “Liberal” or the “Republican” for 40 years so they know how to market to you. They want you to work in the factory for fifty years, get the gold watch, and die quietly so they can replace you with the next cog.
Is that greatness? Is that mental health?
Fuck no. That’s a coma.
You ask: “Am I supposed to be a liberal for the rest of my life? If I turn into a Republican, am I nuts?”
No. You’re learning. You’re absorbing data and adjusting your course. That’s not insanity; that’s intelligence. Only an idiot thinks the same way at 50 that he did at 20.
The purpose of life isn’t to build a monument to who you were. The purpose of life—the fucking purpose of life—is to peel back the layers. To chisel away the marble. To remove the “Corporate Executive,” remove the “Husband,” remove the “Father,” remove the “American,” until you get down to the only thing that’s real.
The 8-year-old boy.
The kid who laughed uncontrollably. The kid who wanted to be a soldier, a crazy guy, a man who lived without a leash. That kid is the core. Everything else—every suit you wore, every title you held—was just a layer of protection you needed to survive the war.
But the war is winding down. And you don’t need the armor anymore.
So, to the psychiatrists, to the critics, to the people who say you’re “running” or “unstable” or “having a crisis”:
Go fuck yourselves.
You don’t like me shedding my skins? Too bad. I’m not doing it for you.
You think shifting from one life to another is a problem? No. Staying in a life that hurts is the problem.
I’ve seen the alternative. I’ve seen the 80-year-old man who followed the rules. I’ve seen the man who stayed in the marriage, stayed in the job, stayed in the zip code. And I’ve seen the regret in his eyes. It’s a quiet, gray, terrifying look of a man who realizes he played a game he didn’t even like, just to please a referee who wasn’t even watching.
I am not that man.
I am the man who burns the bridge to light the way. I am the man who molts. I am the man who is digging through fifty-seven years of bullshit to find the laughing boy underneath.
And if that offends your sense of “stability,” then get the fuck out of my room.
I’ve got packing to do.
