This Is 40
May 1st, 2025
It’s my birthday today. I love my birthday. I’m awful like that. I also believe that you should cherish celebrating each one, because there will come a point in time when you cannot. That’s dark, but it’s my birthday.
So let’s face facts: I’m supposed to be dead. I did all the things that people who end up dead do. But I’m not, to a variety of acclaim and disappointment. Through a combination of dumb luck, hard work, and a lot of love and help and understanding, I survived despite abysmal odds and the deepest wishes of my haters.
My odometer gets a new starting digit as I roll into forty this morning, engine check light brightly lit. I’m doing my best to embrace the icy cold breath of Death, sinking like fog down the back of my neck, as we dance hand-in-hand towards the void together.
I’ve been thinking about what is true this week. What are the lessons I’ve learned in my four decades on this planet that, in my head and my heart and my soul, I believe to be universal truths about you and me? Since I am a generous king, I decided to compile them in a list and give it to you as a gift on this day, the occasion of my birth.
You are annoying. It’s okay. Never try to not be. We are all annoying in some way, and some of us are annoying in many. People will love you, truly, and not in spite of how annoying you are but because of it. They will find themselves awake in the middle of night, hungry and craving your unique collection of flaws, your horrible laugh, and your endlessly awkward soul.
You should do the thing. But not the thing you’re thinking. I always see this as a capitalistic suggestion: “You should go on the vacation!” “You should buy the thing you don’t need and can’t afford!” But that’s not what I mean. I think you should do the thing that you secretly think and obsess about all the time and have never done. Write the short story and send it to your friends. Tell that stranger you love their cool shirt. Do five minutes of stand up. Learn how to grow something. The thing is what we’re alive to do.
You are what you eat. And I don’t mean just food. Pay attention to what the people in your orbit type and post and say and do and you will know their diet. Garbage in, garbage out; feed yourself right.
There are always more people rooting for you than you know. I’ve learned this again and again but it hit home recently. I went to my high school reunion a few years ago and something really struck me: a lot of people knew a lot about my life. You might say, “duh, you overshare and it’s a problem,” but hold on: the reason I noticed is because some of the people who were familiar with my work and my life were people who have never, ever reacted to a single thing I have ever posted, nor sent me a message or left me a comment. They were happy for me and supportive in their own way, but I had absolutely no idea that they cared I was still alive, much less followed my progress. But they did, and people do.
Knees are the fucking worst. Who invented those?
Honesty and vulnerability are superpowers. Favored flavors of mystery are overrated. Telling people the truth is how we connect to each other; being open and talking about difficult things is how we build conversations that cover more than the weather (though I do love talking about the weather). I ask a lot of questions but I could ask more; I answer questions deeply but I could always dig deeper.
Animals know everything. We ignore them at our own peril.
Humans think they know everything but more accurately know nothing. We listen to ourselves at our own peril.
Art and pop culture can be a system of belief. I wrote a whole book about this but the importance of both in my life will never be overstated. I owe my existence to art.
The world is chaos. We wish it weren’t and act accordingly. We count numbers and draw charts and trace patterns and build religions and speak of predictions and destiny and fate; I don’t know if things happen for a reason, but signs point to no. This reality is immeasurable and immensely complex; the world is too complicated to hold in any amount of boxes or hands. If this sounds like a bummer, you’re missing my point: I’m saying that every good thing in your life that has ever happened, every bright person and big dream and bold stroke of luck, came to you against boundless odds. There was no guarantee that any of it would happen. But it did, and it does, and we are the most charmed beings in the universe.
Everything doesn’t break down; everything changes. Matter isn’t created; it’s infinitely recycled, which is how we came to be made of stars.
Conflict is an essential part of life. When we get better at conflict, we get better at life. This is one of my biggest struggles and don’t confront me about it.
Knowing is better than not knowing. Make the appointment. Go to the doctor. Get your car checked. Do actual research beyond the first Google result (and past your own biases). We avoid things and it almost always ends in calamity.
You can never stop learning. I’ve said this a million times before but here it is once more with feeling: the old folks are those who think they know everything; the people who keep learning are forever young. You can be an ancient eighteen-year-old; you can be an eighty-year-old teenager.
You are what you do. I mean this relative to what you say. And that’s saying a lot coming from me, who deals in words. But my words would mean far less to you and me if I wasn’t trying to live up to them every day. If you say something but then do something different, you are the thing you did. Remember, though: you can always change what you do.
Service is how we survive. Creating a world in which we are there for each other, to support one another and care for one another, is the greatest achievement in the history of any species. Watching this concept go up in flames in our country over the past decade has been devastating to watch.
Kindness is everything. It has saved my life again and again, both through acts done to me and acts I give in universal reciprocation. I live my life trying to be plain and friendly and screw it up as much as I get it right, but I never stop trying.
We only have today. It’s a cliché for a reason. And it only gets more true the more you live here; I get less and less interested in saving anything. Saving it for what? Tomorrow doesn’t exist, at least not until it’s here, and it is never promised for anyone. I know. I’m more careful with my goals now, too. There’s nothing wrong with having goals, but if they interfere with you living today then there’s something fundamentally wrong with either the goal or your approach to it. If I feel like I can’t walk my dog because I have to get something else done, then that something else can go to hell. I don’t know the last time she and I will be under the same sun together, so I won’t waste any of the opportunities we can.
I’m sure there are other true things but these are what came to mind. Thank you for all the kind wishes (yes, even from my haters). May can be a rough month for me; I was born on the first, my mom was born on the last, and Mother’s Day sits waiting for me in the middle like a lioness in the tall grass. I miss my mom every day, but this month is the worst. Thanks for being my friend.
Listen to what I’m listening to: my 2025 Birthday Playlist is on YouTube:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQujd9QC-8Ng-EkvlbtM8Zf0ekfy8PjnX&si=7pXEqFGH0sNoY-nP
