This isn't a new idea, though it is mostly a new post.  I've written similar ones to it, but I don't think I've ever let them survive to be seen. 

I am mostly the same person I was back when I graduated from high school.  I still like the same things, I still play the same games - or at least am still interested in the same games, I still read the same books, watch the same kinds of shows, and listen to the same music.  But.  I am older, and if not wiser, then I am more bitter and less hopeful about the future.  I am less blinded by optimism and more guarded in my feelings.  But my beliefs about right and wrong haven't changed much at all. 

And so, the old me is still here, not so far away from the me that I am today.  He looks at me and is often disgusted.  I am often disgusted with myself.  Yeah, he understands that I've been injured, for example.  He knows I don't get around as easily as I used to.  But he wouldn't accept the life I lead, though he'd probably understand me being as antisocial as I am sometimes.  Even he liked being alone more than he liked being with others.

But this... the existence I lead - non-productive, non-fun, non-functional existence would kill him.  It kills me.  It shames me that I contribute so little to my own existence.  It shames me even more that I have so little an excuse for my lack of productivity.  The words of some cut deeply - Who do I think I am, believing I know something when I do so little?

I don't have an answer, but I more often believe they're right. 

- Jim