Quiet Desperation Indeed

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

Henry David Thoreau

This is an essential truth. How very sad. That is not really life, right? It is some form of bizarre survival test, waiting out the clock while painting a clown's smile on your face.

Socrates said "The unexamined life is not worth living." Again, true. Life should be a consistent exercise of self evaluation and course correction, with the ultimate goal being happiness.

But for the vast majority of us, the "mass of men", examining your life is meaningless torture. You take a look and realize that your life is a cruel joke with no possibility  for change or dignity or happiness or redemption.

Better to be numb and pretend you are living.

From Wikipedia: "Theatre of the Absurd is a designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950's. The plays..................express what happens when human existence lacks meaning or purpose and communication breaks down....................Logical construction and argument give way to irrational and illogical speech and to the ultimate conclusion - silence."

I say that is a pretty accurate description of an average life. It explains a lot.

Irrational behavior is a given in human beings. That is because we live in a fever dream of existence that makes so little sense to us that we are permanently dizzy. So everybody else becomes the enemy, and our tiny individual worlds represent a warped reality that we have to accept as real. Or perish.

Between 1955 and 1994, state hospitals were closed in large numbers all over the country. Somewhere in the neighborhood of half a million mentally ill patients were discharged, most to fend for themselves.

Isn't that bizarre?

Our lives are no different. We are born against our will (I was yanked out with forceps, for Christ sake) into bizarro world, ill equipped to cope with an LSD existence that short circuits the brain. Unless you take LSD, of course.

So we all spout self-serving cliches and find little happinesses to placate us into believeing we are doing all right.

I get it. If you're gonna be alive you might as well eat pizza. But somehow I don't think that is as satisfying as living a meaningful life, a life that is in tune with your soul, a life that is a perfect reflection of who you really are, what you really believe - a life that is an exact blueprint for how you feel your life should be lived.

And I am talking about the real you. The quietly desperate you deep down inside. Not the you that you have created as a survival mechanism, the one you use to convince everybody else that you are just fine.

I need to go on record as saying that my life is sure as hell not a blueprint for truth and beauty. I am not holding myself up as any example of how it's done. I wander around aimlessly wondering where the hell I am headed.

And by the way, on my way home from work on Thursday night, in gleeful anticipation of six days of sweet release and peaceful happiness - I picked up some pizza to celebrate.