The Obligation of a Life

I wrote a fairy tale once, and a friend said that she would read the first chapter. When she handed it back to me, she asked, “Who did you write this for?”

Noting the look on her face, I realized the only answer was, “Me.”

I write for myself, clearly, honestly, because I have no one to talk to. Life is a kind of loneliness that I think my cat might know, because she too has no one to talk to.

I write because I read a lot, and I don’t swallow all of it. I argue with some of it; I agree with some of it so passionately I want to evangelize it. To the non-audience I have.

I thought I wrote for you, so you could learn the shortcuts, the easy answers, the fast way. But you didn’t hear me when I talked to you, so why would I think I would get through by making you take the time and effort to read?

No one reads.

A Preference for Non-Fiction

I could greatly reduce my need to write by switching to fiction instead of nonfiction. Then I wouldn’t have any ingredients in my head to make new thoughts.

But fiction is so difficult to care about.

Knowing that Margaret Lawrence was a relative of mine, but never having met her, I read her memoir. It struck me that at the end of her life, she was tortured by the thought that she spent her life writing and for why? And she was good at it. Decorated.

I don’t care for fiction, it’s an industry of entertainment, and that makes someone happy. Just not me. I’m an odd duck that doesn’t find entertainment entertaining. It’s too shallow, fleeting, and hollow for me to get absorbed enough to realize it’s all a waste of time.

I asked at the library if I could start a nonfiction book club, and was gently, politely told that it was a dumb idea.

The point of life – to figure out how to waste your time in a way that doesn’t make you realize that is exactly what you did.

Because I want to ask, “Why do you golf? Why do you spend so much time and money on something that doesn’t seem to matter?”

I would ask, but he doesn’t usually answer because this guy detests deep questions that make him look internally. His detestation of the questions becomes detestation of me, and I take it personally. So does he.

I wish to leave him alone, so I am back here. I wish to leave everyone alone; I’ve not even bothered with the stupid SEO optimization tricks.

A Craving for Tough Questions

What I really want to know is, “How do you get so absorbed by such stupid shit, and how can I do it too?”

I thought if I killed off enough brain cells, I would be able to do it, but there’s not been enough liquor in the world, I guess. I can afford hard drugs; maybe I should try that.

It turns out that I have to write. Of course, that doesn’t mean that anyone will read. No one reads.

The best-kept secrets are published on the internet. I pay for this outlet, and what am I really buying? Something to do with my time. Fake productivity, manufactured significance, obedient consumerism.

So much fucking time.

A way to pretend to be sane: mindless pursuit of the frivolous activities in life while I wait for my cat to also be bored of this shit, and maybe we will both go play on the highway.

I have zero interest in being alive, but I have that cat, and a duty to her since I didn’t socialize her well and she’s scared of everybody else.

I wasn’t socialized well either, and I’m scared of everybody else too. She learned well.

Life sucks when you are scared of it, but I was trained by, well, by life. People who lie, cheat, steal, and maim- and that’s when they are on their good behaviour.

One thing I’ll never understand is the people who think life is so awesome. A gift they call it. Oh yeah? How did it treat you? Like someone entitled who entices me to crush them into the ground in the name of fairness? I could show you all the violence I learned firsthand. A prison I call it.

A Yearning for Feeling People

I wanted to meet those with hard-earned empathy, as I have, who say, “I’ll never wish how you made me feel on my worst enemy, and right now, that’s you.” I know exactly who made me feel the shitty feelings I feel.

If I could go back and exchange the superpower I’d asked for originally with the one I want now, I wish I were rubber and all bad feelings bounced off me right back to the person of origin. Instead, I wished for invisibility, lol. Be careful what you wish for, and how was I to know, having to pick a superpower before I landed here on this God-forsaken Earth.

It would have to start with a person who can feel their feelings and, most I’ve learned, have stuffed them down, carved them out, or snuffed them at the source. What feelings, most people ask.

But I think the people I want to meet have the same idea I do – “I’m safe way the hell over here, thank you, and you can stay way the hell over there.”

Hell is the ability to see realistically, to think seriously, and to know deeply how the world and its people work. For once you see the truth, there’s no going back to the illusions, lies, and triviality of mainstream life.

People really suck, unless they work really hard not to be that way.