Let’s pour a drink. Every good story needs a starting point, and this one begins at the bottom of a glass where the “Sweet Lie” of identity finally dissolves into the dirt of a Vietnamese alleyway.
I have a memory problem. I’ll be honest with you—I don’t remember a whole lot anymore. I’ve written over 400 posts, a digital trail of breadcrumbs trying to reconstruct a life I’ve spent decades trying to dismantle. I’m 57, and I don’t have that “fighter’s origin story” that men love to cling to. I don’t walk around remembering the Bronx or being a Yankees fan. Most days, I don’t even act like I know where I came from. I have to manually remind myself that I used to have money, that I used to be the “Mastermind” behind a high-tech engineering firm. I sit in these cafes feeling like an awkward duck, wondering, How the hell did I end up here?
Maybe it’s the years of meditation. I’ve spent so much time “counseling and removing” the ego that I’ve accidentally erased the foundation. I don’t believe the presence is based on the past. I’ve gone out of my way to ensure that my marriage, my divorce, and my high school years don’t define me. But there’s a price for that kind of freedom. I don’t have friends because I don’t like people who remind me of who I used to be. They keep you in check; they keep you playing the “Beta boy” to their “Alpha,” or the “Drunk” to their “Drinking Buddy.” To stay Primary, I had to kill those ghosts.
But now, standing in the humidity of Da Nang with thinning hair, liver spots, and a prostate that’s seen better decades, I have to ask: Who the fuck am I playing? When I talk to my aunt or my kids, they bring back pieces of a man I don’t recognize. They say, “That’s who you are, Dad,” but that guy feels dead to me. Without the past to hold me down, I’m just a ghost drifting through the “Discount Lot” of Southeast Asia.
“Old man, look at my life, I’m a lot like you were.”
I remember being five years old at Mulberry School in Whittier, California, hearing those lyrics and feeling a stationary chill. Now, as I work my way to the cafe, the song hits me with a physical anxiety—the “Mr. Grinch” heart-pound. I look in the mirror and I see my father. I see the same isolation, the same sense of being “done” even while the clock is still ticking. I’ve squashed my ego so much that I’ve forgotten my own MO. I’m not skydiving or chasing “Primary” glory every second; I’m mentally conquering the week and self-plagiarizing my own thoughts just to feel a pulse.
I’m contemplating the tattoo—the big one in Bangkok—not because I need more ink, but because I need a physical anchor. I need a symbol of the Mormon days, the engineering days, and the day I lost it all, etched into the skin so I don’t have to keep relearning my own name. Maybe a tattoo is the only way to lock in the history of the soul for a man whose brain has decided to forget the future.
I’ve meditated the ego away, but I’ve left a vacuum where the man should be. I’m a “Man Without a Past,” living in a presence that feels like a lukewarm bath. I don’t think back to when I was a millionaire because I’ve removed the “I” that owned the millions. I’m just here. In the alleyway. Watching the man drain the oil. Wishing the day was done, but terrified that the days are almost gone.
The whiskey is warm, the ice is gone, and the song is still playing. I’m a lot like he was. And I have no fucking idea who that is.
