Whatever you might try, people will tell you well, that’s wrong, that’s useless, besides, what’s important is optimizing at the next level up, or what’s important is some damn thing that explains why you’re not thriving and there’s an intense pain in your ass, but the fact is that the universe is always at least complex, quite possibly chaotic, and there are a near-infinity of forces acting on you and maybe I’m in a smooth spot called privilege and maybe you’re in a very deep hole called I don’t know, whatever your very deep hole is called, and maybe I’ve got smooth water and a great boat and a perfect paddle while you’re barely floating and you’ve got a popsicle stick and everything I write about how to use a paddle means bupkis to you because you’ve got a goddamn popsicle stick going down the Youghiogheny and the fact is that “god rolls dice with the universe” is a damn good fit to how truly on the edge of chaos life is so basically maybe you are screwed, maybe we are all screwed, and sooner or later some cell in our body is gonna pop and we’ll die horribly but you’ve got that goddamn popsicle stick and you get to decide — you’ve got to decide — how to use it to improve your situation.