Life needs an ‘owner’s manual’; I’m writing the one I didn’t have

What will be left of me when my body has turned to dust?

I’ve been thinking about this lately. I’m not being morbid. I expect to be around for decades to come. But I’ve felt a growing sense of unease in the last few years — a sense that I’m running out of time to start work on the things I was put on this planet to do.

I’m feeling a sense of urgency to do a lot of things that matter to me — things I never realized until now would matter so much. I think that’s why I feel so driven to write as much as I’ve been writing for the last year.

I’ve realized in the last year or so how much I need to make art that will survive me. It’s not so I’ll be famous, though. It’s not about making a lot of money or achieving some flashy success. It has nothing to do with success or money or fame.

It’s about being able to do some work that might matter to someone else after I’m gone. It’s about being able to make human lives — at least a few of them — more peaceful and joyful and loving.

I want the chance to reach out to people from beyond the grave one day and say, “See this? I made it. This contains what I needed to tell you. I think these ideas can change you and help you live a better life. These things are important to me and I hope they’ll be important to you.”

The clock is ticking for me.

I’ve been writing a lot more for the last year. For quite a while, I wasn’t sure why.

I still have only a vague impression of what I’m trying to leave for the future, but the picture is slowly coming together. In a way, I want to leave behind a gentle and loving explanation about how to live. Something like an owner’s manual for a confused human mind.

I want to find a way to tell future confused young people some of the things that I wish someone had shared with me — things I’ve spent my life learning through painful trial and error.

I’m still way behind where I want to be, of course, but I feel as though I’ve come so far. To a large extent, every generation has to struggle on its own to learn the knowledge and wisdom about how to live well. And I’m well aware that even if there’s information available about how to live well, most people are going to ignore it.

But I’d like to leave behind some work that’s there for the tiny minority who want to learn — and who want to avoid some of the pain that I’ve experienced along the way.

I need to create more.

I want to love more.

I want to experience more.

I need to preach more. (That’s the right word, even though I don’t like it.)

I care less about money and success and fame than I ever have. As long as I can afford a simple life for myself and my family, I don’t care whether I make a lot of money or become well-known. If I can just make the art I want to make — and if I can love (and be loved) — I’ll be a satisfied man.

Is it arrogant to think of telling other people how to live? Maybe it sounds that way. I don’t know. I certainly don’t mean it that way.

It’s just that I know how little I was prepared for this life. I was educated and I was trained in social skills and all sorts of other skills. I had parents and teachers and preachers tell me everything they wanted me to believe. I think most of them were well-meaning.

But there was nobody in my life who put everything into perspective and tried to show me what mattered. There was nobody explaining to me which things would matter to me — and which things did not — after I’d been alive for a handful of decades.

I want to make art. I want to write. I want to be an example of what is possible with a human life, not an example of what it’s like to finally learn enough to find a good life and then die with the knowledge and wisdom — without sharing it.

That is a terrifying task for me. I don’t know exactly how to do it. I don’t know how to do it in a way that my words will actually survive. I really don’t.

But I feel driven to do this. For some reason that I can’t understand, I have to try.

I’m starting far too late in life. I’m way behind. And I’m finally humble enough to know that I need a lot of help to turn this deep inner need into a reality.