Fatherhood is a psychedelic experience

My wife gave birth on June 24, 2026. Before she gave birth, I would describe myself as helplessly ambitious, obsessed with abstract, inconsequential cognitive games (debating ideas with friends and reading/writing nonfiction and autobiographical poetry), and calmly hedonistic. I’m using hedonism here literally, to mean ‘avoiding suffering and optimizing pleasure’. I wasn’t partying or having crazy carnal experiences or anything. But I was spending a lot of time on my phone looking at stupid things for no reason, playing videogames half-assedly while half-watching something on TV, checking my blog analytics constantly for validation, etc. These were all attempts to avoid boredom, thinking about my life, or being truly present in a world I found both intolerably uneventful and out of control. After the birth of my son Frank (not his real name - rather, what I wanted to name him; I was overruled by my wife who I strongly believe deserved final say), I’m feeling/behaving quite…