I don’t think it’s controversial to state that the current state of the world is absolute shit, to the point that it’s abhorrent to simply throw up your hands and say ‘fuck everything’. Everywhere one looks, there is misery, inequality, and abject horrors found just underneath the polished sheen of smegma that has been added to everything.
Slave labor camps are used by multi-billion dollar corporations, racism and sexism are found in droves everywhere, and it’s a consistent struggle to simply survive, much less thrive. This becomes a backdrop of personal misery, where individual misery exists in a world that makes it…distasteful to continue to deal with every new day. After a while, it’s notably simpler to say ‘fuck everything’.
Yep, It Sucks
I don’t think people coming to this stage, this agonizing point in life where hair is being pulled out and the throat feels raw from screaming, are necessarily wrong. Making any type of headway through life is an arduous process where the cards consistently seem stacked against you until you have the good fortune of expiring😠. If anything, this is a breakthrough when you realize (perhaps not for the first time), that this existence isn’t what it’s all cracked up to be.
The Penis of Robin Williams
For many individuals, empathy is a damning trait, as is intelligence. These two can combine to create a very toxic mental space for an individual, where the question of suicide will likely be brought up. Now, when you start searching about suicide on the internet, you’ll inevitably receive these goofball pieces where you need to call a number, why you shouldn’t do it; there’s a whole spiel that seems fucking exhausting to work through.
Where the problem is rather simple: fuck everything.
Eschewing the ‘Holier than Thou’ Bullshit
I don’t think I can, with an iota of integrity, start preaching about the dangers of suicide. I’ve struggled with it consistently throughout my life, my editor has had a few run-ins, and far more friends than one would think have also existed dangerously close to the permanent precipice. It is a damning struggle, and a burden that I (and also you) will shoulder for the rest of our lives unless you hit the shit out of your head and get enough brain damage to where you can no longer understand the difficulties of life.
Amusingly, it seems kind of lazy. I can appreciate the idea that, with suicide, you no longer have to struggle every day to throw up the ‘W’ because you cease to exist. The first time I tried to kill myself I was about 12 – I would continue to struggle with the idea over the coming years to this point, where I’m over three decades in with a family.
What keeps me going is that I’ve been consistently surprised with just how much fun I’ve had throughout the years, with exorbitant highs matched only by miserly lows. Even when life is working in my favor, I never forget the underlying mantra of ‘fuck everything’, but I do try to embrace those good times.
Life, Punctuated
If I killed myself when I was 12, I would have never had my asshole eaten out. I wouldn’t have done opium (which is both good and bad, I guess), or prostituted myself to my girlfriends’ mother, or tried washing my penis with Dr. Pepper when I was homeless. To be fair, running water was hard to come by. These were all bizarre experiences that fundamentally shaped me moving forward.
During times of abuse in the household, it was difficult to see anything beyond the current situation, the quagmire of shit I was ensconced within. It was just constant beatings where I was screamed at for being too much like my natural father 😠, or whatever the parental units were upset about at that time. During every extremely depressive episode, it’s difficult to see beyond, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
Who Is The Father?
If I killed myself in Iraq, I would never have had my very beautiful daughter who is frighteningly intelligent and quick-witted. My daughter is the god damn light of my life, always curious and particular while aspiring to change the world in whatever small means anyone can manage. I wouldn’t have had my first dog, Gigi, who tried to kill me the first time we played fetch. She bit my damn ankle as I passed her, causing me to slide on my face, so she could get the damn ball first.
I wouldn’t have been able to embrace the family that lost their child in Iraq due to anti-coalition forces, offering some small measure of brief respite in this cruel world. My darling wife would have been left, alone, in this world of shit, without my alleged humor helping dampen the consistent blows of existence.
Modern Times
If I killed myself after the military, I would have never watched my daughter grow into one of the most interesting humans I’ve met, nor would I have had my ever-vigorous son which delights in both toddling about the house while ruining things, and quietly cuddling into my chest. I wouldn’t have coached soccer for girls, teaching them about the patience, teamwork, and fun of competition.
I wouldn’t have ever had a house, had a beautiful friendship with one of the greatest men I’ve met, consoled my siblings and mourned the death of the father who raised me (which would be dad #3 for the family, but only my second, hinging upon the theory that legal father #2 is actually my sperm donor), and a million other things. Every day where I make it, when I’m able to say ‘yes, fuck everything, but there are great moments too’, new shit happens that makes me very pleased I’ve been able to hang on for yet another day. A new day rises with new experiences, and they don’t all suck shit. Some of them, 100%, suck shit, but there’s more than enough parts that don’t blow chunks to keep me metaphorically turning the page.
Without a doubt, fuck everything; but maybe instead of the hate-filled anger-fuck that suicide offers, maybe we do a bit of foreplay and see if new experiences arrive that make everything worth hanging on to. Something I read when I was young and struggling was the idea that suicide is a permanent solution to short-term problems. Short-term could very well mean until you’re an adult and no longer live in an abusive household. It could mean a week. But it’s never the rest of your life.
Maybe the mantra should be ‘Fuck everything but me’.
