| i'm tired |
[Jun. 20th, 2011|08:46 pm] |
Bill Maher once said that suicide is man's way of telling God, "You can't fire me--I quit!" That's as funny to me as it is true. I've always found it comforting to know that suicide can be relied upon as a kind of fail-safe for any conceivable kind of nonsense that you have to put up with. It's nice to know that the option is there if you ever need it. But the more I've thought about it, the more I realized how unrealistic it is.
Some time ago I saw The Bridge, a documentary about the high number of people who commit suicide by jumping off of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. It included an interview with a man who jumped and survived. He did not stand on the rail and jump, but put his hands on the rail and swung his legs over. In his interview, he said, "The second my hands left the bar--the railing--I said, 'I don’t want to die.'" Unlike 98% of the jumpers, he lived. How many of those 98% also changed their minds on the their way down?
I would have to believe that most people do change their minds after it's too late, all thanks to the one source of all of our mindless instincts and motivations, our own DNA. It has hard-wired into it, against all logic, that one unquestionable directive: SURVIVE. Why this directive wasn't awakened within that man before he decided to jump, I don't know. Maybe it's one of God's many little jokes, like the way he gave animals the ability the feel pain and then told people to eat them.
"Stay alive! Ejaculate whenever possible!"
"Eat as much salt, sugar and fat as you can!"
"People who look different from you aren't in
your tribe and should be treated accordingly!"
-Mr. DNA
Mahatma Gandhi went through a rebellious phase as a teenager when he and a cousin ate meat and smoked cigarettes behind their parents' backs. He wrote in his autobiography that they became so disgusted with their parents' authoritarianism that they decided to kill themselves by swallowing poisonous seeds. When the time came, they were too afraid to go through with it. He wrote, "I realized that it was not as easy to commit suicide as to contemplate it. And since then, whenever I have heard of someone threatening to commit suicide, it has had little or no effect on me." Frank Zappa was more direct:
I know full well I would be just such a "chump" and a coward when the time came. It's not hard to imagine--having driven my car to a peaceful spot on Belle Isle, with the CD of Puccini arias cued up (may as well be dramatic), and while duct-taping the garden hose to the tailpipe, the thought finally comes--"I want to live!" Even just in thinking about it, an urgent feeling in my chest jumps up and says, "No! You should live!" And I call back, "Yeah, but why? Give me a reason!" And there is no reply. That's because the thing that said "live" is not a conscious entity--it's just blind, dumb instinct. Life has absolutely no meaning, point, or purpose.
And for the chumps and the cowards like me, there is no escape. It doesn't matter what you want--your DNA is going to grab you by the hair and press your face against that which you do not want regardless. "No," it says, "you are going to experience every grinding second of every meaningless day for the rest of your meaningless life." And for what? That animalistic drive to keep on breathing is just an empty, pointless, genetic instinct forcing you to experience everything from the constant irritations of daily life to helplessly watching your loved ones grow old and die.
And so I will live as long as I possibly can, for I guess about fifty more years. Fifty more years of failure, humiliation, and constant annoyance. And at the end of it all, I'll die anyway. It's the same result. The same, exact, identical result! Another one of God's jokes, maybe. Only this way I get to watch my teeth and hair fall out. But my hands are tied ("I want to live!"). There is no place to live where everyone keeps quiet and behaves like civilized human beings. There is no occupation that I would find rewarding and enjoyable. I don't want to go anywhere, I don't want to talk to anybody, and I don't want to do anything. But too bad. I keep on waking up, doing stuff, and going to work in order to afford food and shelter because "I want to live". And I'll spend the next fifty years cringing in embarrassment at the incompetence of both myself and the rest of this species. And then, one or two years after I am dead, everything will be exactly--exactly--the same as if I had never existed at all.
People who go around telling others to "make the most out of life" are the most insufferable and completely full of shit human beings who walk the earth. But I don't exactly have an alternative strategy to offer. So here are the things I enjoy that I will have to distract myself for the next half-century.
1. Plumbing
I will admit that I was probably born at the best possible period in history, if for no other reason than the widespread availability of indoor plumbing. Westerners are accused of taking modern conveniences for granted, but not me. I am amazed every time I turn a knob and receive sanitary water. And I feel lucky to live where I do. Detroiters enjoy more sparkling, pure water than any similar area in the world. And how amazing of an invention the toilet is--waste disappears and is properly treated. I would be willing to bet that this sanitary device has saved more lives than all of medicine combined. Nothing is more comforting when you're sick than being able to sit on a toilet in the comfort of your warm, clean house, especially when your asshole is burning from having added too much cayenne pepper to your microwavable Punjab eggplant from Tasty BiteTM.
2. Microwavable Punjab Eggplant from Tasty BiteTM
Now you can enjoy all of the flavors of India in your home kitchen with microwavable pan-Asian dishes from Tasty BiteTM. The package says "Heat and Eat". My favorite one is Punjab Eggplant, "Braised eggplant with aromatic Indian spices." Just microwave for 90 seconds and serve with white rice. They make it pretty mild, so I like to add plenty of cayenne pepper whenever I prepare it.
3. Cake.
And that's just about it. What else do you expect me to do? See a therapist? And they are going to do what, exactly? Prescribe antidepressants? Teach me "progressive muscle relaxation therapy"? WHOOPIE!! I'll get my checkbook out right now!
No, the best distraction I can utilize while patiently awaiting oblivion is to enjoy being an overfed American. That's kind of what Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes anyway. And yet that's the same thing everyone is saying we're supposed to be ashamed of. The things I can most relish, or at least be grateful for, are the same things I am supposed to hate myself for having at all.
So I'll see you all tomorrow. And the next day, and the day after that. I have too much going on to consider the alternative anyway. It's like George Carlin said:
"Who's got time to be committing suicide? Aren't you busy? I got shit to do! Suicide would be way down on my list. Probably down past lighting my own house on fire."
--George Carlin, Life is Worth Losing |
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