The whole thing seemed weirdly condescending towards people with normal working and spending habits, especially because it's not obvious to me what was so great about what the author was doing. The dude hung out for a few years, failed to become a writer, and did some travel, bored his partner to tears, and ... "sucked down an awful lot of media — movies, video games, books", then learned the shit that normal people already know (that unexpected expensive things happens in life).
"To me, these people on their exercise machines were standing still — nothing was happening in their lives". Um, ok.
One of the richest and busiest people I have ever met - like serious 0.1%-percenter rich - is always off hiking in Papua New Guinea and spending shit-tons of money getting wells dug in crappy areas and fighting dysentery and improving the lot of young girls by funding schools and so on. If that person gave me shit for my materialistic lifestyle it'd be one thing. I also know plenty of broke people who do incredibly righteous and interesting stuff, and I'd happily cop the same line from them.
This bozo? Not so much. It's like Holden Caulfield, but middle aged. He barely mentions anything outside himself aside from his partners, old and new (aside from the vague genuflection to CO2 as a justification for his lifestyle, which sits rather poorly with "A trip to Hawaii. Another to Portugal and France" if he's aiming for secular sainthood over an allegedly low-emission lifestyle).
In a shocking development, life spent as a bizarrely young version of one of those old retired people who doesn't do anything beyond travel and putter around isn't that great.
"To me, these people on their exercise machines were standing still — nothing was happening in their lives". Um, ok.
One of the richest and busiest people I have ever met - like serious 0.1%-percenter rich - is always off hiking in Papua New Guinea and spending shit-tons of money getting wells dug in crappy areas and fighting dysentery and improving the lot of young girls by funding schools and so on. If that person gave me shit for my materialistic lifestyle it'd be one thing. I also know plenty of broke people who do incredibly righteous and interesting stuff, and I'd happily cop the same line from them.
This bozo? Not so much. It's like Holden Caulfield, but middle aged. He barely mentions anything outside himself aside from his partners, old and new (aside from the vague genuflection to CO2 as a justification for his lifestyle, which sits rather poorly with "A trip to Hawaii. Another to Portugal and France" if he's aiming for secular sainthood over an allegedly low-emission lifestyle).
In a shocking development, life spent as a bizarrely young version of one of those old retired people who doesn't do anything beyond travel and putter around isn't that great.