My worst year on earth may well have been 2005. I had gone from a blood-and-guts newspaper writer to headcount hire sitting in a cubicle with nothing to do for weeks on end. I’d once been the coolest guy at the cocktail party, now I was just another stiff with a badge around his neck in the cafeteria. I’d moved from a log cabin in North Carolina to an apartment underneath the flight path of San Jose’s airport. I couldn’t be in my apartment without headphones on, pumping white noise into my eardrums. I literally went into therapy.