Life – An Exercise in Futility
The other night was a lot like any night for me. I couldn’t get to sleep. See, I am one of those people who likes to save all my worries for bed time. Most of the time, my worries are simple and stupid, kinda like this.
Essa lays down in bed. She scratches her boob. “Is this lump on my nipple a pimple? Or is it a cancerous tumor? Holy shit, it’s the beginning of a nipple hair! Fuck, I’m never getting laid again. What dude wants a girl with nipple hair? Sure, I can pluck it, but I’ll always know it was there….”
But the other night, my thoughts turned a lot more serious. Every year of my life has passed faster than the last despite the fact that they all feel the same. I’ve finally reached that age where you actually start to notice your age. I’ve finally reached the point where it feels like the clock is ticking down, rather than ticking up. I’ve finally reached the age where I realize that it ends.
To me, death has always been an abstract matter. Sure it happens to other people. Hell, it happens every single day. But it was never something I considered for myself. Much like the color orange, hip pockets and ruffles, I never thought that death was something that fit me.
But it’s going to happen, either tomorrow when I get run over by a car in the parking lot, or sixty years from now, when I die during a coke fueled orgy with a bunch of man whores.
When I think about dying, I get mad. Why the fuck am I trying so hard? Why do I care about my weight, how much I drink, how much I smoke, what I do for a living? It’s all going to end anyway. Someday, I am going to disappear from this world like I never existed. That alone is enough to make me wonder why the hell I get out of bed every day.
My recent preoccupation with death drives most of my friends crazy, especially the older ones. “You’re still so young. You have years ahead of you.”
I wonder if John Ritter’s friends said the same thing to him. “Stop thinking about the end, John. You have 50 years left in you easy. ‘8 Simple Rules’ just got picked up for another season….”
And pop went the aneurism.
Life isn’t fair. The fact that death happens at all proves that. You can spend your entire life building something, or you can spend your entire life doing nothing; either way, you wind up the same.
Organic matter.
This is the reason that I have always stayed away from atheism, despite being staunchly anti-religious. The last thing that I want to consider is that if I die, it’s just all over. I need to know that something more happens. That it doesn’t just all stop. I need to believe that somehow, someway, my end isn’t actually my end, but an entirely new beginning.
Because the sad fact is, if the atheists are right, my life has been an exercise in complete futility. Sure, it was a good way to waste some time, but I’m not that important. If there is no higher purpose, nothing I did ever really mattered.
If the atheists are right, I am the human equivalent of a game of ‘Fruit Ninja’.
I really don’t want to believe that. I’ll be honest. If I died tonight, the world wouldn’t change that much. Sure, some people would be sad for a bit, but then, I’d turn into a sanctified memory. The people who were reading this post after my death might find me a bit more fascinating because I was dead, but that still wouldn’t make anything I did matter.
My dog would find someone else to follow around the house. My readers would find another blogger to follow. The books that I wrote would be worth more and someone would hire a ghostwriter to finish off the rest, like what they did with VC Andrews. My death wouldn’t give me permanent fame. I am midlist at best. People don’t remember midlist commercial fiction authors. They remember best sellers. There is really nothing about me that would be that memorable. I am neither a particularly good person, or a particularly bad person. I’m just Essa, living somewhere in the middle. The perpetual fence sitter.
Despite being a significantly better person, I would matter less than Joe Valachi or Jeffrey Dahmer. My name would never be famous or infamous. It would just disappear.
And the fact that the end is as inevitable as a hanging pendulum makes me wonder “should I have been braver?” Have I been ballsy enough? Should I have quit that job sooner? Should I have bitch slapped that girl who cut me in line like I wanted to? Should I have had more kids? Should I have gotten married?
Should I have kept up that old meth habit?
The end is nigh, people. This depressing post isn’t just true for me. It’s true for all of us. Life is nothing more than an exercise in futility. When you’re lying on your death bed, if you failed to say everything you wanted to say or do everything you wanted to do, you will have regrets.
If the atheists are right, then my best possible goal is no regrets. So let me say a few things I have been dying to say, but have avoided saying, simply out of some outdated feeling of decorum;
Most of the people I have known who have quit smoking would have been better off sticking to the habit. Seriously, I would have rather you all stayed thin, happy people rather than turned into fat, judgmental bitches.
Most men have no idea what they’re doing in bed and I have no idea why you all can’t find the clitoris. It’s a giant pink button in the center of the vagina. It couldn’t be more findable if it had neon arrows pointing at it. The only orgasms I’ve ever had have been 100% relating to something I did. If you’re reading this and you slept with me, know that I was faking it so you would leave me alone and I could go to sleep.
On another note, I lose all interest in a man the second I sleep with him. Not sure if it’s due to the lack of orgasms or some deeper psychological issue.
Dr. Smith, I lied about how much I drink. When I checked off ‘4 drinks a month’ it should have been ‘4 drinks a day.’
If we are friends, know that at one point, I was almost 100% sure that you were retarded due to something you said or did but said nothing out of politeness
If you are one of my female friends, know that I am 100% sure you talk about me in an incredibly unflattering way behind my back. Rest assured, I am not offended…because I do the same thing to you. It’s just part of being a girl.
Dark haired dude that I used to work with, I’m pretty sure we were soul mates, which is a rare statement for me. Feelings, emotion and the idea that my life could ever potentially be a harlequin novel makes me flinch…which is probably why I was such a cunt to you. It is so much easier to reject someone in advance than wait for them to reject you. It was a bitch move on my part and the biggest regret of my life. Rest assured, you got off easy. I’m a fucking train wreck anyway and you were too good for me.
Marijuana made the majority of my life tolerable. Even when you thought I wasn’t stoned…I was.
I am fully aware that I would have made a fantastic lesbian, but I’m not. Aside from the few occasional same sex dalliances, I much prefer the fruit of the banana to the fruit of the fig.
Life is short, life is cruel and life is fleeting. But it is also beautiful. My recent obsession will go away and I will go back to giving you all tips on how to buy weed on the internet, but rest assured, I haven’t forgotten the lesson. Say what you want to say now. Live how you want to live now. If the atheists are right, you don’t get another chance.
And Fruit Ninja is an AWESOME game.
