Existential Ennui Awareness Week
Travel far and wide … study extensively … work hard … be courageous … throw yourself into the maelstrom of Life with the determination of a fiend with one last night on Earth before its soul is sucked inexorably into the deepest, darkest depths of the netherworld — “knee deep in the fist fight for Life … fist deep in the need for the fight” ¹.
… and, should Fortune smile upon you, your reward shall be three bits of used string and a dead cat.
Life is like a box of chocolates: obscenely overpriced 0.002% cocoa-solids-coated jaw-breaking toffee/denture-gumming nougat that nobody else wants … and the plastic tray in the bottom layer is empty and turned upside down.
*sigh*
Is everyone’s life the product of a sick sense of humour or do Life, the Universe and Everything have it in for me personally?
I didn’t have a handy way of describing the phenomenon until it had been but, frankly, I’ve suspected I was the star of the Truman Show since long before it was ever made and can only imagine that movie was made especially for me … just to add a piquant soupçon of irony to Life — rubbing my nose in it, yet giving me no way of proving it to even myself, let alone anyone else … leaving me unable to give voice to my deepest misgivings lest I be locked up in a secure home for the mentally fragile.
“He thinks he’s the star of an intergalactic hoax reality sitcom, Doctor.”
“Isn’t he?”
“He doesn’t know that.”
“I see …
Well, you’d better lock him up then — it’s what he’d expect, after all.”
Wouldn’t that make an amusing twist? Good for at least half a season … maybe even a whole one.
The script writers set me up for a fall time after time, to the merriment of the entire Universe, never mind the galaxy ², and I’ve learned that Life is one crushing defeat after another until you just wish you were dead.
Life is a trial … a test of faith, patience, or stamina through subjection to suffering or temptation; broadly : a source of vexation or annoyance. It’s a state of pain or anguish that tests patience, endurance and belief. It’s short, brutal and painful. And, afterwards, if religious beliefs are anything to go by, you are found guilty.
Should there actually be an afterlife, the only surprise it could possibly hold in store for me would be the discovery that it weren’t a virtual plane of existence created especially to fool me into thinking I were dead and passed on, expressly so that the idea of Life being a trial and then my being found guilty afterwards could be played out .. to my distress and the merriment of you all … only for me then to be further duped into believing that my next revelation were to learn that, in fact, reincarnation is the way of things and I’ve got to repeat the whole miserable experience all over again … and again … and again … and again … <sigh>.
Should there be an afterlife … and I learn that reincarnation is the way of things … I am not being reabsorbed into the higher ‘Me’ … the meta-state of being that is ‘I’ — he’s a maniac in need of psychotherapy-with-extreme-prejudice and he’ll be saying something utterly insane about how “that was intense … wow, what a rush … let’s do it again!”
Instead, I shall walk up to myself … punch me hard in the mouth … and scream “No! … Let’s not! … It fucking hurts!”
And if I have no choice then I am not being fooled by demons masquerading as wise Buddhist monks … not coming back as a sentient being … because that’s how you know you’re almost there … almost home and dry … just one more try …. time … after time … after time … after time … until you realise that it’s a lie and that this isn’t the wheel of Life from which you are attempting to escape by leading a worthy existence but one of the circles of Hell … that never ends … that you are doomed to go around for all Eternity … your hopes forever dashed but always returning to haunt you, like Prometheus’ liver and Sisyphus’ stone.
“Now, remember when we said there was no future?
Well, this is it.
Right, next up … more of the same.”
— Blank Reg, ‘Max Headroom’
No … I’m coming back as something mindless … like a spider … that just sits there, in its web, awaiting its next meal … without a thought or care in the Universe.
…
*siii … iii … igh*
It’s Existential Ennui Awareness Week again already … and I’m not getting enough sleep.
On top of which, some days, Life can be so heartbreaking that … if it weren’t for the gratuitous violence … I’m not sure I could carry on.
Oh, well … having got done all the things I need to do today, I finally have time to myself at last and can do whatever I like — so, I think I’ll just sit here and sob inconsolably until it’s time to die.
Hey ho, people … have a wonderful day.
I dare you.
—
¹ Fjokra
² And should I ever discover that I am the ‘star’ of such a ‘show’ and that you’re all in on the ‘gag’ … supporting characters, bit-players and extras … I won’t be at all surprised.
