I'm pretty fucked up.

I worry about a lot of shit.  Some of it makes sense, like will I find a good job so that we can get our heads above water financially and start having things and enjoying the freedom that comes from being childless and having some disposable income in your pocket.  Some of it doesn't make sense, like how fucked up will the world be if the conservatives take over and realize their dream of turning America into a modern fascist state.  I say it doesn't make sense, not because it doesn't make sense to me, but because it doesn't make sense to other people.  I tell people that I worry about politics and religion and things in the world that affect society that I really have little to no control over and they tell me I'm crazy.  They say how can you worry about shit that you can't do anything about, why do you care so much about a system that you can't change, why do you get so passionate about things like that when you have more important stuff to worry about in your life?  I don't know why, but I do.  I don't know why I can't just ignore politics and what's going on in the world around me and focus all my effort into worrying about paying the bills and getting through the day and scrounging up the $60 it costs to fill my tank.  I don't worry about how I'm going to get that money, I worry about why I need that damn much in the first place.  I don't worry about how I'm going to find a job, I worry about why it's so damn hard to find one in the first place.  I stress on shit that other people say I'm stupid for stressing on.

People say how can I exist in this world and see all the miracles that happen around me every day and have so much doubt about the existence of God.  I don't know, but I do.  I see what some people call miracles and I say there's a well-established scientific explanation for that, so it's not a miracle to me.  I read the book that people say is the direct word of God himself and I say this was written by men, not God, so how do we know it's his word?  People tell me that these men were directed by God, told what to say by God, that their hands were guided by God so that, while the words may indeed have been written by men, the men were merely vessels through which God worked.  I say that I see people every day who claim to be vessels of God, who claim to be delivering a message directly from God, who claim to speak with God, who claim God is speaking through them, who write long, elaborate manifestos that they claim were guided by the hand of God.  I hear men who claim to be prophets, chosen representatives of God, who give prophecy and make predictions and state altruisms that they claim come directly from the mouth of God, to their ears, and through them to the rest of us.  These men are typically picked up by nice gentlemen in white coats and taken to quiet psychiatric hospitals in the countryside where they are given large doses of anti-psychotic medicine or mood stabilizers and held under careful surveillance and observation until they are determined to be safe and sane enough to be released back into society.  However, there are some of these men who are on television, or behind the podium in churches.  They claim God speaks to them and tells them what is and isn't.  They make broad, sweeping statements about the world we live in and the choices we're making and they attribute natural disasters to God's wrath, and yet these men are not hospitalized and treated for a mental condition, they are exalted as anointed holy men, they are heralded as modern prophets and religious leaders.  They claim to speak to God and that God speaks through them and they are not hospitalized and medicated.  Instead, they are made fabulously wealthy by the generous donations of their loyal congregation.  They give counsel to politicians and world leaders.  They live a life of wealth and opulence and power and influence.  What makes these men different from the men on the corner who are labeled as mentally insane?  Is it their fashion sense?  Is it their social skills?  Is it their physical hygiene?  How does one decide when a man who claims to speak to God is crazy and when they are, in fact, a modern day prophet?  How is that distinction made? 

I get depressed, a lot.  I think about dying all the time.  I don't want to kill myself, I don't think I have the balls to actually go through with it even if I wanted to, but I think about what would happen if I was faced with my own impending death and it doesn't scare me.  Every time I'm riding in the car on the highway, every single time, I imagine a scenario playing out where I'm going to die in a car accident.  Sometimes I imagine a diesel truck losing control in an oncoming lane and swerving into our lane at the last second so that there's no time to react and we hit it head on and I die instantly.  Sometimes I imagine getting a blowout or something, where the car rolls half a dozen times and I'm trapped inside and the car bursts into flames and I can't get out and I burn to death, screaming in agony until the pain of immolation finally takes my life or renders me unconscious until I do die.  When we cross bridges, I imagine the bridge collapsing and the car falling into the water below and the doors won't open and the power windows won't roll down and I can't break the glass out and the car is rapidly filling with water and I know there's nothing I can do but hold my breath until I can't hold it any longer and then take in the choking lung fulls of water that will asphyxiate me, render me unconscious and send me to my watery grave.  I imagine driving by rocky hillsides and a landslide sending huge boulders tumbling down onto the roadway, sometimes they smash the car and kill me instantly, sometimes they knock the car off the road into a ravine, where I am trapped and bleeding, unable to walk and too weak to scream for help.  I imagine lying there for days, maybe being attacked and eaten by coyotes, maybe dying from exposure or dehydration or blood loss.  I imagine seeing people looking for me, close enough that I can see them, but too far to hear my gasping cries for help.

Sometimes I think the world would be better off without me.  That all I do is complain and consume, that I give nothing back of a substance and quality to compensate for what I take from the world for myself.  I imagine how much easier life would be for my wife if she didn't have to support me.  I hate being out of work, I hate looking for a job and not being able to find one.  Then I think, I wonder how many people every day kill themselves over finances.  How many men, like me, who feel that they have failed their wives and families, take their own lives because they honestly believe the only way left for them to help their families is to remove themselves from them, give their wives a chance to marry someone better, perhaps even make their deaths look like an accident so they can get life insurance to help with bills and expenses, one final act of morbid generosity.  I could never kill myself, at least not now.  I don't feel that overwhelming sense of despair and hopelessness and most of all, like I said before, I just don't think I have it in me to actually go through with it.  I feel like the day after I kill myself, that's when I'm going to get the call for a job interview, that's when I would have bought a winning lottery ticket, that's when everything in my life was going to turn around and I missed it by killing myself the day before it all happened.  I can't shake that thought, and I'm glad I can't, because it's what ensures I would never try to take my own life. I'm too afraid of what I would miss out on.  I'm afraid of all the good things that I could have experienced if only I'd stuck around for it.  I think about my friends who have died and how much I miss them and how I think about them every day and I miss them every day and I don't want people to think that about me.  Even worse, I don't want people to not think about me at all.  The only thing worse than being dead and terribly missed is being dead and not missed at all.  I don't know what I fear more, letting everyone down or not even registering on anyone's radar.  I feel like a lot of people would miss me, and frankly I would miss them too.  I don't want to die, I certainly don't want to die by my own hand, but I think about death all the time.  I think about dying constantly. I think about it so much that it doesn't even bother me anymore, it's just part of my day.  When I get in the car, I know I'm going to think about the hundreds of ways that car trip could end tragically.  I do it so much I don't even feel weird, sick and depressed about it anymore, it's just part of the process now.  When I'm on a bridge or a cliff of the top of a tall building, I always think about jumping, the few seconds of free-fall and how it would be the closest feeling to flying and how just as I was becoming comfortable with the sensation, that's when I splatter all over the ground and the party's over.  I don't want to jump to my death, but I can't stop thinking about it.  It's like my brain wants to fuck with me and does that shit on purpose and the more I try not to think about it, the more I do.

I wonder, if I die, will I realize that everything my religious friends have told me is true?  Will there be a God and a heaven and will all my friends and family who have died be there waiting for me?  Will I see my dad and my grandpa and my friends who I've lost again?  Will my lost pets be there, in doggy heaven?  Will it be paradise and eternal bliss and nothing but peace and contentment for eternity?  Will I bask in the glory of the Lord forever?  Will all of life's answers be revealed to me?  Will I be able to keep watch over my friends and loved ones still on Earth, the way I'm told my family who has passed keeps watch over me?  Will I be able to see hot girls in the shower?  Will I even care about seeing hot girls in the shower?  Everyone in heaven is supposed to be nude, will I not care about nudity anymore?  If I consider an eternal paradise full of hot, naked women to be heaven, would not caring about nudity ruin my vision of what heaven would be like?  Is there sex in heaven?  I would consider an eternity in a paradise full of hot, naked women who constantly wanted to have sex with me to be as close to heaven as I can imagine right now, but if nudity doesn't mean anything and there's no sex in heaven, what does that leave me with?  Is there at least good food in heaven?  Do I want to go to heaven if you can't have sex and nudity isn't a turn on?  Do I want to go to heaven if all the stuff I like to do on Earth is a sin there and doesn't happen?  If heaven doesn't allow all the stuff I like to do, then does that mean hell does?  If hell is supposed to be the worst punishment you can imagine, then I can't imagine that they would let me have lots of sex with beautiful naked women, get fucked up and party all the time, would they?  I mean, it's hell, I'm supposed to be punished, and an eternal sex and drug-fueled orgy with metal music blasting for all eternity isn't exactly my idea of punishment, but is it a heavenly reward?  Banging four chicks at the same time while smoking a joint and listening to Slayer, that's like my heaven in a nutshell, but is that going to be cool with God?  I gotta say, sitting around eating figs and walking around in a sweet ass garden with constant spring-like weather while harps play and shit sounds kind of peaceful and relaxing, but after about 20,000 years that shit is going to get really really old. 

In contrast, I could have porno-style group sex while getting high and listening to metal literally every day for a million years and I don't think I would ever get sick of it.  In fact, I would evolve ways to incorporate the sex, weed and metal together that would boggle the mind, like only the elevated mind of a supernatural, heavenly being could comprehend the twisted ass shit I would come up with to keep the action hot after a million years of non stop orgy partying.  I would never get tired of it, and if I did, I would just ask for more hot girls to be added, new kinds of weed, more exciting ways to smoke it, maybe even throw in a goat, who the fuck knows, this is heaven and we got like literally infinity years to try all the crazy shit we want.  Or do we?  See, right now, some super-Christian friend of mine is going to have to say a second prayer tonight just to make up for reading this because they think it's so blasphemous and sinful, but this is what heaven would be to me.  Does everyone get their own heaven?  Is it like a hotel where every room is a different theme?  Do I get to have a heaven that someone else would consider a horrible, amoral hell?  What if your idea of heaven is to be sodomized by a guy who looks like the devil, in a room full of fire and brimstone, while demons dance around and piss flames on you?  Do you get that?  Would hell be an eternity of sitting in Martha Stewart's breakfast nook, drinking Earl Grey and watching the flowers come into bloom at sunrise?  Does everyone just suddenly start liking whatever the popular concept of heaven is, regardless of what we like on Earth?  Is the fact that I like titties and sex and smoking weed and listening to metal a product of Satan's influence, and the "real" Dave actually loves flowers and gardens and white robes and harp music and eating fruit off trees and shit?

What if all my Christian friends are wrong and there is no heaven?  What if I die and that's just it, batteries are dead, the shell is empty, blackness and worm food?  What if when you close your eyes for the last time, that's just all there is to it and you no longer continue to be?  What if your brain shuts down and all the thoughts and ideas and dreams and desires and experiences and everything you ever acquired in your life just disappears and whatever you didn't write down, record or put to film beforehand is simply lost forever?  What if death is just death, the end, flipping the switch to the off position and all unsaved data is lost?  What if our loved ones aren't looking down on us from heaven right now?  What if they're just empty, thoughtless, dead hunks of meat in the ground, slowly decomposing?  I don't like to think about that.  Even though I have some serious questions about the existence of God and the legitimacy of the bible and any organized religion at all, it's hard for me to accept the concept that we could have these wonderful brains, capable of all this rational thought and critical thinking and analyzing and dreaming and inventing and imagining and storing experiences and memories and just all the desires and hopes and everything that goes into them and comes out of them and that they would just simply shut off and all of that knowledge and information would be lost upon our death.  It's hard for me to accept that we would be capable of everything our minds are capable of if there was nothing after death except the rotting and deterioration of those wonderful minds.  It seems like such a waste. 

I mean, look at me.  I debate politics, I question religion, I think about my own mortality and apathy, I hate myself and love myself at the same time.  I hate and love everyone around me as well.  I see the beauty and the ugliness in the world.  I think and hope and dream and fantasize.  I wish and desire, I have ambition and excitement and goals and visions.  I create and share and I feel joy and sadness and emptiness and acceptance and rejection and hopelessness and confidence and insecurity all at the same time.  I have so many emotions, so many thoughts, so many ideas.  I have so much to share and give and so much to keep locked away deep inside of me where no one will ever reach it.  I have all the love in the world and more hate and darkness in me than you could ever imagine.  I dream of kissing my wife with the sweetest, most passionate and loving kiss that a human being is capable of giving and I imagine torturing my enemy with the cruelest, most malicious and evil methods of torture and pain conceivable in the heart of man.  I have dreams and nightmares.  Does this all go away when I die?  Should it go away?  Is any of it worth keeping?

You get one chance in this life.  You get one opportunity to do everything you ever wanted to do, be everything you ever wanted to be.  You get one shot to try your best to accomplish all the goals you've ever set for yourself.  Whether you believe in God, heaven or the afterlife, everyone knows you get one chance to live while you're alive.  Why do people waste their time hating each other?  Why do people waste their lives trying to control the lives of others?  Why do people spend their limited and precious time on this Earth trying to prevent other people from enjoying their limited and precious time on this Earth? 

Why aren't more girls sluts?  I mean, we're all going to die someday and when you die, that's it.  Whether you go to heaven or you just go in the ground, you certainly aren't going to be able to keep living the life you're living now on this planet, so why don't more girls give up the pussy to guys?  I mean, would it not make the world a better place if more hot girls just fucked dudes?  I know it would make my world a better place, and you can't take your vaginas with you, so why so stingy?  If you believe in heaven or you don't, you only get one chance to live, so why ever hold back on anything?  Why not do whatever you want, whenever you want and with whoever you want?  What are you saving it for?

Why is everyone so serious all the time?  Why all the anger and hatred?  If we're all going to die, why spend your short time on Earth hating people and being pissed off all the time?  I get that everyone has a bad day now and then, but why would you dedicate your whole lives to hating on a person or group of people for any reason?  Why would you want to hurt another human being?  Why would you want to waste a single moment of your life making someone else miserable, inflicting pain on others, oppressing the freedom and happiness of another individual?  Why aren't you busy trying to help me convince all the hot girls on Earth that they should be fucking more?

Why do I worry so much about politics?  Well, maybe I've answered my own question here.  I worry about other people oppressing my freedom.  I worry about other people telling me how to live when we all only have a short amount of time on this planet.  No one knows if there really is a heaven or any kind of life after death at all.  All we really know for sure is that there is this life that we're all living right now.  So, I worry about people who try to impose restrictions on me and how I can enjoy this special and limited life that I have been lucky enough to be blessed with.  Maybe my purpose in life is to be a voice for liberty.  Maybe my purpose in life is to get people to think, "Hey, maybe this crazy fucked up dude has a point!"  If I can convince two people to change their opinions about how they live their lives and encourage them to live a life that is far more fulfilling and joyful and ultimately satisfying for them, then doesn't that make it all worth it? 

Why do I think about death so much?  Is it because I worry so much about what I'm getting out of life?  I'm 35, almost over the hill in terms of average human male life expectancy, and definitely over the hill in terms of Fountinelle average male life expectancy.  Do I obsess about death because my mind is trying to tell me I need to do more living?  Or am I just a morbid fuck?  I know that I've done a lot of crazy shit in my life, seen some amazing things, had some incredible experiences.  I also know that there is still so much left in life that I want to do, so many stones I have yet to turn over.  I'm not ready to go just yet, but I know that my clock could get punched in tomorrow.  Life itself is a paradox.  You want it to go on forever, but you're not even guaranteed tomorrow.  You want there to be more but you never know when that's all there is.  We pray for an afterlife because we all know that no matter how full a life we manage to live on Earth, it doesn't even touch the tip of the iceberg of the things we still wish we could do.  We want an eternity of tomorrows because it would take an eternity of tomorrows to get everything done that we want to do today.  I want to worry about politics because I want to live in a society where everyone can get as much out of their todays as they possibly can, just in case there aren't any more tomorrows when we die.  I want to worry about religion because I want answers to my questions that don't just leave me with even more questions.  I want to worry about dumb shit because there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers.  I worry about death because I worry about life.  I obsess about death because I'm obsessed with living.

I told you, I'm pretty fucked up.