The Purpose Driven Life
I have told this story before but at this point that is true of every story I tell, so if you feel as if you can’t stand to go through my life anecdote by anecdote one more time I highly recommend you unsubscribe. In fact, I highly recommend you unsubscribe regardless of your preferences about the journey through my life. You will not be missing much, I promise.
In any event: At one point in my early 20s I was living down south and flew home for the Christmas holiday. My dad picked me up at the airport and we went to have lunch in a fancy restaurant near his office. It was decorated with all the accoutrements of the season: lights, garlands, tinsel etc. After several drinks, in the moments between the appetizers being cleared away and entrees being delivered, my dad grew silent for a second and then began speaking, although not precisely to me. It was almost as if he was talking to himself. “It’s funny,” he said, eyes looking over my shoulder, “when you’re a kid you wait the whole year long for Christmas, and the closer it comes, the more excited you get. And once you get older you just realize each time that you’re one year closer to death.” Then our meals came and he started talking about something else, as if it had never happened.
It was amusing—a good story to tell over and over again (I’m begging you, unsubscribe already) to friends and new acquaintances to help explain how I became the way I am—but it never meant more than that until just this weekend, when I went to the grocery on my weekly shopping excursion. There I was, a dopey middle-aged guy wheeling his cart around and listening to music on his headphones (because nothing will make you sadder than whatever music the grocery throws at you) and pulling stuff off the shelves in a kind of trance, when I suddenly noticed a large assembly of matzah boxes. My mind first filed it away as “Passover is coming,” but suddenly I snapped out of it and realized that this was like the twentieth time in this particular grocery that I had been made aware of the arrival of Passover by a matzah display. And I understood: This is it. This is being old. This is being alerted that everything has happened over and over again and each new time it happens is one less time it’s going to happen on your way to the tomb. And it’s not just Passover, or Christmas. It’s everything. Every Thanksgiving, every Mother’s Day, every 4th of July: each holiday offers up a consumer-facing reminder that the last stop on your itinerary is death, and you’re a lot closer to the end than the beginning. You don’t notice it for a long time, but once you do you never stop seeing it. I have a ritual where the first thing I try to say when I wake up each January 1 is “Another fucking year,” but that is simply a function of the calendar; every day is another fucking year. And life is full of reminders.
We were having a discussion this morning about purpose in life and, more specifically, whether or not I in particular have one. And we determined that my purpose in life is to bear the burden of suffering that everyone else cannot carry. (You’re welcome.) One would think, given the terrible weight I shoulder while I weep for the rest of the world, I would welcome any warning that my lifespan is finite and that eventually this load will be lifted from my broken frame. And, sure, yes, in the abstract it is a relief to be reminded that at some point the anguish will end. But what no one tells you is just how long life lasts, particularly now that Trump is president and every hour feels like four fucking days. Can you even conceive of how long it’s going to be until 2020 is over? What a goddamn nightmare.
Anyway, where was I? Oh, right, suffering and death. I guess your takeaway should be that while I’m doing as much of the work for you as I can desperation-wise there is still plenty to go around, so if you feel a little down these days you are right to, because everything is terrible. But also: You are probably not yet at the point where everything reminds you that the high points that have happened to you are in the past and that the future holds mainly diminished or depleted versions of them, punctuated by continuing reminders that it used to be better but you’ve got to keep going through the motions until it finally all ends, hopefully without much pain but probably not.
Okay, thank you, that’s all I’ve got. This, by the way, is not the actual newsletter. That’s going to be much better, I promise. I’m just working out a few final bugs. I appreciate your attention.