View source for 2018.txt

{{Infobox video
| title = 2018.txt
| image = 2018 thumbnail.jpg
| video-title = 2018.txt
| creator = Jadus
| channel = [[Jadusable]]
| upload-date = April 7, 2020
| runtime = 5:59
| tags = N/A
| game = N/A
| previous-video = [[CHILDREN.wmv]]
| next-video = [[THE FATHER.wmv]]
}}{{Quote|"Back then I was so comfortable I devoted excessive amounts of my free time to worrying about abstract things - stuff that I had no control over at all - and it really used to bother me. Maybe I'm the lucky one now, after all.|Jadus|[[2018.txt]]}}
'''2018.txt''' is the tenth video of ''[[Awakening (arc)|Awakening]]'' and the thirtieth video in ''[[Ben Drowned]]''. It is preceded by [[CHILDREN.wmv]] and followed by [[THE FATHER.wmv]].

== Synopsis ==
Jadus speaks more about his past as he sits by the digital fireside. He discusses his younger self's tendency for being dramatic and how lucky he would soon become after the yet-unknown cataclysmic event.

== Video ==
<center><youtube>EKr4oj-LBdE</youtube></center>

=== Description ===
N/A

=== Transcript ===
Text that has been <s>struck through</s> denotes text that was deleted.

Over sounds of rain and a crackling fireplace, Jadus types the following:

* I find another message I wrote myself a long time ago, I think this one was from 2018. I had just bought a home with my wife and we were settled in - I had everything a young man could want in life - but I remember those lingering feelings of dissatisfaction even as we signed the papers. I was checking off all the boxes of things a modern American should have, and I was too scared to admit to anyone that it wasn't making me any happier.
The perspective shifts to Jadus from the past.
* ''"Another late night.''
* ''My wife is asleep in the bedroom and I finally have the house to myself. I love the way the fireplace crackles in approval when I feed it. There is a certain peace I get staying up when the rest of the world is asleep. It gives me more time to think about my life and sets a pause button on everything else.''
* ''I always ruminate too hard on it though. I strain myself to find an answer to that big question - you know the one. In some kind of misguided hope - likely molded by my ego - I have the hubris to think that I could make sense of it al. As if there's something hard-coded into our consciousness that upon solving the right internal equation, some new path forward gets unlocked. Trying to find that mythical equation has become less of a hobby and more of a religion lately.''
* ''<nowiki>'I exist!!'</nowiki>''
* ''I want to cry out to whoever might be <s>watching</s> listening.''
* ''<nowiki>'I'm not like everyone else!! I'm here! I'm REAL!'</nowiki>''
* ''But what would be the point? Life doesn't work like that. Even if <s>it</s> I were to grab the attention of someone -'' '''something''' ''- beyond my comprehension... how would that separate me from the thousands of others who have tried the same thing?''
* ''Nowadays I opt to not say anything instead. With a frown I do what I always do - turn and thumb through my phone, trying to find the next piece of dopamine to mine to make me forget about my existential moping. Drinking doesn't cut it for me anymore, so that's off the table. Maybe a new TV show? What about a videogame? Sex?''
* ''I know the hard truth though, all of those misleading trails lead back to this same feeling eventually. Escape from it is ultimately impossible.''
* ''Part of me feels like it knows - or at the very least - feels like it has enough of a rough idea of what to expect from the rest of the human experience. I've had health, I've been poor. I've drank some of the finest wine and slept with some of the finest women - or so my ego would like me to think. I can ride it out but truth be told I'd rather skip ahead to the end of the book and find out what's next. I can't help but eagerly want to move onto what comes after - the next plateau - so I can play for real, play for meaning. Play for'' <s>'''''SOMETHING'''''</s> <s>''somet''</s> '''''something'''''. ''I can't seem to find many things worth playing for here - I've gotten everything I've really wanted, for the most part. I can't seem to become enraptured with the kinds of things that most other people my age seem to chase, and I think that's the biggest obstacle for me.''
* ''I envy those that can doggedly pursue vanity and wealth because I just can't seem to. I mean, I can, and I have - <s>f</s> at least for a little bit. But only enough to provide for myself and my family and our immediate wants. I'll never get how people can zero in and never get bored of that pursuit. I wish I could be more like them. Are they all just pretending to care about those things too? Did they all start out like me, and did it just get easier to want to chase those things with practice?''
* ''When I try to run away from this feeling it nags at me - tugging at my synapses like a rapidly approaching due date.''
* ''<nowiki>'Find a meaning!'</nowiki> it seems to scream at me with a sense of urgency.''
* ''Maybe that's the reason why it's so paralyzing - I feel an obligation to find some kind of answer. Puttering around aimlessly in a self-pitying, existential stupor helps no one, least of all me.''
* ''I can hear my wife toss and turn in our bed. She sleeps better when I'm holding her, and this is surely close to the thousandth attempt of mine to out-think this unsolvable riddle. We can put a thumb mark in it for now."''
The perspective shifts back to the present.
* The prose was a little on the ''needlessly dramatic'' side - as it always tended to be with my writing - but I remember that sentiment all too well of feeling unfulfilled. I really didn't know how incredibly easy I had it back then - back when having food in the refrigerator was an afterthought and nights were spent comfortably indulging in various vices. Back then I was so comfortable I devoted excessive amounts of my free time to worrying about abstract things - stuff that I had no control over at all - and it really used to bother me.
* Maybe I'm the lucky one now, after all.
* I thumb through towards the last message that I've saved...

As the last sentence is typed, we hear what appears to be someone standing, grabbing a fire iron and stoking a fireplace before sitting again.

== Notes ==
* This video appears to confirm that the societal collapse did not occur until at least 2018.
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