I sat back in my chair. "Well, thanks, John. You just made me feel a whole lot better. Tell me about your life - what brings you back here? Did you get married and have kids like we were all supposed to."

John laughed and put his hands behind his head, looking exactly like he did at twenty. "I'm alone most of the time. In most relationships, I reach a point where I feel like I'm being taken advantage of. That point has just been coming faster and faster. Time is winding up, or winding down, I can't decide. It's moving faster, is what I mean. We're already in our forties. I don't feel older but I look and sound like a grownup. I had to fire a guy yesterday. I'm an authority figure. I hate it."

"You started your own company, right?" I asked.

He nodded, beaming with pride despite his burnt out tone. "Minuteman Plumbing and Cooling is a worldwide enterprise now, Fortune 500, legit. We're selling more air-conditioning and more plumbing supplies than all of our competitors, and we've got brand loyalty across the board. There's patent on my products. I'm an inventor, an innovator. I'm not just a salesman or a handyman."

"That's amazing!" I told him. "You really built something for yourself."

John nodded, solemnly. "I didn't need to become rich or successful to be happy. But I had to prove something to myself. I wanted to show my family and everyone who doubted me that I was as good as them. They weren't better than me. And money is a way of demonstrating my worth. Do you feel like that?"

I shook my head. "Not really. I'm not going to say that I didn't get caught up in the rat race that was getting my films made, getting the star signed on, or getting the project bankrolled. Money bored me. Even movie stars bored me The most interesting thing they could do was what I saw on the camera. When they were on their own, and no one was writing their words, they were just tiny, overly tanned, whining babies. They had nothing to offer."

John leaned towards me. "There has to be a meaning to what we do or we die. That's all there is to it. If I don't step away from my company, I'll die at my desk. They'll excavate the skyscraper my headquarters is in and they'll find my skeleton huddled around a computer. I don't want that."

"So what do you want to do?" I asked.

"I was never more alive than when we were creating together. Music, film, quirky products and internet talk shows. When I was with you, before, I didn't have to be the man all the time. I don't mean that in a gender dysphoria or sexual sort of way. I just mean, I could be emotional, angry, horrified, scared, excited, and I didn't have to hide it or apologize for it. I didn't need to be so cold by logical and efficient." He was staring up at the ceiling; I could tell he'd been thinking about this for a long time.

John continued. "I have too much responsibility now. It's wearing me out. I have this natural talent. But I treat myself like a computer. I don't know where the talent comes from and I don't know where it goes. I don't know how long it's gonna be before it just disappears. Maybe they'll make artificial intelligence that will replace me. Every day, I'm like John Henry with my sledgehammer, pounding rivets on track, try not to look over my shoulder at the steam engine.

He sighed. "I'm not as nice as people think I am. I'm friendly, sure. But there's no CEO who doesn't have a vindictive, vengeful side. When it came time for me to grow up, I locked my childish self away. Maybe that's why I came back, to find it."