📰 Friday, May 22, 2026 — 8:21 a.m.
This whole week I’ve been pretty down.
Some people would call it depression. I’d probably just call it being emotionally low. I had to do some soul-searching this week. Some reorganization. Some relabeling of who I am in certain areas of my life.
Financially, this week was not great because I didn’t really go out and sell the way I normally do. Usually I’m constantly moving, constantly working, constantly trying to survive.
But maybe slowing down this week forced me to look at myself honestly.
The first book I remember truly finishing and carrying with me was Flowers for Algernon.
It’s about a young man named Charlie who lives with limited intellectual awareness. Through an experiment, he gradually becomes highly intelligent. But along with intelligence comes something heavier:
awareness.
He begins understanding:
- people
- loneliness
- embarrassment
- love
- rejection
- how others once viewed him
For a moment he experiences life with complete clarity.
Then slowly, painfully, he begins losing it all again.
That book stayed with me because even as a kid, I think I understood the sadness of becoming conscious enough to fully feel life.
Now that I’m older, I think I understand it differently.
If you lose financially, emotionally, spiritually, or mentally, at least you are conscious of it. Pain hurts, but awareness allows you to understand what is happening to you.
There are people who exist physically in the world but never fully arrive emotionally or consciously inside their own lives.
That, to me, feels even sadder.
Maybe consciousness itself is both the gift and the burden.
💬 Reader Question
What’s a book that changed the way you understand yourself or the world?
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