anyone else ever sit in one of those really fancy offices you know the ones with the big windows and the art that probably cost more than your first car and just feel this DEEP sense of misalignment i mean i'm 76 now and working part-time gigs cleaning houses sometimes or helping people organize their closets it’s enough to keep the lights on most months but it’s definitely not the life i envisioned for myself back when i was 38 you know sitting in my corporate law office high above the city it was late i remember the city lights just twinkling like a scattered handful of diamonds below me and i was staring at this landscape painting a very calming scene a forest with a stream running through it all cool greens and browns very different from the fluorescent hum of my office the air was thick with the smell of stale coffee and printer ink and i was supposed to be reviewing this enormous contract for some merger that honestly felt utterly meaningless my father he was a park ranger his whole life lived in a small cabin just outside one of the national parks his office was the forest the mountains the sky he knew the names of every tree every bird the way the seasons changed the light on the water he used to take me fishing sometimes when i was a boy just sit there in companionable silence with our lines in the water the only sound the chirping of crickets or the rustle of leaves i remember one time i was maybe ten we were walking through this clearing and he pointed out a deer a doe with her fawn grazing just on the edge of the treeline he whispered look son that’s what real wealth looks like that’s what matters not all the papers and the meetings that just make people unhappy and there i was 38 years old in my fancy suit my expensive watch the endless stack of papers on my desk the phone ringing every ten minutes i was so good at it too at the law the arguments the strategy the parsing of clauses i was always praised for my analytical precision my ability to see the angles but it was all just so...