The only thing worth living for

October 23, 2013 Leave a comment

Everyone at some point questions the meaning of life. We all want a life that is worth living. But what is life worth living for? If you have been reading my blog lately you know that I have been asking this question and have come up with nothing. Well, out of nothing comes something and this is what I have found:

When I live for god I find that god has no purpose.

When I live for love I find that love has no purpose.

When I live for sex I find that sex has no purpose.

When I live for money I find that money has no purpose.

When I live for ME I find that I have no purpose.

When I live for others I find that I have purpose but so what…

Because when I live to find purpose in life I find that life has no purpose.

But when I live for life I find that everything has purpose

… and when I die I expect to find that I am wrong about everything.

So it’s only in life that anything means anything. Only in life does doubt have purpose. Only in life does faith have purpose. Only in life does failure have purpose. Only in life does success have purpose.  Only in life does suffering have purpose. Only in life does compassion have purpose. Only in life does birth have purpose. Only in life does death have purpose. Only in life do god, love, sex, money, people or I have any purpose.

Even suicide only has purpose in life and since it removes life from the person seeking its purpose its either the most pointless or selfless action anyone can take.

I imagine to many this all seems self-evident although some my think that I am completely off my rocker. Many may wonder why I even ponder this question at all. Although some, like me, like Albert Camus (who coincidentally and a bit ironically died in a car accident at my age), may consider it the only question that really matters. Having answered it is not the end, it is the beginning. Everything else is life and in life is everything.

To be continued…

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I am still here

October 22, 2013 Leave a comment

I have stared into the abyss and have seen it all. Everything that ever was, everything that is and everything that ever will be is nothing. I have returned to where it all began and met my fate. In this place there is no love, no god, no joy, no pain, no questions and no answers. I have found the solution to everything and it is nothing. I have pursued the meaning of life to its end and found it void. I have come to the end of my journey and have nothing left to live for.

Yet I am still here…

I am stuck in limbo between everything and nothing. There is no where to go and no way to get back so this must be the place to be.

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Solution to everything

October 21, 2013 7 Comments

I’m sitting here, racking my brain, trying to recall if I have ever felt this way before. I honestly don’t believe that I have. The thoughts in my head seem completely new to me. The conclusions I am drawing are absolute and novel. I feel like I am finally waking up. Everything seems perfectly clear to me now. Yet I question whether I should even be writing about it. I question whether it will do more harm than good. I question whether I should share this new found revelation. It may be too much for other people to handle. Maybe it’s best that I just keep it secret. And there it is, even in my conviction, I still find my good friend doubt. The epiphanic nature of this discovery has me both convinced of its validity and uncertain of its sustainability. Perhaps tomorrow it will be gone and so I must write about it today.

Virtually every day I wake with the same burning question, whether or not to commit suicide. On each of these occasions I have come to the same answer: I probably better not. Each day I find something worth living for. Each day my curiosity about what will happen next compels me to go and find out.

But not today. Today I woke with absolute certainty of what happens next. This morning I woke with complete clarity of my purpose and the meaning of life. On this day I woke up to the fact that there is no purpose and nothing  matters. On this day I realized that there is nothing worth living for. On this day I became aware that there is no meaning to anything. Life it’self is merely a placeholder between two points of nothing. I am now convinced that there is no reason not to commit suicide.

I’m not trying to be melodramatic. I’m no stranger to the subject of suicide. I’ve had my share of friends take their own life and many more who have tried. I’ve dealt with depression my whole life and depression is the leading cause of suicide so obviously it has been something that I have had to contend with. This doesn’t feel like depression however. This feels like enlightenment. I feel very lucid and clear headed.

They say that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Well I’m not trying to solve any problems here. I don’t have a problem with problems. Solving problems has been one of the things that has sustained me in life. I just no longer have any interest in doing it. No matter how many problems I solve there will always be more. I’m not interested in playing a never ending game of whack-a-mole. Suicide is the only means by which to stop playing this stupid game.

They say that suicide is a selfish act but I disagree. I think to suggest that I have to stay alive for someone else is pretty selfish. I am not a selfish person. I have spent my life living for other people. If I’m going to go on living I need to do it for myself and I just don’t think that is a good enough reason.

But suicide would hurt the people I love. Well, you know what? Being alive hurts the people I love. At best I’m a mixed bag of joy and pain. Suicide is the only way to ensure that I never hurt anyone again.

They say that suicide is the easy way out but I disagree. If suicide was easy I would have done it long ago. I think that suicide takes a great deal of conviction and bravery, perhaps more than I have.

So is this just a cry for help? Possibly. I would love some help. I would love to be wrong about this. I would love to have someone show me that life does have meaning and purpose but I’m feeling pretty doubtful that can be done. Everything I have seen and experienced has led me to this point and I doubt that anyone can convince me otherwise.

So is this my suicide note? Will I be dead by the time anyone reads it? Probably not. I still think that suicide is pointless, I just now know that life is pointless as well. While there is absolutely no reason to go on living, there is no reason to not go on living either. It may all be pointless but in that nothingness there is freedom.

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Summer is over

October 20, 2013 Leave a comment

I’m feeling somewhat set adrift, somewhat missing in action. Summer is clearly over but I haven’t yet begun my winter hibernation. I’m in between worlds yet change is still going on within and around me. The pedicab gig is dying down but still not over. Band activity has started up but not quite in full swing. I’m spending some time with friends and my son is in town but most of my life is pretty lonely. My mood, above all, is tied to the weather and the weather has not been my friend.

Today is Sunday. It’s cold and rainy. I’m not inspired to do anything but knowing what lies ahead has me fearful of wasting what time I have. I need an adventure, but first, I will remove the air conditioner from my bedroom window.

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Work with what you’ve got

October 15, 2013 Leave a comment

My whole life I have struggled to find my purpose. Why am I here? What do I have to offer? What am I better at than anybody else? What makes me special?

The only thing that I have ever come up with is that I am the only “me”. I am unique. I am one of a kind. No one is a better me than me.

So then the question becomes what is it about me that makes me unique? The truth is there is nothing about me which is unique. There is nothing about me that is one of a kind except everything about me. There is no individual aspect about me which is unique but when you combine all of these redundant qualities in one person you come up with something that is truly one of a kind.

I am the only person on this planet who has intimate knowledge of everything that I know. This is what makes me special. This is what I have to work with. This is what I have to give. Being me is my purpose.

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Life is like riding a bicycle

October 10, 2013 2 Comments

I’m on the verge of falling apart. I can feel it in my body – the tightness in my stomach, invisible hands wrapped around my throat, the tingling in my back as if to warn me of some impending danger. Regardless of how many times my evolved brain tries to convince me that everything will be okay, no matter what happens I will be fine, my reptilian brain is on high alert.

My residual animal defence mechanisms know that winter is coming and after months of intense stress I may be too weak to survive it. My body is ready to fight for it’s life. I’m on edge, I’m anxious, I’m exhausted and depressed. One wrong move and I’m liable to bite someone’s head off.

The threats are real, the pain I feel is real but my ability to cope and adapt is more developed than my body gives credit. The greatest battle being waged is within myself. The greatest threat to my survival is me. In an internal struggle for power the best chance of survival is balance. Like riding a bicycle, the only way to stay balanced is to keep moving… or stop and put your foot down.

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Blame it on the rain

October 8, 2013 Leave a comment

I’ve had my share of challenges in life. I have managed to overcome most of them. I have made changes where possible and adapted where necessary but sometimes the only thing I can do is surrender. That’s how I felt yesterday. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t change it and I couldn’t overcome it. My obstacle was the weather. With five days of cloudy, rainy weather I just couldn’t do it again.

I didn’t give up easily although I hadn’t made the challenge any easier on myself. The night before I managed to use every available hour of my trip home getting completely shit-faced to the point where I needed assistance for the final leg of my journey.

Still, I did manage to get home. I did manage to get up. I did manage to get ready for work and was all poised to head to St. Paul when the call came in saying that I needn’t bother. They had enough drivers in St. Paul and considering the weather, it simply wasn’t worth me making the trip. To be honest, I was relieved. To be honest, I had already come to the same conclusion. As I was sitting in my van, the engine running, the windshield-wipers removing the raindrops from my view, the only thought in my head was, “I can’t do this.”

In fact, I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t go to work, I couldn’t leave the house, I couldn’t even write about how I couldn’t do anything. I had thrown in the towel. I had given up on the day so I retired to bed with a glass of red wine. I spent most of the day sleeping or watching documentaries about the recent economic crash.

But can I really blame it all on the rain? What about my drinking, isn’t that a choice? Isn’t that something I have control over?

Drinking has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember but there have been periods where alcohol hasn’t been such a significant player. There have been times where drinking just didn’t present itself as an option. But I am a drinker. What I know about myself is that given the option, I am going to choose to drink. But I’m more than just a drinker, I’m a drunk. I actually really enjoy the way alcohol makes me feel. Once those chemicals start going to work on my brain, all of my troubles seems to disappear. I’m no longer depressed, I’m not anxious and I don’t feel any pain. As my chemist friends like to remind me, “alcohol is a solution”.

But it’s also a problem. It’s hard to deny the correlation between alcohol and aspects of my life that don’t work as I would like. The question I keep pondering is whether my connection with alcohol is a character defect or simply a character trait.  My instinct is to judge and shame myself for being a flawed human being but my intellect knows the futility of this response. I can change my behavior, I can adapt to most situations, I can mitigate the negative consequences but I can’t change who I am any more than I can change the weather.

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Back in the saddle again

October 4, 2013 Leave a comment

I think that two days off in a row is one of the greatest inventions even created. One day is not enough but three would have been too many so yesterday I returned to daily grind.

I was feeling pretty down. The weather was shitty and I drank too much during my days off so I think I was feeling a bit of the depressive qualities of alcohol. I didn’t want to work. I wanted to just lay in bed all day but I knew I had to try.

Having a job that forces you to smile is the best thing in the world for someone with major depression.  It was a slow night. I still wasn’t fully back in the game so it wasn’t terrible lucrative for me but it was what I needed. I’m back at it again tonight. Still not happy with the weather but I know that there is nothing better that I could be doing. I will be returning to writing at some point but for now… this is it.

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Really?!?

October 1, 2013 Leave a comment

Well I made it through my ten straight days of driving pedicab and am now giving myself two days off. There is much that I could be doing to keep myself moving forward but I really want to see what I come up with if I give myself nothing to do.

So far I’ve found myself writing stupid shit on facebook, listening to crappy dance-pop and drinking cheap wine. Hmmm… I’m not sure this in an improvement. At the very least I thought I would want to write about my stressors but instead I’m bopping my head to Ke$ha. It may be time for an intervention.

Naw… sometimes I just need a day or two to not give a shit.

By the way… did I hear that the government is shut down? Way to go fuckheads – you’re playing right into my hand! I’ve always said, “If you can’t do anything good, at least you can serve as a bad example.”

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Keep calm and pedal on

September 26, 2013 1 Comment

I’ve just completed five straight days of pedicabbing. That may not seem like a big deal to people who work a five day work weeks every week but for me it’s pretty unique. I haven’t done the same job five days in a row since 1999. Also, I’ve scheduled myself for the next five days as well. That may be a bit crazy but it’s crazy with a purpose.

I’m doing this because it is something that I can do. The parts of my life that are out of control are out of my control. There are many things that I could be stressing about but all that it would give me is stress. So I’m focusing on what I can do. It’s a little bit avoidance, a little bit escape and it’s not a permanent solution. It’s just a way of biding my time while the rest of my world sorts it’s shit out. In the meantime, I’ll continue to get in better shape and save money so that I can survive the winter.

I’m also trying to accomplish one thing each day that will move my life forward. I still have a long to-do list but if I can do one thing each day it will help. Somethings are bigger than others but they all help me carry on. In the past week I have caught up on laundry, changed the sheets on my bed, dyed and trimmed my hair and beard, checked in with my band leader, set up my new phone and gone grocery shopping.

Pretty boring stuff, huh?

I suppose that’s part of why I haven’t been writing as much. I have been working on an economics article. I’m halfway through but I may not be able to finish it until next week when I finally give myself a couple days off. Until then…

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