The world is falling in on me right now. I'm not suicidal, but I'd be okay with just blinking out of existence like I was never here. And don't go all 'It's a Wonderful Life' on me. Something is wrong that I feel so... malcontent and yet look at all my privilege!
I was lucky to be born in a first world country that has toilets you don't have to squat over to use. And if you think squatting is somehow better or healthier, good for you! Dig a hole in your backyard and squat away. I prefer a nice flush toilet and various reading materials if necessary. Okay, toilet privilege: check. I know most people wouldn't guess it but I'm white (okay, ha ha, no one would ever think I wasn't white) and apparently the fact that I fry like a forgotten Thanksgiving Day turkey in the summer sun conveys something called 'white privilege'.
Now you could say, 'bummer, you're a chick' but look, even though the ERA STILL HAS NOT BEEN RATIFIED BY THE NECESSARY MAJORITY OF STATES (seriously, I am not fucking kidding), the female persuasion is moving up in the world and that combined with being born, raised and living on the relatively progressive west coast, I think I can lay claim to a little gender privilege.
They used to pick on women but we're the least of their problems now- they have to worry about what bathroom a second grade transgender kid is going to use. It kind of pisses me off how much ruckus everyone makes over bathrooms. Why can't we just have gender neutral bathrooms? I know why. Because men are pigs and their bathrooms are always smelly and disgusting and women don't want to come in and have to sit on a toilet seat that some guy was too lazy to lift up and left it covered in a fine mist of urine. Thanks guys, because of you, we have to have a bunch of controversy about who uses what bathroom. Frankly, I don't care. People get so scared of that which they know nothing. And just like when my feelings get hurt and I'm sad and what comes out is anger... People express their fear of whatever dragons they have hatched in their minds of anyone different than them in the form of anger, indignation, self-righteousness.
I seriously want to head for the proverbial hills. I could backpack around Asia, living in hostels and eating lots of rice (Dean says rice is cheap). Japan sounds good, too. I'd live in a tiny apartment and cast off all the STUFF that has accumulated over the last 19 years.
In the end, the important things are in our heads. We can try to box up the past, make photo albums of smiling faces to somehow convince ourselves we've done it, we've accomplished... what? Happiness? The problem is that dwelling on the past makes living fully NOW impossible- and that box, while maybe it is fun to go through and reminisce.. birthdays, Christmases, Firsts: first tooth, first step, first haircut, in the end as hard as we fight, beat, rail against time- often not even for ourselves- the contents of that box with yellow and age and eventually turn to dust, like the memory of the person that box was intended to hold.
But do you really want to live forever? (Is that a song lyric or am I just super tired?) Because you won't be you 50, 100, 1000 years down the line. Memory is like a game of telephone. You will be imbued with great feats never accomplished, cited quotations you never said, they will make tv movies or a masterpiece theater series on you where someone far more attractive than you plays your role. People will enjoy the show and go to wikipedia to find out more about you and they will see your picture and your dysfunction and go back to the tv- such a better, prettier version of things.
Why are we born with this hideous drive that makes us think we need to be special, spectacular even? It's a vicious thing because we are all so both ordinary and extraordinary in our own ways but we are tricked into believing we are never enough, we could have been, should have been more. So many are so intent on fulfilling some nonexistent destiny in an attempt to matter or be great; they fail to see the futility. I don't think you need to be spectacular beyond the fact that just by existing you are spectacular and I think if you can change one life, ease one person's burdens, save one life... well, I'm with the Jews on this. The Talmud says “He who saves a single life, saves the world entire.” Enigmatic? Yes and no. I think that is about the sanctity of life. Funny thing about life and the world... we make decisions and who knows, what did it mean when you turned left instead of right? Maybe you saved a life, maybe the opposite- indirectly of course.
What's that game where everyone holds a card to their forehead- everyone else cañ see what you have but you don't know? One card, one chance. That's like life, only we are pretty much all playing.
I call.
(That's a thing, right? I can do that?)
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