Dear Matthew,
There are nights like these every now and then. They seem to be more frequent lately, but I have not been able to pinpoint why exactly that is. There are a number of variables, and not all of them are under my control. That last part is sort of frightening, because it means that there may be nothing that I can do about it. It is quite literally "out of control."
Despite what some of my acquaintances believe, I am not a control freak. I believe that you should exert as much control as you can over everything of which you have control. This is a human thing. As I become older and begin to become what I think may be called "a man," I observe that people are in fact not inherently good. The most simple example of this is a baby. A baby is truly self-obsessed, crying and causing a big scene every time it wants (not needs) anything. A baby does not care about your need for sleep, or that you may be speaking to someone. It wants your attention, and it demands it right this instant. This is how people really are. People are concerned only with their own well-being, naturally. It is society that conditions us to believe that there is such thing as a "greater good," and even that is a fallacy. That belief exists because it benefits individual people to have their society believe as a whole that there is an inherent value in taking care of and caring for an individual other than one's own self. In reality, this belief in a greater good serves only the very top and the very bottom of society. The people who receive the benefit directly are at the bottom (welfare, charity, etc), and the people on top benefit because it draws the "needy" away from them and they are therefore not distracted from their own pursuits. Don't think that just because some people have made a complete life out of "self less" service and that such that my theory is disproved. It only proves true that not everyone measures a benefit in the same way.
Do not forget that we will always fail to express the truth of our own insignificance. Here we hurtle through the universe at incomprehensible speeds, and under the weight of tremendous forces that we only barely understand. We are but one planet of an uncountable total of planets. We are the tiniest fraction of a unit of time in the lifespan of the physical world. So to make ourselves feel better, we create GodHeads and other cosmic distractions. This mostly serves to make us feel special. Like we were put here, in this very place, for a reason. Once again, this does not bear out to be true. Perhaps 0.000000001% of all people who have ever lived will be remembered by more than 50 people 100 years after their death. And I have a feeling that I am being extremely generous in my estimate.
On nights like this one, I think we can run around the planet and save the physical life of every god-forsaken wretch who is born while we're alive. We can do this. We literally have the means to ensure that no one dies, quote-unquote, prematurely. What the fuck does that mean, anyways? Why do people seem to think it is less valid to die from cancer or a car accident than from a heart attack while you're 90 years old and asleep? Humans never were meant to live this long anyway. We used to die out in our 30s, then 40s, then 50s. After our 50s, it's almost a joke. With modern science we have been able to prolong our bodies well in to our 70s before things really start going wrong. Our muscles fail, our organs fail, our bones fail. We are built to fail. We were meant to live hard and fast, all the way up until the point at which someone else is living even harder and even faster and we were just in the way. We're barely animals anymore. I look at myself in the mirror and think, "God, what an embarrassment," and I'm not even all that bad!
On nights like this one, I feel compelled to sell something, buy some gas, and drive away. Pick a direction and drive. Doesn't matter where. Never stop driving. And once I'm out of gas, start walking. Same direction, just keep walking. And when I can't walk, die. Just lay there and die. Why not? What's the argument? So much to live for? A brilliant mind? An ability to excel at every single thing that I attempt? So what? What the fuck is the point? I can use my mind to solve the problems of everyone I know, and what have I achieved? I have robbed them of the opportunity to use their own mind. I can use my body to build homes and shelter those who have no shelter, but what is gained? I have momentarily distracted them from their past lifetime of shit and their assured future of shit? Why? Even if that is a good thing, what does it matter? Do not tell me that it is all we can do to help people in our lives while we're here and hope that we made some kind of impact. Not an acceptable answer to me. Fuck 'em.
I may only have proof of my intelligence being "top 2%," but I tend to think of myself as being in the general top 2% of people. Meaning that I am not going to deny that I have several gifts that most people do not. I am able to will things into being that other people could not have imagined in the first place. I am able to manipulate my world and put people where they should be, and myself as well. These things are tools in a toolbox that I carry with me everywhere I go. Why? A plumber has a monkey wrench, but a fat lot of good it will do him when he has to fix a broken window. The problem is not problems. The problem is enlightenment. The problem is that I am not. It is not true that love will (fill in the blank). Love perpetuates hate. It is true that if there were no love in the world, there too would be no hate. People usually hate because they cannot love. For those of us who are doing neither, I suspect we mostly just feel anger. People tend to confuse anger with hate, because they think that we are angry at something that we hate. This is not correct. We just are angry. It is like in Japan, where I understand that you would not really say to someone "I love you," but rather you'd say something along the lines of "loving" and the object person would infer that it is them who is putting you in that state. This is how love works. Or at least, this is how I remember love working. It is a terrible place to be when you do not love anyone. When you are a single atom floating through an otherwise voided vacuum, it occurs to you that there will be no reactions occurring. There will be no chance collisions, and you will continue to be a single atom floating in a vacuum, until you off-gas or whatever enough to finally disappear.
What is the future plan? Become a lawyer? Make a ton of money? Fight for more rights for people? Or less rights for people? Fight to write laws that save the planet? Fight to write laws that perpetuate humans? What is the point? What is the point? What is the point? If I crashed my truck and ended up in the hospital, who would be there? Who would I want to be there? Of those that I'd want there, how many would come? How many would come without me calling them? How many would demand others came, too? What is the point? What is the point? What is the point? Future feels distant and undesirable.
On nights like this one, I listen to Lucero:
It's nights like these that make me sleep all day
It's nights like these that make you feel so far away
It's nights like these when nothing is for sure
It's nights like these I don't want you anymore
And I've only got this one wish
That I was good enough to make you forget
The only boy who ever broke your heart
Cause nights like these tear me apart
It's nights like these the sad songs don't help
It's nights like these your heart's with someone else
It's nights like these I feel like giving up
It's nights like these I don't seem to care for much
The beer tastes like blood and my mouth is numb
I can't make the words I need to say
She had a weakness for writers
And I was never that good at the words anyways
On nights like this one, I feel that it's all a big joke that no one else gets.
On nights like this one, the future feels like the past. The path has been walked, and the lessons are already learned. And what of it? A very well informed corpse with a good understanding of the machinations of other corpses? At best, yes.
Love,
Nathan
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