Crash Early, Crash Often (Ribbonfarm Roughs Book 3)

by Venkatesh G. Rao

You might have your ups and downs, but if you’re not royally screwing up, chances are you’ll gradually take care of the lower layers and hit diminishing returns with each, causing the bottleneck to shift upwards slowly. The self actualization imperative will grow from an occasional pinprick that you only notice on unsatisfying vacations after the third pina colada, to a stab of misery every weekend, to a daily bout of angst, and ultimately into a continuously growing sense of dissatisfaction that prevents you from functioning at all. If you’re really lucky, you might get away with just a short mid-life crisis before the health concerns of an aging body drag you down to the physiological layer again. If you enjoy robust good health, financial security and satisfying relationships, you’re likely headed for a kind of psychological trouble our technologically less-advanced forebears never had to deal with in their less imaginative times.