It's so nice to hear from a friend that you haven't heard from for ages, especially when they sent you lots of emails which you didn't reply to because you were feeling so completely dark, and then suddenly you get another one out of the blue which shows they didn't give up on you. Because it would have been so easy to, it's dull sending 'How are you?' messages out into the ether and never hearing anything back.

My friend, it makes me feel happy to find out that so much has changed for him, and that the changes are good ones, and I like the reassurance that it's not only me that dithers with choices and not only me who wonders what to do with life.

And I love, love, love the fact that in the space of three years he's been a highly successful web innovator, a struggling yet brilliant novelist, and now he's doing something so different that it's completely off the other end of the spectrum.

I once asked my Dad what, when he was little, he thought he wanted to be when he grew up.
His answer? Everything.

I think my friend is a bit like that.