discipline made me type this

 Sometimes I write with a plan. There's a notebook I keep for such occasions. There's actually quite a few notebooks for many occasions. The issue is these notebooks are in boxes, containers, or bags. There's one I've loosed on the world once again but his friends all remain safely locked away.

These notebooks contain too many dangerous ideas. You see, they contain mostly the missives of a much younger man. A much different man. Except, I'm much the same as well. Maybe.

I tell myself and anyone who will listen that I have more wisdom but I know that's not true. I have more years and I might have more experience. That's weird to say but it's certainly true. More years with the possibility of more experience, though that's not what anyone ever says. We're comfortable with phrases like "I've forgotten more about this than you'll ever know" while being stone certain more years always equates to more experience.

XP, as the gamers call it, is the coveted currency of the working force. When you first start your journey into tedious labor all the bosses want more experience. Eventually you get to a point in your life when you're thrown the bullshit salary negotiating tactic of "we can't afford you" because you maxed out your XP doing side quests. Then there's the point where you realize life is nothing but a series of side quests and you go back to just enjoying the game.

Let's be honest with ourselves, what's the grand importance of pushing papers? Who cares about some spreadsheets and graphs? Optimizing one thing or another only leads to specialization. Instead of adding beauty to life we decide we'd rather have productivity. Why not both? I'd rather have a beautiful disaster than an efficient turd.

One day soon (maybe today?) I'll dust off some of those boxes and unearth some of those notebooks. They're so dangerous, written when I had more cares and the desire to change the world. They also make me think maybe I smoke too much because they look like a mix between ransom notes and poetry. So, basically, just ransom notes.