The Secret to My Success

Dear diary,

People wonder how I remain so successful. Here’s the secret:

I plant all my own crops. I go out and work the field during one part of the year, and then I reap what I’ve sown during another part of the year. Somewhere between these focused periods of work come the rains: Where I live, we get the early rains in October and November, and the latter rains around March and April.

Rejoice in JUPITER your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the latter rain as well. (Joel 2:23)

So that’s how I get all my potatoes. And also I plant spinach, and tomatoes, and orange peppers, and peas. I also make croutons for myself, and tortillas for wraps and burritos — even the black beans inside the burritos were grown by me: I harvest and store everything that I need to eat. I make my own vodka. I also dug an irrigation ditch, and I constructed a fountain, so I always have fresh water.

I went out into the woods and found a goat. Then, the next day, I went out and found another goat; and I lured these two goats to mate, and now I have a team of goats. I make all my milk, butter, & cheese from these goats of mine. And I only rarely slaughter one of them for the meat, which I roast. Also I freeze what I cannot eat — I built my own refrigerator, using materials and chemicals that I found in the land nearby.

I use the coats of the goats that I slaughter to make my clothing, so my robes are all genuine goat-hair (except for the one that is sheep-hair: more on that later). Also I plant and pick my own cotton, to make all my shirts and kilts. I also make my own nylon.

The wood that my house is made from was chopped down by me. Here’s how I did it:

I went out into the same forest where I found my first two goats. I swung my sword at the cedar that was standing before me; then I yelled “Timber!” and the tree came plunging down to the ground. (You’ll have to imagine me repeating this same action multiple times; for my house required many trees to be felled — I’m just relaying the story of the initial felling.) I then used an axe to hack this vast log into lengthy support beams, which I employed for the frame of my house. I used a handsaw to saw these beams, and I secured all the wood together with nails. The saw and nails I manufactured by myself as well, using a forge that I built from bricks and other materials that I collected or created.

Also I always cut & style my own hair.

The fuel for my automobile comes from the derrick that I set up in the backyard, over there by the storage shed. I pump the crude oil out of the earth, and then I refine it. I built my car out of steel, which I milled myself — I mined the iron ore from the nearby mountain range & smelted it in blast furnaces where the impurities were removed; then I added some carbon: most of these latter steps were performed in the aforesaid forge. It’s good-quality steel; that’s why my car’s so heavy. It’s a real gas-guzzler.

Also I have a number of banana trees; and I keep chickens so that I can eat their eggs. Or maybe I shouldn’t use the word “keep” because I don’t confine or constrict these chickens in any way: they can come and go as they please — often they wander into the woods, and eat bugs there; and they hop around happily in the lawn up front or out back; sometimes they follow me into the house and stare at the TV (I leave the TV on, albeit muted, for all the livestock to enjoy: they seem to like the channel that continuously displays clears streams of water flowing — the images never stop: they keep dissolving from stream to river to creek to brook...); I hand-crafted my own TV by using the exocarp and husk of a couple coconuts for its casing, and then I just fastened a cathode ray-tube in the middle.

The soap that I use to keep myself clean (I am a very cleanly person) comes from the fat of animals. I read somewhere that soap is made out of fats and oils that react with lye; so I got myself some tallow and some lard (there are plenty of cattle and hogs in our woods, which I occasionally make use of), and I whipped up a big vat of soap, which I’ve used ever since. I’ve never once had to refill it; that’s how large the reservoir is. And later I discovered that the book where I read about this soap-making process was actually written and published by me myself, some years ago — I had forgotten about authoring it, because it didn’t mean much to me at the time; but it turns out that the knowledge I preserved in those pages came in handy. I also did the typesetting myself. And I distributed the book with my distribution company; and I devised my own marketing plan, which was not only ingenious but effective — my ad campaign caused Soapmaking for Rugged Individuals to become an instant bestseller, not to mention a classic: it got added to the official Western Canon.

Also, in the rare case that I get injured, I always just mend myself back to health. Once I broke my leg when I fell off my roof (I was re-shingling it on account of hail damage), so I bandaged my leg and poured balm on it, and it healed in six weeks. And when I got the avian flu, I figured out how to make a vaccine, which ended up curing me. Plus common colds don’t even affect me — I just drink them away: for, as I mentioned above, I manufacture my own vodka.

Anything wool that I own, such as the great overcoat that I wear when I deliver my annual sermon to the marketplace, comes from the wild sheep that live in the woods — I shear them every summer.

& if you get a chance to visit me, you will notice that the decor in my abode is almost entirely ruby-red glass. I made all this myself. You can create glass by heating ordinary sand until it melts and liquefies. Then I just add a special ingredient, which I will not name for you (it’s a mystery that I vowed never to reveal); and that causes the molten sand to turn red. The forge that I made can reach incredibly high temperatures; I’ve found that the sand from our local beach melts at about 4000°F. And the gems that you see embedded within the glass as accents here and there are actual rubies, which I mined myself in Burma.

You might wonder why I live alone, why I have no family, no children. “Wouldn’t you want at least an heir to continue your legacy?” visitors ask me. “No,” I answer: “When I die, my atoms will go back into the mud, and someone else will come along and take all this stuff that I invented, and use it for their own ends. I’m at peace with this.”

For there is a man whose labour is in wisdom, and in knowledge, and in equity; yet to a man that hath not laboured therein shall he leave it for his portion. This is good. (Ecclesiastes 2:21)

Plus it doesn’t bother me to be left unburied when I die, because I already fathered 100 children; & they’re scattered all over the world now. That was something I did when I was younger: In my mid-twenties, I decided to try out the life of fatherhood, because I had heard so many excellent things about it. So I begat 100 children with various damsels. None of us ever officially entered wedlock; but I’m still on good terms with them all — we’re all still in love, to tell you the truth. I just prefer to live alone, without all my soul-mates and offspring.

I enjoyed raising my sons (all 100 births just happened to be male) — I taught them the best poetry, and together we hunted antelope in the forest. But at a certain point, I could tell that the fellows were ready to gang up and slay me. Maybe it’s a phase that boys enter, when they reach a certain age: the land just doesn’t seem big enough for the both of us — a son begins to hate his father. We’re like two old grizzlies in a cave. Or 201 grizzlies, if you count all their mothers and me. So I told my men:

“Go away now. Let me live my life alone, without you: I hereby disown you. Do not mourn, when you hear of my death: do not attend my funeral. Leave me unburied, here on the mud — I don’t mind it: I’m tough.”

And I dug a hole in the backyard soil, about six feet deep; and I built a beautiful coffin out of wood, for myself to sleep in...

But then I had a change of mind: so I burnt up the coffin, and I filled in the grave-hole with ashes. I resolved to die in the same manner in which I’ve lived: no-frills and self-sufficiently. Therefore, whoever stumbles upon my abandoned Empire can claim it for their own — finders keepers. And let my corpse rot where it fell.

There is a blessing which I have seen under the sun: God gives a man riches, wealth, & honour, so that he lacks nothing for his soul of all that he desires. This man begets a hundred children, & lives many years; yet, after all, he has no burial: He comes into this life with vanity, & departs in darkness, & his name is covered with darkness.
     God then causes a stranger to approach & possess the kingdom of the deceased. Yea, though the deceased has lived a thousand years twice over, he inherits nothing: for do not all end up in the same place? (Ecclesiastes 6:1-6)

So that’s the secret to success: Make all your own food and clothing; build your own house — be industrious. Invest wisely, and father many children. Then banish all heirs from your estate before they can slay you. For I warn you, they will consume you. Then just learn to let go: Cherish your memories of animal husbandry, carpentry, masonry, metalworking, and auto-manufacturing. But let it all go, the same way that you exhale your breath tens of thousands of times per day. You’ve been practicing this grand finale all along, unawares.

Also it’s very important not to dig your own grave or bury yourself in a coffin. You can light yourself on fire, if that’s your fancy; but if you can’t take the heat, just lie down to rest on the wet soil outside, near the air-conditioning unit that you built with your own bare hands. If you have any deeds or records of ownership for any of your property, land or otherwise, destroy them before expiring: either shred them or jettison them into space. Lack of official documentation about your life will confuse the heck out of potential biographers.

Lastly, if you live near an ocean, you can make your own salt by gathering up your ruby-glass jugs, which you shaped earlier from molten silicon dioxide, and submersing them till they are brimming; then dump the water into a large pot through cheesecloth to remove any debris, and boil it until just a tithe of the liquid remains.