It’s that time of year again: Reflectuary. That time of year when I think about my life. Sitting here, drinking corporate supply chain coffee, wearing corporate supply chain clothes, typing on a shiny machine made from rare earth minerals and human misery, it’s impossible to feel as though individuality matters. Lucky am I to be here, undoubtedly, and fortunate am I to have the basics of 21st century comfort at my fingertips — literally. I daymare about the future and beyond. I wonder what my next life will be like. Reincarnation is a certainty, in that human consciousness is universally shared Individuality is a psychosis we teach our children so we can get by, high on the feeling that life has a purpose. In reality, we are all awake in each other’s minds, even though we somehow feel isolated from them, and our most selfish pursuits are mere distractions. So, as the last rays of light dim from this life, and the last sounds bubble away, we are suddenly in utero with a feeling of confusion and deep, unsettled, generational depression. We are born into a new home, a new life, each with untold horrors awaiting, and we feel as separate and alone as it is possible to feel. There is no end. There is only this infinite cycle of desperation and despair.

YOU WILL NEED

• 6-7 hours of restless sleep full of stress dreams about moving back to Illinois
• 2 cups Kona Blend medium roast coffee (I like to add a little oat milk and stevia/monkfruit to each cup because the future turned out weird.)
• A sense of regret that feels not unlike like large, mournful chunks of your soul slowly sloughing off your back into a drain in a concrete floor
• 1 (one) teensy weensy toke from the morning pipe, just enough to tamp those stress dreams back down into your subconscious until tonight. (If you do not have a teeny weeny toke available, you may substitute for extra coffee or angel dust.)
• 1 tsp all purpose hope

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat oven to the emotional cocktail of sadness and relief when you skip all your high school reunions.
2. In a separate bowl, mix wisdom-originated aloofness and quiet yearning to self immolate while in line at the bank.
3. Stir everything until homogenous as all fuck.
4. Bake for 80-90 years until CHF or dementia (or both) have forced your adult children to handle all your toileting. (If you’re doing it right, you will feel a mixture of shame and uncontrollable primal humor.)
5. While baking, it is fine to pass the time on activities such as jobs, school, and pornography, but be aware that there is no meaning in any activities except birth, survival, procreation, and death. (Achieving things is fine, so long as you remember that doing so is pointless!)
6. Die.
7. Be remembered for a few years, and then shortly afterwards be forgotten forever. When the last person thinks about you for the last time, your memory will dissolve into a bottomless ocean of time, as the universe dissipates into thermodynamic equilibrium.

Sprinkle with cinnamon buns to taste. Serves everyone.