Do you ever wonder how people do it? How people get out of bed every morning, and go to work, and walk, and think, and digest food, and sometimes even raise children, for God’s sake? And you don’t even need to be talented to do it. You just need to be a human being. How do people do it?

And meanwhile, here I am, and my life isn’t all that bad but doesn’t feel all that terrific either, and I can’t seem to figure out why everyone seems to be so much more talented than I am. Sometimes I wonder why my parents made me skip seventh grade and why I became pre-med before quitting it to become a history major and why I eventually spent three years and $50,000 on law school. I can’t seem to figure out how to live life. And yet everyone else in the world seems to be making their way, step by step. Why did I do everything I did? Why did I waste my time?

I was riding on the train from Trenton back up to Newark, reading The Object of My Affection after having dozed off for a while, and it struck me that most people’s lives aren’t all that exciting and that everyone’s life is far from perfect. And nobody has to be perfect. If you’ve survived until the end of the day, you’ll wake up the next. People put one foot in front of the other, over and over and over again, day after day and year after year. People try to quit smoking or buy a house or be happy.

I’m reading this book and I’m thinking, what are these characters so upset about? Are they even upset, or are they just feeling kind of blah? None of their problems really seem to matter. They’re humorous and entertaining. It feels as normal as an Anne Tyler novel. And I think, if my life were a book, my problems would seem mundane and humorous and entertaining too. And really, what are my problems right now? I want to find a new apartment. I want to find a new career path. It’s the same things that everyone deals with, nothing special. And if it doesn’t take great brains to put one foot in front of the other, or to give birth, or even to become president, then why should it require an inexhaustible supply of talent in order to solve my current problems? It doesn’t take talent. All it takes is energy. One foot in front of the other.

Somehow it feels more complicated. It’s not a novel. It’s me. And I worry about consequences.

If I could dissociate myself from my life, watch myself on a video screen and control myself with a joystick, it would be so much easier to take actions. It would just be so much easier to do things.