Araz Gholami

Hello Araz,

Today, when I woke up, I felt like I had things I wanted to tell you. To the one I wake up early for, who starts working hours before sunrise. After all, I know you better than anyone else. I’ve lived 25 of your 35 years.

Where did your 4 a.m. wake-ups get you? Did you finally pull yourself out of this generational trap? Were you right, or those who woke up at 10? Was life worth it or not?

Do you still make life hard for yourself? Do you still feel responsible for every good and bad thing? Did you finally forget the guy who missed the bus, or are you still upset about it? Do you still archive your life? How big is your hard drive now? 100 terabytes? 100 terabytes of memories, photos, and videos of every useless moment?

I hope you’ve stuck to your principles and still haven’t taken the easy way out. I hope you still believe that staying mindful all day is rare and thinking at night is necessary. Have you proven that quitting is possible, not giving up? Have you silenced the pompous crowd, or did you become one of them? Do you still think scandal is better than blending in, or did you become like all the robots: work in the morning, eat at noon, sleep at night?

What about love? Are you stuck with someone from your past, or did you move on? I’m sure you didn’t get far with this one. By that age, half your hair is probably gray, your eyes weak. Sitting alone in a house, collecting stamps. Was loneliness better?

What about your ideas? Your endless list of startups, each one collapsing after the next? Did you find investors, or did you end up like thousands of factory workers with computer science degrees? Honestly, we never understood why you got that degree. I hope you did and it helped you.

So, did you go or stay? Did you choose misery here or hardship over there? Maybe now you’ve dyed your hair to fit in there. Can you even read this, or is it “cant speak”?

I hope that when you get this letter, you’re not alive, at least flattened in the dirt, and your body collected by a truck. I hope you proved I was right to kill you, and that you didn’t deserve to live.

ًRegards, Yourself, at 4 a.m., Monday, April 16, 2018.