I was gonna save this for tomorrow, but my Astro.com free daily horoscope claims that today is my “astrological birthday” even though tomorrow is my actual one, whatever the hell that means.

So yeah, tomorrow I turn 25 and that’s cool I guess. Birthdays and ages usually don’t seem very significant to me. But this one finally does. Maybe it’s the whole quarter-century mark. I guess I feel like I’m finally “getting somewhere” like in my life and with who I am and stuff. And on the one hand it’s really cool, because I feel like I’m getting to this place in my life where my inner and outer selves are really meshing together, and a lot of power and good stuff is being sort of unleashed by that happening. But it’s certainly no walk in the park. There’s still all kinds of turmoil and uncertainty and stuff that’s as yet unfulfilled.

I had this conversation with various friends over the course of my trip, and everybody had slightly different insights on it. Probably my biggest one was this: when I was 20 years old, my life was structured according to my ideals. Lofty, grandiose, and in the end completely impractical. Or maybe I just went about executing them incorrectly. There’s no sense crying over spilled milk really, but rigidly trying to follow ideals just straight up flopped. Since then though, I’ve built up something else in its place: instinct. This is what I think being 25 is all about for me. Honing my instincts, and following them pretty much blindly to hell and back.

The thing about instincts is this: that if you don’t follow them, you always regret it, no matter the outcome. You end up at war with yourself. But if you do follow instincts, you never sell yourself out. Even if shit doesn’t go your way, you did it. You took the plunge. You followed your heart. And even if you end up all depressed or screwed over, there’s this like weird underlying satisfaction to the whole thing. It’s like even when you’re beaten, you’re never beat. Whereas when you don’t follow your instincts, and you succeed, you’re still beaten, and your success gradually shows itself as being hollow.

This is my bible. This is how I’m trying to live my life at 25. It’s goddamned hard most of the time. It’s so easy to get confused, and to make decisions out of fear rather than out of the instincts in your heart. Its also really hard, because you’re totally alone when you’re doing it. Other people can’t feel your instincts, and it’s rare that you can explain them to anybody. It’s the path of ultimate loneliness in that way. Until the people around you start to catch on to what you’re doing, and start to be able to trust you to do whatever it is you’re doing. But maybe even more difficult than that though is being able to trust yourself through all of it. Nah, not just maybe. That’s definitely the hardest part of the whole thing. Trusting yourself.

The whole thing sounds totally illogical, I know. Shit like “the path of ultimate loneliness” and being satisfied when you fuck up. Sounds totally contradictory and impossible. But it fucking works. I swear. I feel like every day I’m better than I was the day before, even if just in some small way. It’s constant progress. The only times when I really feel bad now are when I do shit out of fear (or don’t), when I don’t listen to myself and I don’t trust myself. All the rest is bullshit. All the other suffering is nothing in comparison to that.

The other really hard part of the whole thing is being totally blind. Especially to the future. The future is one of those things most people build strictly out of fear and resistance against change, all the while calling it “security”. Sure I think making yourself secure and building your base is really important. But for me that can’t ever compromise my ability to follow my guts and to change everything at the drop of a hat, if that’s what’s called for.

It’s like living on the edge of a cliff in some sense. At 25, I wonder if that feeling ever goes away. If the uncertainty is ever resolved. If you ever finally manage to make it all work together. My instincts say yes - resoundingly - although my fears would have me believe otherwise.