New Year's Reflections 2021

On the logic and feasibility of giving up

It's the end of the year and I'm feeling a bit philosophical. So you may want to skip this post. Seriously.

But maybe someone out there is in a similar place and feeling the same way I do. I can't do anything about that, and I don't have any answers. I wish I did. I just want to put some thoughts down on the predicament of life we find ourselves in.

I've been upfront over the years about the fact that I don't really want to be be here. Be here, I mean, basically, this place of existence. Now, I don't feel any particular imperative to do something about it right this very minute. But the way I've heard it described by others, and I concur, is that if I had the option of an off-switch where I could literally just flip it and not be around anymore, I would certainly do so without a moment's hesitation.

Another way of putting that is that the only reason I'm alive is literally because I happen to not be dead—and no other reason. It's not by choice, really, it's just kind of the default option. A lot of times I describe myself as dead inside. That's certainly how it feels—like an automaton, or a zombie. I may look the same way as everyone else on the outside but I’m empty on the inside; a hollow shell going through the motions day in and day out while feeling nothing.

Another way I describe it is like sitting through the world’s worst movie. Imagine sitting in the theater watching the most God-awful dreck you can possibly imagine. Would you stay? Or would you get up and leave? And at what point would you begin eyeing up the exits?

What about a job you couldn’t stand? One that you dread every time you have to go into work? Would you quit? Would you walk away? Or would you grit your teeth and stick it out no matter what?

Now what if that wasn't just eight hours of your day, five days a week, but every waking moment. The thing is, you can always quit and get another job. There's no way to quit and get another life. There's only one way to walk away from that.

I think there's a big group of people out there who aren't actively suicidal but don't like their lives. You're not alone!

Everywhere I look it seems like people are self-medicating. The popular options seem to be pets, computer games and religion. Sometimes people throw themselves into hobbies. Or they take enough pleasure in the mall things to make up for the big things that are crap. I wished those things worked for me, I really do. But no matter how hard I try, my body rejects the mental anesthesia that seems to numb the pain for others.

For those of you who enjoy living and can't imagine what any of this feels like, I say good for you! I envy you and wish you the best. Everyone should feel like that. And, fortunately, it appears that most people do.

However, when I contemplate my own death I don't feel fear. I feel...relief. Like a burden being lifted off my shoulders. Like finally paying off a massive debt or getting out of an abusive relationship. It makes it easier to go on, knowing that at least that option is out there.

When you're young you feel like life is full of possibilities. Like most young people, I had a lot of hopes and dreams. I wanted to be financially successful—not rich, mind you, but at least not constantly worried about money. I wanted to fall in love at least once. I wanted to go to exotic places and meet interesting people. I wanted to at least be thankful for being alive and grateful for the opportunity of living—an opportunity that very few get to experience.

Like pedals from a dying rose, one by one those dreams fell away, lying brown and shriveled on the floor. All of us have a narrow window in which to achieve those things, and once it has passed, it's gone forever. That's simply the way life works. Maturing is a process of slowly giving up your dreams. With every path taken, others become closed off to you forever. Finally, there's only one arrow left on the signpost of life pointing you in a direction that you never wanted to go towards a destination you never truly wanted to arrive at. And so life becomes effectively a death march, trudging slowly, silently forward towards the end, resigned to your fate.

With youth, you at least have the notion that at some point “things will get better” to keep you going. But at some point you realize that there is more sand in the bottom of the hourglass than the top. You look in the mirror and see someone you don’t recognize staring back at you, waistline expanding, hairline receding, less attractive and less desirable as an employee or lover with each passing year from this point forward.

And then you realize that you're going to be spending the rest of your life alone, your body slowly decaying and falling apart, without any financial security, and you don't see much appeal in that sort of a future, or any good options left either professionally or personally. You simply can't lie to that person in the mirror anymore. At some point you have to be honest with yourself and realize that, no, things aren't going to get better, and that your best days are behind you.

You’re never going to find that special someone. You will never come home to someone who loves you, or experience what that feels like. That wonderful career you imagined you will never materialize. You’re not going to climb the professional ladder. Financial security is out of reach and you will be probably have to work until you die. You will never live on that boat or sunny beach. No one will cry at your funeral, or even know who you were. No one will know or care about all those hopes and dreams that little boy had so long ago when life seemed full of endless possibilities.

Life is a parabola whose vertex can only be known in retrospect. Even when you know you've passed it, hopefully you have an ample store of good memories on the positive side of the line of symmetry to see you thorough as you begin your descent back towards the origin.

Animal models of depression are fascinating. What they do is give animals a hopeless task like swimming, until they just finally give up and resign themselves to drowning. They just can't go on anymore. All of use reach that point; some of us sooner than others.

It feels like you are surrounded everywhere by predators and you are the prey, especially in the present-day United States. Every industry is actively trying to rip you off, from health care to education to finance, to the government, corporations, car salesmen, not to mention the actual scammers (online and off). No one is on your side, except maybe your family if you’re lucky. But for those us without any family or friends—without even a single person to call on in an emergency or any safe place to fall, we truly are on our own in an unforgiving dog-eat-dog world where your life means nothing except as a revenue stream for someone higher up in the food chain. A life constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop is exhausting. At some point you get tired of constantly running from the wolves and you just want to lay down and rest; rest for a long, long time. You no longer care if you get eaten anymore; in fact it’s a relief.

Now, I'm fortunate in the sense that I don't have to worry about hurting anyone if I decide to go. Not many people are in that position. They will indeed hurt people, and sometimes forever. For anyone with people they care about in their life, please, please, please put the thought out of your head. Living for others, as bad as it may be, is a worthwhile endeavor, until the choice is made for you in the end, however long that may be.

In the end I have no one to blame but myself. And I don't blame anyone but myself. After all, people with far more disadvantages than me have gone on to live happy, fulfilling lives, surrounded by people who love and care about them. It brings my own failure into sharper relief.

We are the minority. But we're here. We're the shelter animals who didn't get adopted for whatever reason. I love heartwarming stories of pets finding their forever homes. I'm a total sucker for them. I can't get enough.

But for every rescue animal that finds its forever home, some never do. Their future consists of being led to a cold, dark, empty room that they will never come out of. They are probably scared and alone when it happens.

Maybe you were too old. Maybe you were too ugly. Maybe too many abusive owners have ruined your chances at a good home. You don't understand what's going on, or why. You had so much love to give, if only you had the chance. But you'll never get that chance.

Those are the animals that I feel for. Those are the animals that I think about often. I shed a tear for them every so often At least it’s something. A way to remember.

That's just the reality for some of us in this world. We were late bloomers. We didn't live up to our potential. We were left on the shelf. We are always on the outside looking in. Some of us just aren’t cut out for this world—parents, genes, upbringing, fate, luck, or what have you. As I always say, you can’t have big, big winners without also having big, big losers. That’s just how it is.

I don't know whether the love that those animals deserved but never got is out there waiting for them on the other side of the rainbow bridge. I really, really hope so. I don't know if there is a rainbow bridge for people. I doubt it. Religion talks a lot about the dead, but it's really for the living. Nothing I've seen in my life has convinced me that there is anything beyond this reality. But I do know that, at the very least, nothing will hurt anymore.

And maybe that's enough.

Thanks everyone, for reading this past year. We'll return to regularly scheduled programming next time which will hopefully be a bit less melancholy. Here's hoping for a better 2022 and a brighter future for us all.