On my sad laptop, Internet Explorer drags, Microsoft Word freezes mid-sentence and printers never connect. The hard disk is always full. I sigh a little each time the hourglass comes on. This was a once powerful machine. It's served me well.
I reach for my phone and start watching videos. In my feed:
Restoration of Rolex exposed to seawater. He disassembles the teeny tiny parts, cleans them in a swirling bath of solvent liquid, puts it back together. Runs perfectly.
8088 MPH by Hornet + CRTC + DESiRE How much more can be done with good old CGA than we ever dreamed. 256 colors from 4 before, crazy stuff. This makes me feel good about growing up in the 80s.
A sense of calm comes over me.
I wonder if I could restore my laptop to…even better than new?
It occurs to me that my life is also slowly turning into a sad laptop. I get into fights with my cofounder. I worry about the stock market. I ruminate about my ex. I wake in the middle of the night and can’t sleep. I binge watch TV and feel sick. Is this all there is to getting older? Is there anything beyond working, owning a home, having a family, growing old, dying? It feels like something is missing, but I'm not even sure what.
I check my email.
Course 42. Personal Foundations
12 weeks
Spring 2023
Practical introduction to methods for alchemizing startup crisis into personal and organizational transformation. Interpersonal dynamics. Character structure. Dream work and journaling. Trauma theory, personality frameworks and divination. Relationships. Meditation, somatic release, energetics, intuitive theory and alchemy. Plant medicine, psychedelics and sacred ceremony.
Limited to 10
I feel a mix of curiosity and...suspicion.
It looks like an engineering course from a parallel universe. A practical introduction...but to what? Dream work? Divination? Alchemy? This feels a little woo-woo to me, like they might be making it all up. My friends ask me for my exact birth time. But when they look things up, they don't convert to GMT. Isn’t alchemy that stuff they did before they understood real chemistry?
My friends gave me an LSD tab once when I was fifteen. It was terrifying. We were wandering around a concert and I could not get straight. It doesn't feel like repeating that experience will help me find what’s missing. Yet I hear CEOs talking about how psychedelics revolutionized their lives, which still feels a little funny to me. A friend told me his cousin kicked a hard addiction through psychedelics. Maybe there is something that my fifteen year-old self didn't see.
And yet…I find myself poring over the description, wondering. It’s all a little out of my comfort zone, but something is still pulling me. I’ve done everything right, yet something is still missing. Do I need to try something new, something that pushes me out of my comfort zone...but how?