Happy? Now you.
I’d kill to have your life.” I won’t be modest; I get that a lot. It’s nice to hear, and the wordplay, for sure, is clichéd but cute.
However, something inside me dies whenever someone tells me they would rather have my (or anyone else’s) life — because no one should feel that way... and because I know how that feels.
I am taken back to my elementary school art classes — when I looked over at how nice the “stupid girl’s” crayon-melting work was shaping up, compared to the heaping pile of crap I was creating. Back to that geek in my seventh-grade shop class — him with the perfectly cut ply-boards for his perfectly-coming-together side table. He would smile at me encouragingly as I kept trying to learn to use the handsaw to cut my ply-boards: “With a straight line,” he said, “not a cursive zee...”
Die, Shop-Nerd! Burn, Crayon-Bitch! Wasn’t I trying just as hard? I would have killed to have their talent.
Unfortunately, murder is a grade-schooler’s fantasy, and not a real option. My real go-to move is the “God, are you effing kidding me” tantrum, followed by the “Just tell me what to do already” plea.
It’s a nice one-two punch. I have walked over many a thrown-down handsaw and snapped set of crayons to (finally) ask for help. And many times I was lucky enough to get it. My favorite Google keywords are “tips tricks hints cheats walkthrough” — yes, envious one, many “Secrets” have been shared with me.
“I would kill for your life.” I heard it again recently, so on that day I decided it was my turn to share. I was chatting with a freelance writer who was seeking purpose, so I thought, “Let’s give this loser some purpose.”
I was intending to let my Ego fly by explaining how much smarter I was than everyone within earshot. I was ready to recite my Fantastic Walkthrough To A Life Worth Living, but in that spontaneous moment of giving, I managed to bullshit my way into what I believe is actually one of the most real things I’ve ever said.
“My life,” I replied, “is easy to have. Here’s a tip: don’t look for purpose. Just keep your eyes and ears open, and use your mouth to color your expression of the world. Touch everything, but don’t take anything. Don’t walk around collecting pieces of a world you are already part of, because all you will end up with is a pocketful of Issues. A lot of people love their ‘collections’ and think they are defined by them, but all it does is pull their pants down. The bad news is that you’ll have to let your issues go. The good news is that you can walk freely and put your hands in your pockets when it gets cold and nothing will bite you. Turn your Issues into
Inspirations that move you forward, instead of Tasks that hold you back.”
“That was beautiful,” said my would-be-doppelganger... before spending the next few days complaining about things not going the way they should.
The Super Secret Law of the Super Secret Trick
“You can tell me how it’s done, but I still won’t be able to do it.”
That geek in my shop class showed me how he cut his ply-boards. And that stupid crayon-melting savant, she showed me how as well – “Look, it’s easy!” the little imp said, over and over.
It looked easy, maybe it was easy, but after doing as they did, my handiwork remained somewhere between the realms of abstract performance art, and pure garbage.
Maybe someone slipped me this voodoo plywood, or I got handed the cheap crayons...? Maybe in high school the girls liked the other boys more because they had richer parents. Maybe in college everyone who passed the exam I failed had paid the professor off. Maybe that girl who just got promoted ahead of me orally pleasured the boss.
Tell me, was it fair that she got promoted, but when I offered the same boss the same oral pleasure for the same promotion on the same day in the same office, I got fired?
The Super Secret Law of Blowing The Equal Opportunity Employer
“There is no such thing as Fair, because there is no such thing as Unfair. The world is driven by the winds of whim, and we are all blowing it.”
The truth is that we are all blowing each other, and we all blow differently. Some of us use studied techniques, some of us just go for it with gusto, and some of us just plain suck.
The truth is that skill and smarts don’t matter — and “different” doesn’t mean “better” — because I always seem to be in the minority when I say that Vice Ganda will never be as funny as Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. The winds of whim blow where they will, and that’s okay. All we need to do is feel it.
The truth is that my heaping pile of crayon crap is just as artful as that 500-year-old photograph of a smiling fat chick displayed in the Louvre. My small apartment is just as good a Home as an Imperial Palace. I can be just as happy with a four-digit monthly paycheck. The stupid useless video games I have fun with matter just as much as the high-stress jobs I did back when I was still trying to change the world.
The truth is that my life is great, no matter what, as long as I believe I am great, no matter what.
The truth is that whatever I do is okay, if I am free from Guilt.
It won’t be easy fighting a lifetime of miseducation, but once I realize that I have no purpose in a Game with no rules, on a playing field with no lines and borders — and that I am not being compared to the other players — then I will truly understand what it is to be Free from Envy, Ambition, Duty, and our God Damned Calendar.
Happy New Year? How about Happy New Day? Happy New NOW!
Happy, Now You
You are Now, and Free. Why did we wait till Jan. 1 to implement “resolutions” to become the people we always wanted to be? Why can’t we take the word “should” out of our vocabulary? Why can’t we stop using fear of repercussion as our primary motivation?
We are Now, Free, but the perception is that this Freedom is absolutely terrifying — or maybe just boring — and that this Freedom can only be truly achieved by Death.
Well, there’s the rub, and an opportunity for more cute and clichéd wordplay: “I would kill for your life,” I hear.
But are you willing to die for it?
I wish you well. May you wake up and die.
