We each live in a world in our heads, and mostly slightly to one side. Mine is full of fire and the stuff of nightmares that happened during the day. Who the fuck is worth talking to anymore? And cui bono? Who would benefit? If I just want some relief, well then I should continue to please myself with this essentially masturbatory pressure release valve of a podcast. Maybe I keep doing this so I don’t explode at other people at inopportune and consequential moments. Maybe I do it to self-validate, or self-flagellate, or both. In the past I’ve had to just get through brain explosions of words, without thinking about an end goal. Sometimes I can’t know where I’m going, and only know that getting away from the worst of the pain is the only way to survive, even if it’s no way to live, ongoing. But since people aren’t optional and I’ll continue to encounter them randomly in the overworld, and I feel weakened from battling chthonic minotaurs and myths and monsters and telltale hearts and sins, what do I do? Pratchett, in ‘Men at Arms,’ writes on a theme that humans aren’t naturally paid-up members of the human race, but need to be bounced around by other humans in a sort of Brownian motion to, well, stay human (with Jon Batiste). Otherwise we come under our own influence. We become the wretch, concentred all in self, while we live forfeiting all renown, and, doubly dying, go down to the vile dust from whence we sprung. Unwept, unsung, and without an exciting Lin-Manuel Miranda (or LMM-inspired devotee) testament to our legacy. Without a foundation or orphanage or even a tear shed or memory spoken or glass raised to mark the end of a life lived so frantically alone. What is a legacy? I wrote a song voices will never share. I loved a man who died, a dog who died. I wrote a book no one will read. Made a podcast no one will hear. Scrawled words in places no one will read. Sang and spoke words that will never be remembered. I had money and a life and a home and possessions and lost them and gained new ones and lost them. I had some love once. Now it is gone, yet I remain, confused as fuck. I suppose there is no justice. Just us.