"Life was shit," has been my intro to describing an experience of the last several years. It is much easier than the alternative, longer version, which begins, "I was happy," and expresses more succinctly not only the truth but the more interesting bits of someone else's experience. My experience. An episode that lasted and was held together with words like, "life is shit." It hits to the heart of the matter I think. From the standpoint of the present tense I am proud, no, understanding of what just happened. I have something to say now. The older our generation gets the more entitlement we feel we deserve for quiet rooms and fear-struck audiences to hear out the 'wisdom' of the events and general knowledge we got from school or relationships or the drifting, socially acceptable, relative truth we picked up from the majority. I am being facetious of course. I am one of those people. But I have an argument to back my case and I think it is worthwhile to hear out. I'll not make this a forum for lecture, however, I would rather say these thoughts aloud where gestures and questions can carry on their work between us. Even philosophers who define every important word they use cannot communicate an idea accurately to their peers. Best not to pretend.
I took a frightening test online yesterday - life expectancy generated by Reuters. The punchline is that I have fifty years to live, and I'll add 'if I'm lucky'. A third of anything can be tragic or ecstatic. In the case of a life lived I think it has the bittersweetness of both. If I hold to my best guess this is all that we have, us noble human beings, and noble we most certainly. Kings and pawns are both made out of the same carefully hewn marble against a mathematically and beautifully simple board. Humans and the universe operate on a similar principle. The compromise for complexity in our race is that we are bound to be a short-lived phenomena, either expelling ourselves through ignorance or being extinguished by the natural order of destruction and regeneration. That we can understand that is one of our unique qualities. I think we could cherish that a little more. But my argument is not for the universal so much as the local and more current existence. The fifty years I may have left. I don't want to put words into anyones mouth so I will suppose in generalizations.
While living a morally, righteous and healthy lifestyle is what I often say I want, it of course isn't. Those things are just principles that can be used when necessary to protect an otherwise debaucherous (a word?) life I really want. If I haven't said so I am on a break from Agape Community along with the other interns. I chose my vacation alone in Providence. When I left I gave everyone a hug and visualized that the next time I saw them I would have a conversation about how much I miss being on the farm in simplicity and nature. "Oh the glorious things I longed for while I was gone in the crazed, unnatural city." I don't think this is going to happen. Unless I am mugged and raped on the streets before going back I think I will have to admit that I love being here. I know the reaction already for it has already come up with my subconscious. We in the West cannot continue to live the way we do. Not so long from now things will become just as radically different as they have in the recent past because we no longer have the resources natural and unnatural to continue. I am not afraid of that happening. In fact, I hope for it. At Agape the idea is that we all need to move back into the woods and live naturally and simply. We don't eat meat because it is unkind to animals, yes, but also because history says that we are not designed with teeth or organs to digest the food properly. This is where one of my arguments comes in: I don't buy it. And it's a simple as this. We are not now what we once were. We are evolving just as much and often more than the life around us. I can believe in the possibility that humans were once herbivores, but I also believe that at a given point we found it beneficial to eat something other than fruits and vegetables and beans and berries. The claim is also that we are conscious enough to realize we can live without harming what is around us. While this is true - that all beings are engineered to stay alive - I am also a piece of the natural order, one in which I cannot change to any significant degree. This is just an example of so many pointless topics. At some point in history there was a man or woman who thought up the idea to have definitions for who humans were and what they 'ought' to do... mythologically speaking. This, I believe, is the root to every organization/religion/government that sets out to order human life. We are not ducks lined up in a particular fashion that is perfect. Nor are we going anywhere where those rules apply. I am tearing through the farce like a wrecking ball to an already crumbling building, clearing the way so as to see the whole scenery behind. This is all done inside but I have gained the confidence to admit it via weariness rather than ego. Existence is not perfect, most would agree, but not because of any fallacy on our part. We are because we must have been and we need to start living our lives that way. The special, observable seat we sit in allows us to make life better for ourselves by helping others and so I do not promote total anarchy. That said, life will happen as it happens, unaided by us. Can we effect anything? I don't know... I try so hard, but I don't know. I will say that admitting who I am is best thing I have ever done. I think if I can effect someone I would do so by letting them out of the asphyxiating bag of religious belief, of social normalcy. Say it understandingly and without fear! I am this this gender, attracted to this gender. I am destructive to others. I want to change - I want not to change. I have been a greedy, untrustworthy, debaucher and I am unafraid to say so. This is not about pride. This is about clearly seeing where you have come from and accepting the life that comes from that. Admit that you crave sex or masturbate, steal, lie, cause others pain. It is not about the liberty. It is not about the pride. It is about living without the weight of unnecessary (and unnatural) guilt. People will either fail or succeed in the eyes of those who try to categorize rules so that we can fit into their standards. There are no standards - there is only chaos. But that is not the end of the story. Despite truth, there is beauty, there is relationship. And maybe, just maybe there is something more.
I have been rewatching season three of Californication today in expectation of the coming fourth season beginning in a few weeks. If you haven't seen the show the main character, Hank Moody, is a writer in Southern California who unapologetically drinks, smokes, man-whores (it's now a verb) while trying to father a child. Anyone who likes the show has a special place for Hank - we love that he is an asshole who sleeps around. What keeps us liking him, however, is that he sincerely wants to be a good father. I get chills when I see him on screen in the warmth of California, smoking a cigarette with nothing to do but enjoy life and drink away the tragedy of what it took to get there. I honestly want that - like it is in the movies. But life is most definitely not like that. And so in the same moment it's not what I want. Instead I submit to an alternative. It's not perfect or moral or healthy or anything to do with groups. It's soaking in what can be for as many moments as possible. It's dragging on the best experience of our lives for as long as possible. It's a radical submission because I don't think it happens very often. I would say that it's impossible because I don't personally know anyone who has pulled off a life like that but I am setting off to be the first. I spoke with a girl here in Providence the night before last who has inspired me quite a bit. In a sense she admitted the ugly truth of life in the voice of someone who is unwilling to submit to 'the way things are'. People who have wanted money have found it and those who have sought god have found it. I will always return to hope in people, tried or not. There will be love in good people, shock and tingling feelings of a joy that is enough to handle. I will have my real-life Hank Moody experiences. I will have a cigarette.
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