What keeps you awake, if anything?
Best question anyone ever asked me in cyberspace, Jay.
The answer: It depends.
1.- Will the real estate market crash before I sell my large and hugely overpriced home and get into something more maintainable, more modest, and thereby raise more cash for buying more Q?
2.- Am I overinvested in Q? Don't think so but what if.....
3.- Am I a good father, husband, etc.?
4.- What professional error of judgment must I guard against while I traverse the minefield that is my profession?
One of my literary heroes, Vladimir Nabokov, was probably one of the happiest men who ever put feet on soil. He was raised as a hugely wealthy, pampered aristocrat in pre-Bolshevik Russia and lost it all, including his beloved father, who was murdered by a fanatic during the family's exile in Germany.
He went from the highest highs, to the lowest lows, and was through it all one of the happiest human beings imaginable. So long as he could chase a butterfly or two, scribble a little, and enjoy the company of his wife and son, he was deliriously happy. Money didn't really seem to matter to him. Always lived in the absolute present. Wrote Lolita, got rich again, lived in a fancy hotel in Montreux the rest of his days. Incredible story.
But since you ask me about what keeps me awake at night, I must tell you that Nabokov, for all his good cheer, was an insomniac. Something kept him up at night, though I think that he probably loved the fact that he was alive so much that he hated to sleep.
I aim for that kind of insomnia, but I'm not there yet. |
