Originally published 12/18/18
Hydrate well, consume responsibly. Move your body vigorously. Become an effective self-regulating system. Enact self-care. Bootstrap self-love. Maintain your productivity. Adapt perfectly; integrate seamlessly. Name each feeling, track them on a chart. Happiness levels up, all others down. Good job.
Monitor yourself. Keep a schedule. Plan your work and work your plan. Your movements—clockwork. Account for everything. Maybe still surprise yourself once and a while, but we can fix that. Everything you want for yourself and your life can be acquired through the perfection of productivity. A schematized and profitable existence is what you want, after all.
Everything can be measured, you see, and indeed it is better when it is. After all, the brain is a computer—what is a human being but a computer too, a machine to be perfected? Sure, the other day you wept with sudden grief on the bus, looking around at the dead faces, remembering the childhood wonder that has left your body and whose memory hardly feels real anymore; and sure, every vanishingly-scarce moment you spend with your partner conjures (even briefly) the thought that maybe you don’t give a fuck about this career and would rather desert your post indefinitely to stroke their hair, feed each other strawberries, and talk shit in a field of daisies for the rest of your finite lives… But we can fix these thoughts! Glitches in the mainframe, nothing more.
Just like those moments of ruinous weakness, even that loathsome notion of ‘finite’ life is receding happily into the primitive past! New organs for when yours fail, new eyes to see better, maybe new arms hell yeah you can type fassst now, replace them quarterly and don’t forget to upgrade that heat shield. Imagine what you’ll be able to get done when you no longer have to take an indulgent ‘mental health day’ to get through your 80-hour work weeks! That is, if you still clock out (protip: winners never do). Just remember—every project must be extraordinary, you must look good but make it look effortless, be desirable but minimally desirous, not exceed or fall short of the body-shape quotas, maintain good skin pigmentation, have a commanding presence and also an inviting docility, keep your business commitments and toss all others, never ever complain, and be aware that They Are All Watching You. Enjoy immortality.