Bitter Sweet Honey

I really need to talk to someone. Too bad I have so few real friends.  I got really bad news last Friday.  Not that fleeting kind of bad news, but the real serious real bad kind of news.  After my drunken stupor, I talked to three people.  The response from all three was what I expected.  Support from 2 and an “I told you so, hopefully this is a wake up call” sort of response from the third. To bad it was the third that I really needed just to provide a little sympathy.  It was not a wake up call.  It was simply another step in my predetermined future that I refused to fight off.  From my perspective its all just a matter of not if its going to happen, but when.

Anyway yesterday, I was frustrated about a lot of things.  I needed someone just to talk to.  Not even really to talk about what was on my mind or what process was frustrating me. Rarely do I want to talk about those things.  I just wanted someone to talk with me and make me laugh or to listen.  Then I got a phone from an old friend, someone who used to be my best friend, out of the blue.  Immediately I suspected the reason for the call.  Unfortunately, I was right.  He called, as most of my “friends” do, not to see how I was doing, but to ask me a legal question.

It was an important legal question about transferring power of attorney from a sick relative of his.  I understood the call.  I was glad that I could offer some advice to reduce the burden on his family. Yet, I still hated the call.

I’ve gone through a lot.  Still am.  Some of it the fault of others, much of it my own fault, some of it fate. Sometimes I just want someone to call me just to ask genuinely how I am doing. I probably wouldn’t tell them really.  I’d probably give them the usual “surviving” or “staying out of trouble” or “great”.  Rarely the truth because my truth is subject to exaggeration and melancholy best expressed through irony which is not appreciated by everyone.  However, most times when people call and ask how I am doing, its really just a polite asking before they ask me for advice or free legal assistance. Those times just breaks my heart. They send a clear message that they really do not care how I’m doing.  They only care about themselves and what is important to them at the moment.

I’d rather they just skip the bullshit and say what’s on their mind.  Its an insult to only ask about me out of some misguided need to try to be polite.  If you want to be truly polite then apologize for not calling me before needing my help.  That I could embrace.  That honesty would make me feel less used.

As a kid I would wonder what was the meaning of living.  Today as an adult that question still seems to dominate my thoughts. Unfortunately, I still do not know the answer.  That fact renders life some what pointless.  They say that brilliance is a hairs breath away from madness.  I balance on that hair.  Sometimes you really can be too smart (can you ever really be too smart?).  Contemplative maybe.  A classic over thinker.  You know, when thinking gets in the way of doing and being and living.  Thinking in a bad way.  Not thinking and curing cancer or righting social injustice through thought combined with purpose and a dash of action.  No, just thinking.  Thinking about why am I here and what is my purpose and what is the point of it all?

When I was a kid I used to wonder (still wonder) what would be my life’s work.  No, really, I did wonder about it.  I remember being really young around Junior High School or less (random number in my head 7, so maybe I was 7 when it started) and trying to figure out what people would remember me for when I died.  What would my headstone say? Morbid thought.  But life seemed to me to be a bunch of people running around distracting themselves from the harshness of life.  Work, sleep, repeat.  I did not want that for myself.  I did not want to be like that. I wanted to know that what I did mattered.  So I decided that I did not want to be forgotten. Problem is that I also believed (and still believe) that in the end everyone will be forgotten.  Nothing that we do will last. Time is not a kind master.  Memories are not kind mistresses. No one will now why the street is named after you or care. (There is an MLK Jr. street in major cities across America, I wonder when if it ever reminds people of the man instead of just you have entered the black part of town.).

So I think my brain has been broken for a really long time.  It sees my life at times like a movie where I just watch things happen knowing that in the end nothing matters.  I think of my colleagues and few friends.  I think about their lives.  I listen to them. Unfortunately, I both see and hear.  I listen to other lawyers recounting some long ago legal victory or loss and I think, “Is that it? Is that the sum of your life? Some case that no one remembers or cares about?”  I do not want that.  Yet, I am there too. I built my house on sand without the bliss of ignorance.  I know that it is on sand, and that specific foundation will cause my life to be devoured and forgotten like last week’s meal.(stop thinking about what you ate last week and pay attention…fucking nuerolinguistic programming.).

I know my brain is broken.  It does not see happiness.  It sees only sadness and futility.  Intellectually it knows everything is the way it should be and that I have reasons to be happy in the moment.  It knows it, but refuses to allow it.  Instead it wakes me from slumber with anxiety and worry.  I worry about problems that do not exist.  I create problems by ignoring those that do even when I have more than enough skill, training, and intellect to solve most of them quickly and efficiently.  Procrastination, nay avoidance and procrastination, have become my bed fellows.  My own inability to find the spark of life, that joy of living, makes living more of a chore than a pleasure.  Work. Sleep. Repeat.

I admit that I never understood suicides.  Until now that is.  Now I understand.  Life grinds you down and when it does not, your mind may get stuck in an endless loop like mine and perceive that it is all worthless and harsh and unfair.  The truth. Or at least my truth. The only relief, when not tortured by dreams of failure and plight is the sweet escape of sleep. Sleep the living death.  The pain stops when you are sleep (I heard that pain only exists in the mind).  Well that and play videogames (ever notice how much better that fake life full of fake adventure is and how easily people decide to live there instead of facing the suckiness of real lives here? -End tangent.).  So we find suicide as a pleasant alternative.  (imperial “we”). When I was younger, I thought suicides were just weak minded individuals without the backbone to suck it up and deal with life.  Now I know better. Each day that someone does not attempt to escape is a good day and takes bravery and strength because deep down they know that tomorrow will not be any better than today. Work. Sleep. Repeat.

That is how I see life.  I wish I did not.  I wish that I could escape into the bliss of making the San Diego Chargers season the high point of life.  And when that was over move into celebrating the Celtics.  But I cannot.  I see beyond the red pill.  Those are kids games used to divert us from the fact that we do not live our lives.  We endure them as workers in the capitalistic machine.  We are given sporting events to quell the rage that would result if we were forced to understand and accept that our lives are ours and not just for two weeks in June when we are on vacation or for two days a week when we are “off”.

I have wished that I could escape into movies. I admit that I am getting better at this.  But it is still all dross and distraction.  I know that we sit as fat couch potatoes watching people pretend to live adventures that we could only dream of rather than engaging in the adventure ourselves.  Reality television is not even real. It is made up and scripted with producers who may not hand out scripts but work situations and events to make them more dramatic and create tension.  They cut the scenes to hint at things which may never have occurred all to help sell you products during commercials that you do not really want or need. Your want and need are manufactured.  Work. Consume. Work. Consume.

Commercials.  Ah…marketers and spin masters. And what is the selling point? The point is that you need things to make you happy.  Buy this car and you will be happy.  I own the car and am not happy because happiness cannot be found in a car.  If only you had this “easy button” life would be “easy”.  I pushed the button.  Nothing happened.  I was no happier. We were all sold the American dream of home ownership, yet most of today’s homeowners do not own their homes. The bank does. The system provides you a 30 year mortgage and you lap it up. You sign up for mortgage slavery that says for the next thirty years you will work to pay 3 times the purchase price of your home. The fine print says that you’ll probably die before you own it.  Mort=death. Blue pill.

I wish I was not so smart. I wish my brain was not broken. I wish it was broken more….