Note: This is a true story. It is part of my ongoing effort to help people decode human behavior, breakdown the illusions we build around ourselves, and understand why we do the things we do when real life hits.
I am sitting here in 2026, just trying to figure out if, in my 52 years on this Earth, I actually managed to do something that qualifies as genuinely beneficial to another human being in the long run.
So I turn to an AI in 2026 to ask the ultimate question: Am I actually a good father for spending thirteen and a half years with my daughter, nearly every single damn day?
I guess every father confronts that thought from time to time. But ever since 2020, this entire world has mutated into something completely unrecognizable. I try to rewind my brain back to my own childhood, or dig through the memories of other global conflicts from twenty or thirty years ago, and for the life of me, I cannot find a more brutally dense stretch of time where I felt so utterly lost—and where the rest of the world looked just as completely unhinged right alongside me.
The glorious stretch of 2020 to 2026.
It all kicked off with video clips of people literally dropping dead in China. Suddenly, overnight, every single person on the planet was talking about it as if it were the return of the Spanish plague.
The streets were completely hollowed out. You could go for an hour-long walk through a giant metropolitan city and everything was a ghost town for ten blocks in any direction. Right around then, I had managed to secure a job as a security guard, which magically transformed me into one of those "special," essential people who were legally permitted to roam around during the so-called pandemic. My dream had literally come true: I was finally able to strut through a massive, empty city and feel a surreal sense that the entire place belonged exclusively to me.
Sorry, I'm drifting off point here...
The actual point is that I finally accomplished something that was historically agonizing for me to do: I got a fucking steady job. For endless years before that, I was basically just sitting around the house, spending most of my days thinking... okay, fine, masturbating and thinking.
I felt this deep urge to go out there. I wanted to become someone, and I was fully prepared to do whatever it took to get there. I had to. There was simply no other path. My daily routine was primarily sitting around, thinking, rethinking, and then analyzing those thoughts even further.
I wanted to become wise. I wanted to actually be somebody. I never cared about becoming famous or having my name in lights; I just wanted to drag in enough cash to support my family. Yet somehow, I brilliantly succeeded in wasting fifteen whole years of my life doing absolutely nothing, except obsessing over the very thing I originally set out to achieve.
I thought to myself: Finally, I’m going to cough up some actual money for the bills.
That’s what I genuinely believed. But in reality, I didn't see a single dime. I had magnificent ideas. I had grand, sweeping plans. I know they were solid because I was actively scanning the real world while constructing these strategies, constantly devising ingenious new methods to generate revenue.
But deep down in my gut, I knew I wasn't actually ready to throw myself into the Big World. And in the meantime, somebody still had to keep the lights on and pay the bills. So, I devised a remarkably clever scheme to remain totally inactive and unemployed by resorting to the only logical thing I could think of: I was going to take care of my little girl.
There was no fucking way I was going to send my little kid off to be caged up in some institutional daycare surrounded by people who only gave a shit if she was still actively breathing.
I wanted to be right there for her.
At that precise moment, I was just coming off a solid three or four-year bender of heavy synthetic drug use—I can't even remember the exact timeline anymore.
She was only eight months old when my circus with the police officially began.
The cops chased me for about four consecutive months, and I was completely clueless about what to do. They genuinely believed I was some high-level drug kingpin or an up-and-coming street gangster, when in stark reality, I was just a ridiculously small-time junkie. The synthetic drugs triggered full-blown, intense mania. I was completely fried and riding a wave of uninterrupted euphoria 24/7 for three straight months.
I bought myself all kinds of bizarre gear—Kevlar pants, tactical motorcycle jackets, and heavy Rockstar boots made out of real Australian leather.
People in my neighborhood started looking at me with pure fear. My wife absolutely hated it, and in a strange way, I hated it too. I learned very quickly that when people are terrified of you, it has nothing to do with respect; they just fear you, plain and simple.
Strange characters that I would never in a million years expect to meet started gravitating toward me. I didn't understand what was happening, but the street understood it perfectly. To the street, I was just a crazy, heavily drugged lunatic roaming around collecting scrap metal in the middle of the night, heavily doused in expensive perfume, showing off a nice six-pack, but living in a completely different universe inside my head.
I was merely reacting to the chaos happening outside in the physical world. I would spout deep philosophical nonsense, act tough, and walk around shirtless with a heavy leather motorcyclist jacket draped over me.
I still remember the exact day she was born.
I was physically in the hospital, but I was far more concerned with finding a way to get high than being present while my pregnant wife was giving birth, surrounded by a doctor and an assistant hovering over her.
Hours drifted by as I ambled through the hospital corridors, utterly stoned and out of my mind. Five hours later, the medical team decided to perform a C-section to pull the baby out.
They brought her over for me to look at.
She looked ugly, she looked foreign, and she felt like something I was completely detached from.
They took a snapshot of us—well, of me awkwardly holding her. My face in that photograph tells the entire pathetic story without saying a word.
They took the baby away to place her in the nursery, and I just went straight home, totally blasted out of my mind. I remember standing inside the house in the dead of night, telling myself that my entire existence was about to undergo a radical shift. I said something to myself along the lines of: Rejoice today, because your life is about to change forever.
And thank God for the police, combined with whatever tiny shred of sanity I had left: three months later, I was completely off the synthetics.
The cravings were intense, but I didn't have a single dime to my name—I couldn't even scrape together bus fare. Leaving a one-year-old baby alone in the house while I went out on the street chasing drugs was completely untenable, and it would have guaranteed me a direct ticket to a real prison cell.
I managed to score a plea bargain that resulted in no additional jail time beyond the days I had already served behind bars.
And after all that chaos... she was just there.
And I had no choice but to take care of her.
I don't know the exact moment it happened, but something suddenly clicked inside my brain that said: Listen, if you actually want to call yourself a real man, or even just a decent human being who did something of real value for someone else, you have to do everything humanly possible to protect and raise this little creature of yours.
Thirteen and a half years later, and I’m still standing here. My lungs are pretty much shot from smoking way too many cigarettes and way too many spliffs.
But I am right alongside her every single day, watching movies, and occasionally talking—she’s a full-blown teenager now, as you can imagine.
I wake up almost every single day questioning myself, asking if I’ve spent enough quality time with her.
I try hard not to be overbearing or pushy. As she grows older, I know I have to step back and let her go out into the world to do her own thing.
Still, I’m constantly searching for tiny ways to grab some time together, whether it's putting on a movie or getting her to talk about something she’s actually interested in.
I made a firm promise to myself a long time ago that I would take care of her like there is no tomorrow, right up until the day she turns eighteen.
And then, exactly like my own father did with me, I’m going to look her in the eye and tell her that it’s time to go out and get a job.
I’m constantly trying to instruct her on how to be fully self-sufficient. I try to teach her the immense value of actually becoming "someone."
I talk to her endlessly about artists, explaining the fundamental difference between people who just happen to have good, skilled hands and people who are true artists. A real artist is someone who falls hopelessly in love with a craft, creating a bond between the artist and that pursuit that is vastly stronger than any standard human connection.
I am always driving home the point that she needs to discover something in this life that she can truly fall in love with.
I vividly remember my own experience when I first discovered what I loved at around thirteen years old. It wasn't some grand, complicated life goal like old people always preach about; it was a much simpler, raw sense of purpose.
And I will exert every ounce of power I possess to teach her the reality of purpose.
It has nothing to do with becoming famous, but I have to admit that my 53-year-old self living on this Earth has taught me a hard truth: you absolutely need to save money. Cash is vital, and in the Western world, that is a reality you cannot hide from, and no amount of lofty ideology can ever fix a broke bank account.
It is the most fundamental rule of nature: In the summer, you have to prepare for the winter.
My father used to repeat a line that echoes in my head to this day: "If I have it, I have it. If I don't have it, I just don't fucking have it." That mindset resonates deeply with me, and that is precisely what I am passing down to her. If you have it, you have it. If you don't, you don't. Do not take out petty loans from banks. Do not allow yourself to fall into an overdraft. It is infinitely better to pay for things up front now and never owe anyone later. These are basic, brutal truths that every father owes to his children.
At the exact same time, I am grounding her in philosophy and Zen.
I talk to her about history, human nature, and the raw mechanics of the world.
Through this combination, I manage to create a genuine equilibrium.
I have no idea how the future will fold out, but up to this very moment, I genuinely think I’m doing a damn good job.
I am perpetually vigilant. And I am always physically present. Two years ago, following a routine trip to the hospital, I was diagnosed with macular atrophy.
So I immediately flipped it into a positive: now that I’m forced to be inside the house 24/7, I can guarantee that I keep my personal promise to take care of her until she turns eighteen.
And this stands as my ultimate prayer to whatever gods might be listening:
Please, just let me finish my mission in this world and leave behind a functioning, contributing member of society.
Please, let her fall deeply in love with something that becomes her ultimate lifeline. Let that passion act as her personal charger, staying with her everywhere she travels, so that whenever she feels drained, she only needs to plug in for a moment to recharge herself and keep pushing forward.