---

Dear @fermentedphil,

It is the first day of something new, something so radically different that you will question your very existence in that place at that moment. About a hundred people are sitting in front of you. For many years, you wished for this day. But it was a wish without commitment. It was a wish because people generally wished for things. You did not really want it to realize.

You did not prepare yourself for this moment. But that might have been a good thing. Too much preparation would have left you even more numb, even more disabled. Because no one teaches you how it will feel to talk in front of a hundred people on a complex topic. No one teaches you how to convey meaning, no one teaches you how to stay calm in a stressful situation. Only time will teach you that. Even I know that, the one writing this with no experience. Even I know that.

It could have gone down worse than it did. It could have gone better. But what is important is that it happened. And that you will continue to make it happen. Nothing good has ever come from stagnation, from stasis, from doing nothing. The cliche, bad things when good people do nothing, but I would change it; bad things when happen when you sit back and do nothing. Good people are hard to come by. Another cliche, hell is paved with good intentions. Even when you try to be good, or to do good, bad things will follow. Go beyond good, or as Nietzsche would have said, go beyond good and evil. Transcend the very logic that governs these words.

They will tell you that the journey is more important than the destination. In many respects, this is true. Yes, you learn much more in the journey than at the destination, but it sometimes gets tough, it gets on your nerves, and some days you will just want to throw everything away and drink a beer whilst the world burns. But it is not always worth it. Sometimes you just need to pour more water on the fire so that you can continue the journey. The destination will always elude you, but that is the point. Getting to the proverbial destination will end up killing you in any case.

The most important life lesson you will learn is that no one really knows anything. People will act like they know, or they will be fooled by their own stupidity, but most people do not know anything. This is not some grand scheme to tell you that people are really stupid, no, people are really smart. And there is knowledge out there. But people really do not know. We act as if we do. We act like money is real, we act like things have inherent worth, we act like the economy is something we need to uphold. But in the end, everything is just make-believe and we are governed by a few who think they know what is best for us.

This is not all bad. I mean, we have medicine over the counter, enough food to make us fat, beer, whisky, the world is a good place.

But the cost is our sanity.

Laing wrote, but you know this by heart,

They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me.

---

Postscriptum, or The End of an Ongoing Letter

I will write and I will always write. I write, therefore, I am. I will never stop writing. The letter is ongoing.

I gave my first class this week. The first of a series of 24 lectures. It is scary but fun. The journey is what it is all about. But it is a tiring journey, and even now only at the beginning, I am feeling the pressure of running against a wall at the speed of sound. I will crash, it is not a situation of if but rather one of when. Hopefully, after the semester is done. We will see.

I hope you are well. The photographs are the property of @urban.scout. Hence the 50% payout to her! The opening quote is also her words. The musings are my own unless hyperlinked or stated otherwise.