A Memoir On How Not To Live

How few know what it is to be useless; not due to drugs, alcohol, or some twist of fate, leaving them crippled, but simply due to a simple lack of usefulness. To be unable to bring ones self to perform the basic and simple tasks that lead to success of any measure. Who then, would understand what it is that I am about to relate? The written word is a conduit through which many things can be experienced, and expressed, yet despite the power of my belief in the written word, I doubt that such things can be described. 1

High school, they say, are the simple years... the good years. Obviously they never went to high school. At least not in the fashion that I did. I look back on my high school years as a time when extreme emphasis was put upon my future, during which I was not prepared for it in any way. I remember drudging through a series of math classes, the contents of which I would never apply. I remember English, and history, which I always found interesting, however, likewise application-less in day to day life. I remember band, and my love of music, but most of all, I remember being bored. Utterly and insatiably bored.2

It wasn't so much that I was never challenged, though I wasn't, it was more of a stark realization as to the futility of what I was doing. The futility of the time that I was spending there. As I watched everyone faithfully preparing for their future, diligently readying themselves for their lives to begin, I would often chuckle at the thought that life had already started without them. That while we were sitting in our classes, the rest of the world was continuing on, with no care or preparation for our upcoming arrival. The fact that most people spend a good portion of their lives trying desperately to prepare for the rest of it literally sickened me. Watching it all function as the giant mechanism that it was, rushing through their best years, their younger years, only to be able to sit on their front porches when they were finally too old to realistically continue doing so, caused me to remain action-less. Some last ditch, desperate effort to rebel against a system that I knew I would soon be forced into.3

As much as I did not want to be in school, I also did not want to live the lives that I saw my parents living. In point of fact, I now realize that it was life that disgusted me, and disgusts me still. This disposition, as one might suppose, did not do me well in the world. There isn't much drive to succeed in life when one despises the very idea of it. It's an odd thought, I suppose, to dislike the concept of living, yet it is one that I have not been able to shake to this day. Even now as I write this, the truth of this statement still staggers me... that I have disliked life for almost as long as I can remember, with an extremism that I can only attribute to a victim of suicide. The fact that I have not ended my life up to this point, in all honesty, shocks me, though I suppose in truth, does not. My stubbornness keeps me from ending my own life, as if somehow I would be losing... failing.4

This direct aversion to defeat is what has kept me alive. This hatred of failure, this revilement of loss, is what keeps me going. I suppose my life then, is driven only by spite, and strangely enough, a spite of life itself. As if somehow by continuing in this, I am defeating life. I am defeating death. I am victorious in my hate. That is not to say that there are no things which I love, because to live without love would be unbearable, and for those that do such, I have nothing but the most sincere of pity. Yet another thing which I have no like or use for, pity, something that I believe others deserve, but not myself. Pity means defeat, and defeat is something that I am, as I have stated prior, not willing to accept. But those things that I love give me strength, strength to continue in my spiteful campaign against the unseen forces of the universe that brought me into being, and will one day take me out of it.5

Among these things, are my music, my writing, my family and my friends. Though in truth, I have my issues with each of these in turn. My music is never beautiful enough, my words, never touching enough, my family never understanding enough, my friends a constant source of distraction to those things which I believe I should be doing. Of course, to focus on such things would be self defeating, and when one is already drowning themselves in self pity, there is no room for such minor qualms. Besides that point, the good aspects of each far outweighs the bad, and hence, there is no point in complaints. Even if I am never satisfied with my music, I still take pleasure in making it. Even if I am constantly disappointed by my writing, as the words flow onto the pages, I can not deny that I enjoy the process. Even if my family and friends are critical and distracting, I still love them, and they are still there for me, and I for them.6

Out of all of this, my story continues. Upon graduating from high school, I decided that college was certainly not suited for me, and proceed to make a shockingly good decision, joining the Air Force. My time in the military was almost everything I expected it to be. I saw and did many things that most people never do, especially at my age. I also experienced many things that I do not wish to recall, mostly due to the fact that they are now over. My good decision was of course, followed by an immediate series of bad decisions that ultimately led to my removal from the armed services. A mistake that I still contemplate to this day. Is it true then, that I am on a path of self destruction? Is my spite driving me to fail, and if so, are my failures within my control? 7

The question of my own destiny is in the end, a question that remains unanswered. Philosophically I can answer these questions with ease, yet I am unable to apply these simple answers to my own life. Of course these failures are within my control, as is my destiny, I simply have yet to take hold of them and take control. Yet the nagging assurance that in the end, my destiny is to die, to fall, to fail, makes me question my own strong stances. If ultimately we all end in the same manner, what then can a man truly do to change his destiny? Is it truly the time in between that matters, or is it yet another illusion that we have built up for ourselves to deliver us some kind of purpose? Purpose, then, may be the grandest form of illusion. One that we cling to desperately out of some primal need for function. An illusion that we do not question, because we can not question it. We could not bear the answer.8

After saying all of this, I have contemplated my own life, and my own death, and do not see a difference between the two. At this point to me, life and death are the same. The same endless lack of purpose and activity, the same lack of stimulation, the same lack of challenge. That is what it is to be useless. To look at your own life, and see no discernible difference between life and death. The total sum of my life in this moment is the amalgamation of words that I have siphoned out of my mind onto these pages. Without me, life continues on, as it does without anyone else. There is pain involved for others in my loss, but such can not effect you in death. 9

Many may describe my attitude as apathetic, however, that is only due to laziness on their part. It is not that I have no feelings, as I have noted before, I have many feelings, and things that drive me forward. In truth, I can not accurately describe what my attitude is in a single term, though I suppose, I am also no expert on the human condition. Unless, perhaps, unbeknownst to me, I am the human condition. Perhaps everyone experiences the things which I am describing and I am simply unaware of the fact. I suppose it does not matter in either manner, if no one understands what it is that I am trying to express, then what have I gained? It does not make me unique, at least not in any way that would matter to me. And what then, would I have lost? It is not as if the simple state of understanding would somehow alleviate the condition that I have found myself in.10

I have heard it said that there is nothing better than a listening ear; a shoulder to cry on. I have found that the release of these ideas usually tends to bring me nothing more than concern and pity, two things which I am loath of. The need to write all of this, this drive to express that which I am only now realizing as I write these pages, is something which I can not explain. Perhaps this is my definition of purpose. To leave my mark in some way, that others may see that I was here, and one day, when I have passed, that I existed. Perhaps that will be my victory. To create something that the future can not erase... to outlive the centuries as Bach and Beethoven did.11

I do not wish to be idealized, but only to continue to exist in the purest manner that I can. To be remembered for what I truly was. To have expressed the truth that is me, and to have it continue on beyond me. Perhaps that is my definition of victory. I suppose then, that if I were to title this sorry excuse for literature, I would call it “A Memoir on How Not to Live”. Granted, it isn't much compared to the dying of the light, or nothing gold can stay, but then, I never claimed to be great in what I do. I never claimed to be inspiring, nor have I set out to be. I have merely set out to state that which I have realized, and to present a tiny portion of my truth as I see it. I do not know if I have accomplished such or not, but I have given it my best effort, at least in this small portion. I suppose in truth I will never fill enough pages to save my soul... I don't, however, suppose that it will keep me from trying.