He moves to Slovakia, I move to Slovakia.

He becomes a teacher, I become a teacher.

He gets a phd, I get a phd (the only difference being that I have an actual passion for the topic I’m researching, there, had to throw in that sneer)

If we play a game my first objective is not that I win, but that he loses.

I wish him all kinds of success, as long as the net result is that he’s eternally slightly less succesful than me. (Could we agree on this in the form of a contract? Thanks!)

He earns x euros, I need to earn x euros plus y euros.

Why am I doing this???

Ok, ok, without him I wouldn’t have driven myself forward so much, I think, I guess. I owe him pretty much everything I have going for me in my life right now. I would never have met my wife if it wasn’t for him. And that’s just one example.

If you attack him, I’ll attack you. If you insult him, I’ll get you for it, it might take me a long time, but I’ll get you for it. However, I insult him pretty much every time I see him and right now, on this blog. Best friend privilege!

Why do I do that?

It’s not healthy, it’s insane.

I don’t want to see him. Suppose he’s now fluent in japanese? How I going to schedule learning Japanese into my already scorchingly ambitious daily routine?

I hope we can retire together, never compare our career, and play lots of board games in the retirement home, but what to do in the mean time??

I think about him every day. Mostly it hurts my stomach. Like ambition is fuel, floating around in my stomach, and thoughts of him are burning napalm torches dropping into my stomach.

What is envy?

An nauseating feeling indicating that someone else has what you want and you’re afraid you aren’t capable or lucky or connected enough or whatever to get it too.

Nurturing envy thus becomes signalling to yourself that you can’t get what you desire.

The best reaction to envy is wishing the person that has the thing you desire all the best, cheering him on. This signals to your brain that you can accomplish it too.

For me, this works, but it’s a tiresome and continuous exercise, so I’d rather take a break from it and not hear how he’s doing.

Except if he’s in big trouble, because helping him out any which way I can is no problem. I don’t want him to be in big trouble. Also, I like the role of the knight in shining armor who comes to the rescue. Nomen est omen. My name, William, means willful protector. I like that. It caresses my ego.

He’s my best friend because he accepts me for who I am really.

And he’s my best enemy or at least brings out something dark inside of me, because he drives me on with his tireless accomplishing of all sorts of stuff.

Something bizarre in all this compairing, is the fact that accomplishments I have in areas he’s not involved in at all, don’t go into the equation. He could never be a therapist for example, too little empathy to work with. But in my head, when I compare, this doesn’t count. I only compare myself to him in fields we are both active in. This sets me up for defeat as it narrows down the playing field to only his playing field, his turf.

I notice this extremely proud streak in myself: I do not want to meet my friends unless I can present them with the perfect vision I have of myself. When I’m down, when I’m not satisfied with myself, I hide myself from them. This is similar to the way Hitler only showed himself to the public when things were going right. Unlike Churchill who showed himself when things were looking very badly. Which makes me conclude: it’s a weakness, a flaw to hide when things are not going exactly the way I would like them to go.

At the moment I don’t want to correct this flaw and want to hibernate a bit further. At least they get the full and honest account of how I’m doing on this blog if they really want to know.

In the mean time, I want to do this:

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