I'm getting softer as I age and there's no use fighting it anymore.

Andrew Tate is scared of this.

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Over the last few pulse-pounding weeks of working around 60 hours, I was forced to consider whether all this overtime was going to at least land me a year-end bonus, or if this was a misallocation of my dwindling time on earth. It finally reached a head on Wednesday as I was scrambling to write a dozen scripts for a commercial that will run in early 2024, and my brain forcibly entered lobotomy/apple sauce mode while my pent-up stress made me feel like I could sprint a half-marathon. It is no surprise that the currents of my temporary ailments are carrying me towards my birthday and Christmas, both of which will be spent in my sweatpants and panic-ordering Taco Bell.

Before I heap on an abundant feast of digression, what I am trying to say is I am getting softer physically and emotionally in every single way. All my hobbies and pastimes have been replaced by sitting on a patio, beach, or hillside. I even have to sit down at concerts now. My 20s were spent wondering why people cry so much and my 30s have been spent crying. This comes at moments you do not expect, but it always comes—you are talking about sandwiches, or politics, or the weather, and then invariably and quite suddenly you are unpacking your childhood trauma from that one time I sang “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls at the 8th-grade talent show as a bit and got polite claps and a few laughs and then, the most popular girl in school shouted, “I feel embarrassed for you,” and I just sat there in awkward silence. It is never less than startling to watch beer and time slowly erode the few muscles I once had. It is hard, in conversation but also in a more considered bit of writing, to pull together any kind of rationale behind my waning desire to be the best, richest, or superlative of anything.

Amid the bleak spectacle of staring into my droopy underbags and puffy cheeks, I have realized that I don’t want to be a hard alpha male. I don’t care what my testosterone levels are. I’ve never been in a fistfight and I never will be. I’ve never been more into cooking and I would love to start a garden next spring. I genuinely enjoy hiking, and soon, I’ll be able to name species of birds. I have realized my previous desires to die on every hill imaginable turned me into a defective Napoleon, and now I willingly inconvenience myself to avoid any verbal confrontation. I reluctantly tolerate my girlfriend’s absolute annoying spaz of a niece, and I have always resented children—like I’m supposed to be impressed with anyone who doesn’t even have a driver’s license. Packs of teenagers terrify me. I’m obsessed with my beagle and I can’t stop cradling him like a baby. I do Vinyasa yoga three days a week, which only makes me leaner, calmer, and less confrontational. If I drink a large amount of liquor on a Friday night, my increasingly vicious hangovers will turn my weekend into a complete write-off. The bond between sisters is one of the most beautiful things on the planet, and I only have one sister. I go to bed before 11 PM every night, even on the weekends.

I am formless, masculine goo.

I am ready to allow my nervous system to reset so I can truly heal and soften into my divine feminine energy. I’m already exhausted—time to go take a nap.

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