It's downpour outside, buckets of water. Month three of life sabbatical drags to a close. More conclusions, fewer answers, as it were. The exterior matches the interior.

Part of getting better at any part of life, short of lightening bolt inspiration restricted maybe to television interior decorators, is surrounding yourself with people who are doing things better. Lowest common denominator communities encourage mediocrity. I am currently surrounded by very few people who by their presence challenge me to improve anything, and am worried about losing more traction. This will change a little when I'm back in my normal office in a week, but it's important not to anesthetize, to lose sight of this happening right now.

I would describe adolescence as an exercise in resistance. Exhausting, in the end. As a result, I was a vacuum of literature and then pop culture, collecting missives from people who were doing things better somewhere in the world. Because how we were living felt so empty. And when I wasn't hoarding information, I was wasted. Not alcoholic need to drink wasted, but wasted because it passed the time and numbed the questioning. Last night I was walking home, buzzed, and it felt so familiar, the total reprieve.

As I'm writing this, I'm thinking that "life isn't about improvement" so maybe to rephrase that, life is about growth. Nature in and of itself grows until it dies. There's the romantic notion of wisdom - the result of a long growing process, knowledge like seeds to be sown a the end of life. That was one of the first things I wanted to be when I grew up, wise.

Growth and happiness are it, and have serious interplay. That's why wise elderly people tend to be so unexplainably happy, maybe. I'm not sure either are happening here.