Category: writing

i think i broke my ability to be happy. or i can’t find it, at least. or like a knob on an old radio that came off, and now i need a pair of pliers to change the station. but now instead of finding wonder in the world i’m just trudging my way through the days with my head down, working and always surprised at how fast time is going.

occasionally i’m given happiness, or happiness is thrust upon me, if you will. this doesn’t last because i don’t let it, because i don’t feel like i deserve it. i … i try to find these trigger words, words that elicit an emotional response when i think about them and their context. see, depression is like a flat gray blanket over everything, removing color and vibrancy from the world. the blanket is comforting but it also numbs you to everything. i’ve been so numb for so long that occasionally i will find these words or thoughts that will make me feel something, anything. the big one is “failure.” that’s the one that sits with me, my little road trip sidekick through life. the thought of failure piques a dreadful response in my gut, this heavy thought that it will never end, and the constant bombardment of anger that stems from my simple inability to get off my ass and find the energy i need to pursue what i want.

it’s a cycle. it’s a bad cycle. it repeats so often i wish i knew how to become an alcoholic so i could just stop dealing with it. instead i sit on the pedestal my father carved out of his sobriety. i am thankful for that, but still, it would be nice to just be happy for once, even if it’s via the use of chemicals.

here’s my thing about pseudoscience bullshit: medicine and science involving the body, that’s mostly objective stuff. even the placebo effect is a measurable thing. but we know what the liver does, we know what the spleen does. we’ve known for a long time because you can cut open a body and do tests on the organs inside. some organs are obvious: the lungs breathe air, the heart circulates blood, the intestines digest food. others aren’t–i still think nobody knows what a gallbladder is for. so when your mother asks me to take drink some cayenne pepper and maple syrup concoction to “detox” my body, i tell her that’s bullshit. because it is. your body doesn’t need an outside detox, that’s what the liver is for. these new agey medicines are all snake oil sold by pyramid schemers. you can argue with me all you want but it’s true, everyone knows its true. like tim minchen said, if it worked, it wouldn’t be called “alternative” medicine, it would be called medicine.

now, the mind, that’s a different thing. i’ll accept some pseudoscience for stuff involving the brain, because it’s much more mysterious. we’ve been sleeping for millions of years and scientists still don’t quite understand why, or what happens while we sleep. that’s a powerful mystery, let me tell you. why are we conscious? why are we smarter than other animals? this is all stuff that science doesn’t have a clear answer for. so things like meditation and positive thinking, i think actually work, or at least help, and when you forget that, you start to lose yourself a bit. that’s what i was thinking while i was staring at those mugs at seven virtues, at least. sometimes you let the negativity creep in and you’ll see a mug with “compassion” written on it, for instance, and you’ll scoff and walk away. but today i looked at them and was reminded that those are all virtues i have forgotten to practice. especially for myself. so: i’m sorry. that’s my start, right here, right now. i’m sorry.

there was a lot of hullabaloo about you not being there tonight, lot of old men in tuxedos looking around for your grand entrance. a lot of people are counting on you, ted. financially and otherwise. and this constant secrecy is making them nervous. now every time i bring this up you say you have it under control, meanwhile your beard grows longer and your fingernails are out of control. you look like goddamn howard hughes, man. you’re quickly becoming the biggest embarrassment batchco has ever encountered, more of an embarrassment than your father. i know plenty of people in this company who would like nothing more than to throw you out a goddamn window, ted, but despite being batshit crazy, you’re still smart as a whip, and still have over fifty percent stock in this company.

i don’t want to be mad at you, ted, but you’re giving me little option here. when’s the last time you showered? or ate anything besides that soylent paste bullshit. when’s the last time you made a decision about the future of your company? you’ve got ellen running every aspect for you. when’s the last time you even left this room? look, ted, it doesn’t matter where you go or what you do, unless you live in a hermetically sealed room, you’re going to get germs on you. you’re going to get dirty. this house is over a hundred years old, you don’t think there are rats running under the floorboards, shitting everywhere? i wouldn’t be surprised if there a carbon monoxide leak … i’d love it ted if you would FUCKING TALK TO ME. nobody needs your fucking silent treatment.

… alright. this is it. this is your last chance to turn this around, ted. i’m going to leave this room and i’m going to take control of this company one way or another. the only way you can stop me is to come after me. just stand up and head out the door. or grab me here, even. just do SOMETHING. that’s all we’re asking for. a little fucking leadership.

i had one of those moments last night where i laughed too much. nervous laughter. felt like … a stench coming off of me, you know, something that everyone could smell. everything was funny. to be fair, my friends really are funny, but i felt like i was overdoing it a bit too much, trying to hide how i was feeling inside. but it was a birthday party, it wasn’t for me, per se. it’s weird how social interaction can do that; the last thing you want to do at a party is bring it down with your sadness, and you need the interaction, you need these people around you, so you bolster yourself up a bit and … it really helps. the balloon deflates after you get home but at least for a moment it was full and rising.

last year, around this time, i hit what i would consider a rock bottom, which i tend to define as a low point that precedes a climb upward. this year, a rock bottom was hit for me, in a way. both years ended essentially in a low, like a lesson waiting to be learned. i keep saying that, and each time it rings differently. i was angry, then i was understanding, and now, i’m almost expectant. i get these lessons at the end of every year, like movies get oscar contenders. it borders on annoying. and maybe this is mixed with guilt, the guilt of all those days wandering into the corner store and purchasing junk food to ease the emotional ache hidden in my heart somewhere. knowing that i was doing harm to my body but feeling like the damage was essential, like a sugary chemotherapy.

for the time being, i wallow in sadness and fear, scared for the future, waiting to see if our keystone will hold or if he will fall and take the whole bridge with him.

ah. fresh meat.

welcome to outpost. my name is pavel, and i can tell by the type of weapons and armor they gave you that you are a lifer. your padded armor looks barely more than hay-filled pillow sacks, and those swords … my god. i’ve forged better swords with the heat from my farts. well, come in, come in, if you don’t mind having a seat over there grug here will remove your neck collars. but before we do, a little bit of a warning: outpost has been around for as long as i know. i’m a lifer too, and i took over outpost from an old genasi named dyswin after he died. if you haven’t seen already i’m not with all my appendages, so it’s easier for me to run this community than go out fighting anymore. outpost is here to acclimate newbies into the churning depths, so any questions you have, ask me or princess lillycup in the bar. yes that’s her name, don’t make fun of it or she’ll rip your head off. anyway, the warning. we’re here to help you, right? once we take those collars off, if you have any magical or divine affinity you’ll be able to use it. outpost may be heavily fortified and we have plenty of people ready to fight for us, but we’re still just an outpost, nothing more, nothing less, so if you come at us guns blazing, you’ll be destroying the only sane place in the whole depths, trust me. that’s the warning. don’t do that.

sound good? good. grug, get the collars.

outpost isn’t a city. we have temporary housing for those who need a break but sooner or later you’ll have to leave. everyone who lives her permanently volunteers their time. i’m the overseer of outpost and make sure everything runs smoothly. we have a bar, like i said, hospice for the injured, a free-for-all weapons and armor room that you can pick through for something proper to fight with, toilets with running water (which is probably the most interesting thing in the whole damn depths), and even a crude messaging system if you want to get word out to friends or family on the surface. the longer you’re supposed to be in the depths, the more accommodating we are, but you still have to prove your worth before we’ll help you out. that’s just how it works; a lot of people get killed off down here, and we don’t offer much sympathy for them. it’s the ones who can fight that we want to keep alive.

we are allied with a couple of settlements further down in the depths, but those ones are more like pit stops than anything else. you’ll find the first couple of levels are where most everyone lives, since a lot of people aren’t here for very long. you steal a mint and you get a day or two, you know what i mean? the farther down you go, the more you’re likely to see lifers hanging about. lowest anyone’s gotten is the 52nd level, and when they came back they were certifiably insane and missing half of their face, so we can’t even verify if it’s true or not. all i know is, the weird shit lives down there. here for the first few levels it’s almost like a community, but once you hit the underdark … well, it’s every man for himself.

if you have any other questions, feel free to ask now, because in a moment we’re going to kick you out so you can prove your worth. that’s the churning depths way of life.

i have to stare into space like a zen master to keep these emotions at bay. my koan is to not completely evaporate at work. in a sane world we would get time off for grieving. i would be able to be at his side during the whole process. instead i have to work and support myself. in a way this may be ultimately beneficial–the world is nature, after all, and nature is scary. nature always gets you when you least expect it. nature is the mountain lion hiding in the brush. and in a way grief is complacency, grief is putting blinders on to focus on a specific problem. i don’t mean that in a bad way, it’s just how it is. when you grieve you might wish the world to slow down or stop, so you can, you know, grieve. but no matter what you do or what happens to you, life goes on. it never stops, it never gives you a chance to breathe. you bury your dead or live without part of your essential organs, you lose a leg or an arm, you suffer horrendous burns, and you keep living. you still wake up, brush your teeth, take a shit, eat mcdonalds, swear at traffic jams, smile at a dumb joke. that’s the grace of the world, the leniency of it: it doesn’t stop and it doesn’t mind that you have to keep going. it doesn’t fault you for having a life.

my eyes hurt from repressing tears. i didn’t even know that was possible. i walk out in the cold during my lunch break because the cold feels good today, and the city is drab and gray in the daylight, and that palette comforts me, like sensory deprivation. it’s as if the world knows what i’m going through and shut off the color for a bit to keep me sane. in this i realize that the earth is rooting for us. it knows that nature is scary and that time is meaningful for humans, and it helps us out a bit. i appreciate that.

i suppose if there is a lesson to be learned it is not matt’s lesson. it is my lesson. do not shirk your family. family being whomever you choose to be your family, biological or not. eventually at some point in your life you will have a group of people that you consider your family, people you are close to and have shared experiences with. do not let them go, and when they’re in town, see them. talk to them. enjoy their existence because they will not exist forever. the problem is that i have not enjoyed my own existence for so long now that i’m like a darkness that can’t be penetrated, a darkness that sits in darkness and wallows in darkness, who comes home and starts to play a video game to drown out the numbness pervading my entire body. i don’t like being alive is the feeling deep in my gut, and god, who apparently is some perverse trickster god, makes me feel bad by giving me a relatively healthy body that i destroy with bad food and too much sugar. this is my punishment for hating myself. meanwhile my brother, a happy, healthy man with a beautiful family, is struck with colon cancer, the kind that would have continued unabated if it weren’t for fatigue and anemia, the kind that didn’t even hurt. to die at his age would be terrifying, but at least he can say that he lived a good life, had lots of friends and loved ones.

i … i have this theory, that if god exists, then a person’s death coincides with learning, say, enlightenment. the grand secret. whatever you want to call it. we spend our lives yearning for reason, to understand why we’re here. it’s always on the tip of our tongue why we’re here. always something swimming at the edges of our consciousness, and we strive every day to figure it out, either consciously or unconsciously. and i think some people figure it out, and that’s when they die. like, god speaks to them the secret of the universe which is what kills them. this is why buddha is so important, or people like buddha who have reached enlightenment, because they have learned it and have the strength of spirit to not die. maybe the secret is so mind-blowing that it actually kills you, you know what i mean?

people like my brother are just closer to finding out the secret than an asshole like me. but really i think matt is more like a buddha than any of us; i think he found the secret years ago and just happened to stave off death due to his unwavering spirit. that’s kind of a morbid way to think about that, but that’s what i think. he didn’t actively search for it, either. it just came to him and he’s lived with it ever since, unaware that he even contains it, and meanwhile i’ve been scrambling to figure out how to be more like him, which is, ironically perhaps, prolonging my own sad stupid life.

i don’t know where i’m going with this, other than that i just want my brother to be okay and for his cancer to have some kind of meaning, some purpose, and i think if there is a lesson to be learned, it’s that your time on earth is special because you have a self-aware consciousness that strives to find more to life than just sustenance and procreation. we are trying to fill a hole brought about by higher intelligence, by supreme wisdom, by language and culture and art. we think these things fill us but really they just keep us open and looking for more, looking for context, trying to find meaning and purpose in each of our lives. this wasn’t a wake up call for matt, it was a wake up call for all of us, and for me at least, a call to combat complacency. i won’t forget that. i can’t forget that. when other people sacrifice for you, you don’t let them down.

dear god.

i’m not praying to you because i like you, or because i even think you exist. i’m praying because i want answers and i want them now. i want you to tell me with no reservation and no bullshit why you decided to give my brother matt colon cancer. i don’t want burning bushes, i don’t want any magic or “signs,” i just want you to tell me straight up what your reasoning is. write it in a letter, have the pope deliver it to me, or make an angel descend from heaven. do what you must. i want to know why you can do something like this and get away with it, like an abusive parent who knows your kids won’t stop loving you even when you smack them around a little bit. i’m here as an ambassador to the human race giving you a chance to prove your reasoning behind your shitty behavior.

everyone here is so quick to make a lesson out of this. what lesson is there? what kind of vindictive god gives a lesson to a 43 year old man with a wife and four children? didn’t he already get a lesson when his youngest child was born premature and had to be stuck in an incubator for two months? but everyone wants to qualify cancer, they want to give it a reason for existing, it’s almost as if they want to forgive its existence and make it worth having. “well, cancer gave him a wake up call” or some bullshit like that. the last thing my brother needs is a wake up call. he’s is the most awake one of us all. he’s healthy, he exercises, he has a beautiful family, i’ve never seen him be angry in my entire life. there is no lesson that needs to be taught here, not by god, not by anyone. this is just genetics and bad luck. no one needs to “learn” from my brother’s mistakes. he had no mistake. the biggest mistake he made was marrying his second wife, but he learned from that and married a much better third wife. she and their son are the ones who will lose him if he dies. his family who all love him dearly will lose him if he dies. why would a benevolent god make this into a lesson? toying with human life like that.

everyone says “god works in mysterious ways.” well he shouldn’t. he’s a benevolent god, if anything he should be completely transparent about his doings, especially when it comes down to killing the people you love. don’t you think? or at least he should tell you the moral of the story once he’s done wrapping a malignant tumor around your brother’s colon. but no, instead we pray for his health. i’m all for the power of positive thinking, but praying to a god who is teaching *someone* a lesson with cancer sounds like a bad idea. sounds like you’re glorifying a killer.

so i’m not praying to you for that. i want your reasoning. no signs, no portents. you give to me as directly as possible, and then maybe i can forgive you.