I’m currently in a phase where I’m trying to get rid of a lot of my old stuff. I don’t usually mention my age around here because I don’t feel it’s relevant, but rest assured I’m a few months shy of 23. A few years back I did entirely different things all day than I do now, and it’s a fact that returns to shock me with some regularity.
Tonight I was cleaning out my stack of old computer magazines and I found a printout of an old and mercifully unpublished web site I made about me. I don’t make web sites about me because that’s a terrifyingly un-me thing to do; readers might even call this post uncharacteristic. But this one reminded me of one of my younger phases when the new millennia had barely cooled.
I mentioned this (and apologized) to my friend StevenRoy, the person I’ve known online for the longest by far, and a man I am happy to still talk to on a regular basis. He observed that “If I remember correctly, you were trying really, really hard to be Douglas Adams.” which is true.
It is also funny since Douglas Adams once wrote: “In fact, I wanted to be John Cleese and it took some time to realize the job was in fact taken.” Let’s just hope that someone won’t continue this lineage by trying to be me, because I can attest that it’s a lot harder than it sounds, immaculately cleaned of rewarding upsides, and I don’t think there’s a lot in it anyway.