Just what the fuck ARE you doing with your life?

What is your purpose? What do you feel you need to achieve? Take a moment and see if you can sum it up in one short sentence. Now take another moment and make sure there isn't anything else you'd like to add. One short sentence. If you can't sum up what it is you want to be in one short sentence then perhaps you simply don't know.

If you took a few minutes to read the last paragraph and are now coming up with reasons why I'm wrong (lie all you want, you don't know wtf you're doing); what is it that keeps you moving? If you don't know where you're going, why are you going anywhere at all? To do what: put yourself through school, pay the mortgage, have kids, drive a nice car, brag at your high school reunion? Sounds like a fantastic recipe for a midlife crisis.

To those of you, the few, wonderful you, who answered "Me", pat yourselves on the back and go have a cookie. See me later for a complimentary blowjay because you are single-handedly keeping the human spirit alive, and I can dig that.

The best thing any one of us can do for the rest of civilization is simply to be us. You be you, I'll be me. If your you just so happens to be dead under a bus, I guess that's how the cards were dealt. But you better damn well do every single thing possible to make sure you were all the you you could be, so when that bus makes you into roadpie everybody will know who to mourn.

As for those too weak to be themselves... it was nice not knowing you.

Motivation

This is something I wrote about a year ago. I finally decided to publish it:

What is motivation? Is it something that comes in waves, or does it appear at the flick of a switch? How is it created? Who sends it? Is there a God of motivation who graves chosen individuals with the gifts of foresight and time management? Does it come from deep within oneself, or must it be applied from an outside source? Does it well up inside a person waiting for the taps to be opened?

It is none of these things. Motivation is a choice based on necessity. Personal necessity is most generally the cause. People get out of bed every day to go to work because they have to.

Why do they have to? What is the greater purpose? That is something each person must answer for themselves. Is it worth it to pay the rent, put food on the table?

Motivation comes from a dream. Dreams are the greater purpose in life.

Dreams put people with no money through college. They laid tracks into the West and put men into space. Dreams are responsible for every great act in history.

The hardest part of life isn't getting out of bed every day; it is realizing your dream.

Is it better to believe blindly or live cynically?

Woe be the man who chooses belief over life.

What are you living for, and what are you living under? What guides you, motivates you and drives you? Where is your moral compass derived from? If you're like me, the purpose of your life is to experience life. That's it.

Here's a depressing thought: When you die, there won't be anything after that. The human body is just a big machine, and when it shuts down that's the end of the story. Maybe you believe in reincarnation, and maybe it's true, but you won't remember your past life, that's for damn sure. So who gives a fuck?

Now, most of you reading this right now probably think I'm one bitter son of a bitch. And in part that's true. But you're looking at this all wrong. I'm not putting any stock in the existence of an afterlife, and that motivates me to live the best god damned life I know how. Because this is the only shot I get.

So you tell me, is it better to live your oh-so-short life in a manner which will preserve your soul (living like a pussy) for the eternal? Or should you wring every ounce of LIFE out of your frail body?

Overthinking: The NASA Approach to Life

It seems that some people are genetically engineered to analyze, interpret, re-analyze and re-interpret every action and reaction in their lives. Oftentimes despite their best efforts to halt the ever-turning wheel of thought in their heads, which leaves me to wonder: Is it possible to remove your brain from the equation?



Of course I don't mean literally. But maybe just hold a chloroform rag over that person in your head's face so you can get a few hours of peace. I mean, there has to be a way, right?

Due to lack of funding (and one or two human rights laws) I won't be performing any experiments to get to the bottom of this. What I'll do instead is talk about myself for a little while because I think it's worth your time to read it.

Now for the most part I don't have too much trouble silencing my brain. Usually it's doused in so much alcohol it can barely function anyhow. But every once in a while I get a little worked up and start running down answers, straining the limits of my logical reasoning to figure out why my life is what it is; why Brad Pitt dumped Jennifer Aniston; why I can't get laid; etc. After an hour or two and a pack of cigarettes I get tired and/or distracted and move on. But what if I wasn't capable of that?



What is life without an off switch? Is it efficiency? Surely something that never shuts off must get more done. Or is it just pinging back and forth between two points like a ping pong ball in a static-charged plastic box? Sigh. I have no idea. What I do know is that there is simply no point to curling up in your bed and doing nothing but mulling over possibilities. If you find yourself locked in a quandary about life the best thing you can do is unload on somebody else. Whether you do that in a positive or a negative way is entirely your decision.

I leave you with this kernel: Take a look at something that puzzles you. Spend a minute and consider it. If you can't immediately understand it, change it or deal with it, "Fuck it." Just forget about it and focus on things you CAN understand, change and deal with.

The Digital Age: Integration Of All Your Woes

It's amazing, wonderful, and frightening how everything in your life is interconnected nowadays. When you favorite a video on YouTube (signed in with your Google account, of course) it posts automatically to your Facebook page. Hell, if I wanted I could tell this website to update my Facebook when I post a new blog. But my blogs aren't very interesting and I have more respect for those on my friends list than that.

That doesn't even scratch the surface though. The really important stuff is the digitizing of all your life's worth. The monetary type stuff, the crap everybody tells you not to be concerned about. Yes, your credit score, your driving record, your criminal record, your shoe size and your college degree. It's all part of a big profile that everyyybody with a little "permission" can look at before they decide to hire you, fire you, do business with you, educate you, treat you, arrest you, etc.

I've been in debt since I was 18. Every year it stacks up a little higher. Lose a job here, run up a credit card there. Break a bone here, ditch a collection agency there. Whatever, it's life shit. I can live around it. But for how long? What I fear most is the day they "chip" all of us. No more cash, no more cards, no more wallets, just a forearm with a little microchip in it. The day I walk up to the cashier for a pack of smokes, scan my forearm and get denied because I didn't pay my cellphone bill that month is the day I fucking quit.

This is meant to put a little worm of thought into your heads. Don't take it too seriously, because my interpretation is not literal. But don't immediately shrug it off, either. If you're "in", you're in. If you're "out", you're out forever. Once you get in the pit there is nowhere to go but down.

Baptisms are getting really expensive

Let's discuss something uplifting today, like rebirth. Today I found out roughly how much it costs to live again. Something to the tune of $35,000. Give or take a couple grand, I wasn't really paying attention. To a person in my position, anything over $1,000 is all the same: unpayable. Oh well, I never was planning to own anything ever again anyway.

So because I actually drowned I think this must be the most expensive Baptism EVER. And it's even better because I'm not Christian so all my sins haven't even been warshed away. I think this is God's joke on me after I pulled a fast one on him. That guy's good, man.

Speaking of higher powers and beliefs and whatnot, I watched The Matrix again this morning. Now there's something I could believe in. I would more readily put my faith in all of us living programmed lives as prisoners in a computer than some magical force with super-human powers that's just... there. No explanation, he's just up there pulling strings. Always has been. Don't believe it? Ohhh well there's a special place for nonbelievers, so you best jump on the wagon.

Sigh. Life is nothing but wolves and sheep. Or leets and noobs as the dialect may be.

Just to give you something to read

I personally have little use for a blog, but I do have lots of spare time. So I figured I'd post something up here just so I look like an established member of the community and don't get chased out with pitchforks and torches for being a mere lurker.

In other news, I recently died. Which was considerably more nondescript than I figured it might be. As it happens, dying is a lot easier than waking up after having just died. Especially surrounded with suspicions of suicide (all baseless), medical bills and a tirelessly concerned family.

However, you need fret none, for I am largely the same stunning charmer that I always was and will continue to be until I get busted for cruising on an expired lifecard. Which is liable to be soon (<10 years) unless my luck and body prove to be stronger than I think. That doesn't depress me tho, strangely. I enjoy what I have and I have what I enjoy, what else is there?

K I'm gonna go somewhere else before this gets painfully long.