Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

by Chuck Klosterman

I’ll never understand why people need to see things just so they can say they saw them. My best friend, Mr. Pancake, always wants me to visit him in Arizona so that he can show me the Grand Canyon, but I know I’ll never go. I mean, I’d love to see Mr. Pancake, but I have no desire to see the physical manifestation of erosion. The Grand Canyon is just an attractive accident; it has no inherent meaning. I’d be far more impressed if a collection of civil engineers used dynamite and laser beams to construct a perfect replication of the Grand Canyon on a one-to-one scale; that would show mankind’s potential to master nature. That would speak to man’s desire to overcome 5 million years of adversity. But what does the Washington Monument speak to? Man’s potential to master concrete? Man’s desire to overcome gravity? I really