Redux

Let's just say that Apocalypse Now, while being one the greatest fucking movies of all time, is not one you should watch while in the middle of an existential crisis. Everyone knows the story, and I hope most of us have read "The Heart of Darkness" upon which it is based. At least Willard has a goal, a mission, to kill the insane Kurtz. At least that is something I suppose, and I would not be too upset if I could just sort out one of those for myself, a goal that is. I think I have recognized that as my problem, I lack a goal some sort of raison d'etre that defines my reason to be on the planet. I doubt there is some dark river that I need to traverse with some homicidal maniac waiting at the end of it for me to slaughter, but at least that would provide a sense of purpose. It could be that my raison d'etre is to rake the shit ton of leaves that are falling from my neighbor's trees, and blanketing my yard like snow. Not that I believe that is a reason to be, but it does help pass the time, and really that is what I need, a way to pass the time. It seems I have bags of the stuff (to go along with the bags of leaves), and bags of time can be a double edged sword. At first blush you would think "wow I could use some free time to get a ton of stuff done." And you would be right, as long as you had some stuff to do. Not that I don't have stuff to do, I get up at an ungodly hour five days a week and toddle off to "work." There I spend my obligatory 8 (ish) hours a day. Then I wobble home, and spend my mandatory 3-4 hours watching the boob tube, and maybe reading a book or three. Still while all this motor activity is going on, I have oodles of time to "kill." Even writing a semi-literate blog post on a daily basis for 91 fucking days straight has not filled the time hole in my life. Sleep, the wide blessing, does manage to pass some of the time for me, but lately my sleep has been dreamless. And seriously what is the point of sleeping if you aren't dreaming? And at least a dream (rather than a nightmare) could provide me some entertainment, or maybe an idea or two for a blog post, or at the very least something to distract my attention away from my crisis. Which has gotten so bad that I just wrote the last sentence three fucking times (something I rarely do), and it still fucking sucks which is not a positive sign. An even worse sign is that this post has been a work in progress for almost a month, and I have been making little headway on it. You would think that given that much time I should be able to steer it into some sort of sensible direction, but no much like my life this post just meanders along with very little sense of purpose, and accomplishing a boat load of nothing. Truth is that, in the last month, I have put considerable thought in ending both this post, and the life that it mirrors. However, the most compelling reason I was able to conjure up for not ending the whole shooting match is that the percentage of what comes next being worse than the life I am leading now is pretty high. If, as my fellow citizens of the bible belt tell me, I am doomed to hell (really there is no option of my ass getting into heaven), then that just sounds fucking miserable. Even worse than some vague existential crisis, or time to kill. Or perhaps I go back to the collective unconsciousness, and lose whatever essence that makes me who I am. Then I might just be a bit lit a drone in some collective hive, working towards some goal that I am not sure I share. I have never claimed to be much of a team player, I am just a bit too surly for that. Or maybe I will shuffle off this mortal coil, and find that Sartre was right, and "hell is other people." Finding myself trapped in some sort of waiting room full of the group of the most annoying asshats ever created, with no exit. So it seems the reason that unless a MATA bus runs me down like a dog, I will continue to live the same day over and over again, is that the percentages are that this existence, miserable though it may be, is the best existence I am going to obtain. Fucking sad in some respects, but in others one that I should be grateful for. There I have it, a sort of modified Pascal's Wager for not drinking enough Lysol to off myself. A gambler's reason for sticking. Play the odds, hang in there, and maybe you will eventually hit the jackpot.