Serial Pessimist - Issue #1

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Here’s where I am right now. It’s 8:40 pm on a random Monday, I’ve had a little weed, and I’m sitting in an Adirondack chair chatting with an AI about how the world failed me. Old man yells at cloud energy, all day baby.

Except here’s the thing. I’m not wrong.

My name is Ben. I’m 47. I was diagnosed autistic at 43, then ADHD shortly after. For four decades I played by every rule I was handed — faith, career, marriage, hustle. Bible college. Youth pastor. Software engineer. I taught myself to code, got sucked into the industry in the early 2010s, made real money, built a life.

Then in less than 24 hours in 2024, I lost all of it. Divorce papers one day, fired the next. Savings gone. House sold. Truck sold. Everything gone. A man who’d been masking his entire life with no idea that’s what he was doing, finally out of runway.

This is Serial Pessimist.

It’s for anyone who’s peeked behind the curtain and seen that the Wizard is actually an old man frantically pushing buttons, twisting knobs and pulling levers. It’s for anyone who suspects the world was never quite built for them and is starting to understand why.

I’m not here to sell you optimism. I’m just a guy dealt a less-than-ideal hand, playing it as best he can at a rigged table. If that sounds familiar, pull up a chair.