Final Post

San Francisco, California

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It’s been months since I last wrote a post.

It’d be easy to say I got busy.

It’d be dishonest to say I couldn’t write.

In between surgery and feeling sorry for myself – a few things have changed. And I am excited about what’s on the horizon.

Something new.

Something unexpected.

Coming soon.

But getting here - to this point, at this cafe in San Francisco - has forced me to think about the journey itself. About the path to now.

Last spring, I had a plan.

Not a casual plan. Not a vague aspiration either. It was structured, deliberate, and earned. It came with goals, milestones, dates, reservations – lots of pins on Google Maps.

Planes. Trains. Buses. Cars. Boats. Hitch Hiking. Rickshaws. Buggies. Tuk Tuks. Motorbikes. Pedal Bikes. Other.

And Walking.

It was the kind of plan you make when you believe – reasonably – that with enough discipline, intent, and irresponsible credit card limits – you can bend time to your will.

Not dramatically.

Quietly.

Poetically.

Clinically.

And then my body broke.

An ankle. A knee. An elbow.

Very frustrating. Very recoverable.

Though I am learning recovery doesn’t always respect my sense of urgency.

When it happened – standing on a mountain, the snow-capped Pyrenees in one direction and my sense of destiny in the other – I was furious. Not some cool, reflective kind of furious.

Just pissed.

I was angry at the interruption.

Angry that something deeply personal – something deeply symbolic – was suddenly impossible.

Worse – I had to own it.

In a world that increasingly treats ‘lived truths’ as exemptions from accountability, my truth is simpler:

There is no version of this story where it’s someone else’s fault.

No alternate reality where I get to blame circumstances or bad luck.

No – I’m not beating myself up about it. And – no – I’m not outsourcing responsibility either. I made a mistake. That’s it. That sucks.

I told myself the usual lies. I tried to convince myself it was “unfair” – as if that concept even means anything to an adult. I tried to tell myself this was happening “to me” – life was somehow derailing my master plan.

That was a childish endeavor.

And it was wrong.

Months have passed now. Surgery is behind me – a few more remain ahead. The nice thing about surgery though – it’s only pain.

I’ll take that any day over the alternative – regret.

Doing something and it not working out is far more preferable than never trying in the first place.

With real distance from the incident – legitimate distance, not the fake kind dressed up as optimism – I could see what I could not see then.

The plan failed.

The execution was a disaster.

But the idea did not.

That difference matters.

The injury forced me to be still.

Not in a curated, Tibetan kind of way that people talk about on podcasts - the uncomfortable kind.

The kind where you are forced to look in the mirror and acknowledge what you see.

The kind where you are stripped of motion and left with yourself.

No heroic forward movement. No heroic progress. No measurable wins.

Just days asking the same question over and over:

“What will you do with what you have right now?”

At first, the answer was nothing. Ken Burns documentaries. Sulking. Internal rage. Waiting for time to somehow reverse itself.

Sadly, it’s amazing how easy it is to feel sorry for yourself.

Then something shifted.

Boredom gave way to curiosity.

Curiosity – almost reluctantly - gave way to creativity.

A desire to learn.

To build.

To be present.

Together with one of my closest friends, I began working on something I’d postponed for years. Not because it wasn’t important – but because it didn’t fit neatly into the old plan.

It demanded patience. Depth. Attention. Presence.

Things I was neither willing to invest nor commit.

Things I now am.

Had I been healthy, mobile, and racing toward my original goal – I would never have given it what it deserved.

And what it deserved – well that’s everything I have.

That’s the uncomfortable truth.

We like to believe progress comes from forward motion. Setbacks are detours. Interruptions are enemies.

But sometimes the interruption is an invitation – one you would have ignored if it had arrived politely. Announcing itself more delicately.

The injury was not my plan.

But it didn’t ruin my trajectory.

It simply refined it.

What I am building now (with my friend) – what will be released shortly – exists only because the original plan collapsed.

This does not mean the pain was “worth it.” I reject that type of framing – there’s not an ROI calculation with that sort of stuff. Pain doesn’t require justification.

Loss does not require a moral bow tied around it.

But meaning can still emerge.

The mistake we make is assuming meaning must look like compensation. If something is taken, something of equal value must be given back.

Life – however – is not a series of transactions.

It’s editorial.

It cuts. Rearranges. Edits.

It leaves certain sentences unfinished so that a better story can be written later.

This is the last installment of The Professional Alchemist. Not because the work is finished – but because this chapter is.

Alchemy – at its core – has never really been about turning lead into gold.

It's about transformation under pressure.

About what survives the fire. About what becomes possible only after something changes.

I am not who I was when I wrote the first piece.

I am not where I intended to be.

This wasn’t the dream I had.

And I am – strangely, curiously, definitively – exactly where I am supposed to be.

And I'm thankful and appreciative for that gift.

Before this chapter closes…

I want to say that if you’re in the middle of a derailment right now - I won’t insult you by calling it a blessing.

But I will offer you this: Plans are fragile. Purpose is not.

Sometimes things have to stop – transform – so that life can catch up.

Transformation. Survival. Becoming.

Alchemy.