the whole truth about themselves? I should be taking this seriously, but not being serious is serious fun.

Who I am:

The truth is that my whole life has been a lie and I wouldn't repeat any of it over again. I lied to save myself from my parents. I lied to save my parents from everybody else. I lied to myself to save myself. I lied to my friends to save my girlfriend. I lied to myself about who I was. I lied to my girlfriend to make her happy. The only ones that I was honest with were my pets because they didn't want me to lie to them: everybody else was quite happy with hearing lies. When my cats died, I died. And through it all, I told myself that I never told anything but the truth, that I was doing what was right. Did you really want to hear the truth?

That person died 5 years ago and a new person is becoming every day: I don't have time to wait for somebody to get that, either you do or you don't. I don’t have a joyful life experience to share with you, I don't have a loving family, I don’t have soothing memories, and I don’t have anything to hold me in the past except what I am now and friends that I would follow through hell if they asked. Every day is another chance to discover something wonderful or something awful and I never know which it's going to be next: probably both at the same time. I've survived everything so far but that can change at any time.

I dream that I'm surrounded by vampires; I dream that I'm playing chicken on the freeway - just me against everybody. I may be the last man alive to tell the story of my comrades-in-arms; I may be the only one alive that remembers the truth, the only one that didn't drink himself to death, that didn't kill himself, that didn't burn out his own brain with coke. I dream about a young man in Afghanistan who is more afraid than he can bear now, I dream about how he feels each minute of each day that he's there now. I remember his fear, his crying in the night alone, and his urge to scream until he dies choking on his own voice. I remember all of that and I write it down for those long gone who can’t speak anymore and those who could speak 5 minutes ago but no longer can. It’s not pleasant, but it is real.

What I need:

Number one and most important: somebody to wash my back.

I need you to see more than you know you can see. I need you to feel more than you know you can feel. I need you to stretch out your arms and remember what you were doing 10,000 years ago, what you are doing at this very moment. I need you to know that your life is for more than working, breeding, relaxing, eating, chatting, being pragmatic, letting romance itself slip away because you won't hold tight and losing everything. I need you to have a rage to live, a burning love to know everything at once, a heart big enough to hold the universe in one small corner and not be satisfied with that little. I need you to stop and wonder what it would take to have the impossible happen to you – not once, not twice, again and again – not in a dream, in your everyday life. I need you to slam laughing into the barriers of life, back up and slam into them again just for the joy of it, keep slamming until either they break or you do: you’re alive to all of it, not just to the easy parts – the easy parts are boring. The world doesn’t care if you live or die, so show the world what you’re made of and make it back down this time, next time, every time.

"Wise wretch! with pleasures too refined to please,
With too much spirit to be e'er at ease,
With too much quickness ever to be taught,
With too much thinking to have common thought:
You purchase pain with all that joy can give,
And die of nothing but a rage to live."

— Alexander Pope

That's where that phrase came from and a rage to live will keep you alive where easy living will fail you utterly.

Nothing serious: the good are found hiding in plain sight and in the most wonderfully improbable places.