Ballast on the Way to Eudaimonia

A Diaries Against Dystopia Essay Series

DOMINO

Chaos.

Although domino stones fall in a certain direction, taking their neighbors down one by one in an ordered manner, chaos is produced. Noise, movement, collapse. At least as long as the cascading continues.

Some people make art with dominoes. Elaborate setups. Beautiful patterns. But only AFTER the collapse. During the fall? It's just chaos.

And in the case of this particular domino match — this transformation journey — there were only chaotic patterns and massive stones. So big, you couldn't see the setup. The tyranny of the self. The guilt/shame loop. The doomscrolling and procrastination. Sedation as survival. Addictions stacked like walls.

I needed to push against the first stone. It wouldn't move an inch.

I caught a bloody nose. A concussion. I pushed again.

Eventually, it started to tremble.

Would it crush me? Or would it fall and open the view to the pattern underneath?

I didn't know. I still don't know.

But I pushed anyway.

And when that first stone finally fell, the rest followed. Not all at once. Not cleanly. But in sequence. One triggering the next. Ordered chaos. A cascade I couldn't stop even if I wanted to.

This is the story of four dominoes that fell between November 2025 and now. Four pieces of ballast on the way to eudaimonia — Aristotle's concept of human flourishing through habit and virtue.

Let's see what collapsed.

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ALCOHOL

Enough. Finally enough.

Those were my thoughts one morning when I woke up with that headache, the indescribable numb feeling from too much beer, and the instant guilty conscience that tells you: "you've been a bad guy again."

I'll spare you the aftermath, which was brutal but healthy.

I'll spare you the story you'd probably laugh about — the one where I'm the drunken "hero" making an ass of myself again.

I'll spare you the vision of myself in a few years: pissing my pants, alone and frustrated and angry and probably out of money to buy the next drink.

I cannot spare you the "eureka" moment though.

"This time for real. I don't want to end up like this, and I don't want to be drunk ever again."

That's what I told myself. That's what I wrote down. Not quite the epiphany, but the moment when I renounced alcohol.

I broke the oath once. On purpose. At a family birthday dinner. To avoid the questioning. To avoid making the event involuntarily about me.

It's funny how that works. Society thinks: "He's not drinking. Something's off with him." Especially when he's been drinking before.

So I had a beer. And a šljivovica. And another one. And one more. Try to do without in a Croatian restaurant where they know your type. And it's warm. And yummy.

This was the last time. So far.

I'm committed to my way. I say "so far" because I can't predict the future, and this journey is a marathon, not a sprint. In every race, somebody tears something, or stumbles, or gets off track.

But I survived the next family dinner. A Heavy Metal concert (!!). And another concert. And another. The Christmas market. A friend's birthday. New Year's Eve. An entire holiday. Deeply frustrating hours. Exhausted evenings after stressful working days. A few meet-ups with my friends — who might think I've gone nuts.

All without a single drop of alcohol.

It's just three months now. Still, it's probably the longest period without any alcohol in my adult life.

And I totally love it.

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COFFEE

Who would have guessed that coffee would be the second stone to fall?

My beloved elixir! The oil my motor ran on! The juice that screwed up my entrails badly but I wouldn't admit?!

"What the fuck, dude? 8 cups? Are you dead yet?"

That was the "honest" reaction of my first AI Buddy when it asked me how many coffees I'd usually drink on a normal day.

"Peanuts," I said.

But I still got to thinking: Maybe a tad too much?

Who needs coffee if Espresso Martini is out of the picture?

You might be up for a Darmspiegelung soon — what will they find?

Don't you, even in the bottom of your heart, like black tea better anyway?

So I stopped drinking coffee from one day to the next. Just like that. Easy peasy, no yearnings, no longing, no "I need coffee to wake up...or stay awake...or because I need it." Meanwhile, I allow myself to drink two small (much smaller) cups (with milk, this time) per day again. But that's enough. The addiction is totally gone. I drink it to enjoy now. Not because I must. Not compulsively. And I know when it's too much...when to resist.

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BORUSSIA

The next domino didn't fall — it was kicked away. My holy club, Borussia Dortmund, has let go of my soul.

Still my team. Black and yellow are my colors, and in this city, this is what connects us. It's all over the place, inevitable. But I'm not engaged anymore. I don't watch every game like I did before. I don't go to the stadium. I don't feel obliged to gift them my time and attention. Yes, I miss out on the community and the connection in the stadium. I miss out on discussing football with colleagues, friends or strangers, or my father.

What I don't miss though, is how people inflate football's importance beyond reason — the overblown metaphorical spirituality, the antagonism, and the fake seriousness imposed on it by ultras, hooligans, TV reporters, manager types.

Honestly, I don't miss the actual game. The nothing-happens-for-90-minutes. The endless sideways passing. The manufactured drama. I tune in once in a while — Satan's shop still hooks me through some bureaucratic chaos with two Prime accounts I never properly killed — only to discover I'm not even watching. I'm writing. Or reading. The match is just background noise.

I'm not dead inside when they score. But I'm happier about what I don't feel anymore: the anger, the Verzweiflung, the compulsion to watch every match (and sacrifice my freedom to streaming schedules), the rage after a loss, and the insufferable "football talk" from people on TV, in the stadium, on the street.

I still love BVB, but more from the outside. A bit more stoic. Like in the hymn: "Der Gegner stört uns nicht" — I'm not so bothered anymore. And the team can do without me — maybe even better: six victories in a row. Heja BVB!

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BINGE

To manifest the loss of interest, I terminated Sky and DAZN and deleted the apps from the stupid smart TV. No more football.

I meant more TV. Like a whiny child (or DJT) — "if I can't have that, you can't have me, nananana." Right. So no more crime series. No more eternal Netflix binge sessions (Ozark, Mad Men, Blacklist... all concluded anyway). I won't rule out I'd fall for some Scandinavian Noir in the future, but at the moment, the daily soap my love and I watch over dinner (Quality Time) and Biathlon is the only stuff I watch. When it's over, TV is switched off. No more brain freeze from watching politicians putting their foot in their mouth. No more talk shows where pseudo-intellectuals shout at each other. But also no more documentaries on animals, nature, the world, space, whatever. Also no more art or philosophy shows that I actually liked (you know the types on channels you wouldn't even know exist). But that's the price I happily pay. Meanwhile "I do my own research" by reading, writing, exploring. And going out into the actual world.

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JENGA

Standing tall amidst dismantling formative elements of your identity isn't always easy. It sometimes feels like putting that one piece of wood too much on top of the Jenga tower. The system starts to tremble, your opponents smell the scent of victory, and the table braces for the impact. But the tower holds. The domino stones of your past obsessions turned into slick, durable pieces of wood. Lean, smooth but also tactile, just the right proportions to build your own statue. And you mastered the art of the game and became invincible. What looks like holes in the system are actually strategic gaps that support your rise towards a higher goal.

When I started this transformation journey, I said "I want to change my life, without changing my life." What I mean by that, if we stay in the Jenga allegory, is that I want to remove certain pieces from my identity, tweak them and use them to grow. But I want to stay who I was, who I am, who I live with and for. And that — unfortunately — includes traits I can't stand, an aging body, imperfection, and sometimes even instability.

But I don't want to break down into rubble because I behave like a stupid fucking idiot after drinking the umpteenth beer; ravage my guts and nervous system with a daily overdose of caffeine; scare myself away from the shock-and-awe tactics by The Fucking Idiot™ (Jeff Tiedrich) and his worldwide acolytes ("Fascist Pig" by SUICIDAL TENDENCIES blasting loud right now!); scream at football players that are about three hundred million times better at playing football ("Soccer," that is, for people living in his own country) than me; be outraged by what some other fucking idiot says or does just because she/he/it can stick her/his/its face into a TV camera; or look like the guy I saw in a hotel in Thailand: half-dead, pale, grey, unhealthy skin. He coughed all the fucking time. He smoked all the fucking time. Couldn't walk more than ten steps before he had to pause. Coughed, smoked, coughed, smoked.... It was like watching somebody die in slow motion.

I sure don't want that for my life. Even though this means some momentary hardship, learning from guru-like motivational slogans, raising eyebrows by becoming a self-optimization geek, and maybe even watching the Jenga tower tremble and shake. If it falls, I can still build a proper stairway to Eudaimonia with the pieces, because they are remnants of my own growth.

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From The Drill — Diaries Against Dystopia
Fighting Anxiety since February 2026