Have We Become Citizens of the Country of Not Enough?
Clicks, likes, and applause don’t define your worth.
In South Africa, I met a man who told me he’d rather commit seppuku than live in Los Angeles. I asked him where he lived and he said he didn’t live anywhere in particular, but he spent most days along the Florida Panhandle. Drinking in dive bars, he staggered into all-nighters that sold fried chicken, Nikes, and Jim Beam. Living as though he could die at any moment.
He was straight out of a Chuck Palahniuk novel with his blowtorch hair, threadbare trousers, and a penchant for self-destruction. He had the war wounds to prove it. A scar that traveled from the nape of his neck to his stomach. The missing back teeth. The jowls primed for a meat hook. Save for the blurry photos of bar fights and paunchy men toasting to last call, he said he spends his life off of his phone rather than on it.
Imagine that. Setting down your phone. Saying, I don’t need you. Meaning it.
In all the photos he looked as though he’d been kicked in the face a few hundred times. He was a walking wound, body bruised — his face a mess of pain. There was the photo of a cracked jaw and beer bottle glass glinting in his hair. But the pride, there was no mistaking it. Smiling, he pointed to the pictures and said this is real…
