The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck

CHAPTER 9
. . . And Then You Die
Seek the truth for yourself, and I will meet you there.”
That was the last thing Josh ever said to me. He said it ironically,
attempting to sound deep while simultaneously making fun of people who
attempt to sound deep. He was drunk and high. And he was a good friend.
The most transformational moment of my life occurred when I was
nineteen years old. My friend Josh had taken me to a party on a lake just
north of Dallas, Texas. There were condos on a hill and below the hill was a
pool, and below the pool was a cliff overlooking the lake. It was a small cliff,
maybe thirty feet high—certainly high enough to give you a second thought
about jumping, but low enough that with the right combination of alcohol and
peer pressure that second thought could easily vanish.
Shortly after arriving at the party, Josh and I sat in the pool together,
drinking beers and talking as young angsty males do. We talked about
drinking and bands and girls and all of the cool stuff Josh had done that
summer since dropping out of music school. We talked about playing in a
band together and moving to New York City—an impossible dream at the
time.
We were just kids.
“Is it okay to jump off that?” I asked after a while, nodding toward the
cliff over the lake.
“Yeah,” Josh said, “people do it all the time here.”
“Are you going to do it?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. We’ll see.”
Later in the evening, Josh and I got separated. I had become distracted by
a pretty Asian girl who liked video games, which to me, as a teenage nerd,
was akin to winning the lottery. She had no interest in me, but she was