Author: Fred Blahnik

Is it beneficial to know the future, even something as trivial as the weather which we in our positions as feckless human beings can do absolutely nothing to alter?  I don’t think so.  Where would the excitement be…..the anticipation…..the piquancy…..the implicit romance…..if we knew in advance events which were about to occur? The vibrancy would be weirdly absent from life, and substituted in its place would be rote routines and vapidity and insipidness.  Say what you will about the unexpected, but no one can rightfully dispute that it keeps us on the edge of our seats and adds a razor edge to future moments as they unerringly develop and unfold.  Predictability is boring, as are predictable circumstances and predictable people.

The line separating courageous behavior from stupid behavior is oftentimes so narrow and fuzzy that it is indistinguishable.  Therefore and wholly unsurprisingly, these two seemingly polar opposite character traits are nearly synonymous in meaning.  Courage cannot normally be distinguished from stupidity and stupidity cannot normally be distinguished from courage, and don’t allow some schmaltzy so-called “expert” convince you otherwise.  What is the only factor that sets them apart?  Circumstances.  Circumstances alone will determine whether you are a hero or a fool, a paladin or a buffoon, a swashbuckler or a clown, an exemplar or a poster child for malfeasance…..and nothing else.  I know this truth is counterintuitive and sobering, but then again so is life. 

One day at a time, and one day only, not to be rushed or minimized or subjected to any form of degradation.  All days are created equal at their outset, although upon their conclusion obviously the same claim cannot be veraciously made.  Yet you don’t have access to this critical information in the beginning; the future is an amorphous, inscrutable vacuum at that juncture.  Each and every day presents in exactly the same fashion, and only when one is finished are you able to rationally assess it and assign the rascally temporal capsule a grade.  Thus don’t rue any particular day at its genesis or shackle yourself with preconceived notions with regard to what path it might follow.  At such an early point in time all days are the same—identical twins, clones, cut from the same cloth…..virgins in the space/time continuum.  Only in hindsight will distinguishing features emerge, consequently allowing you to form and voice an intelligent opinion on that newly expired portion of your life.

Just try your best to splice this upcoming day together one piece at a time…..one step at a time…..one thought at a time…..one breath at a time…..one heartbeat at a time…..if that is what you have to do to survive it.  Never get too far out ahead of yourself.  Don’t take shortcuts with time.  The next moment is all that really matters, and then the one after that, followed by the one after that, the one after that, et al.  Lives are led sequentially, and we cannot hopscotch from one day to the next without experiencing all the moments in between first; there is no condensed version of living.  But come to think of it:  Why on Earth would anyone pine for such an asinine thing anyway?!   Condensing time, and with it one’s life, is as ill-conceived as condensing your favorite recipe for chocolate-chip cookies.

…..it’s one of the hugest ironies inflecting life, I know, but as his earthly existence hung precariously in the balance, he could never remember feeling so ALIVE!  So dynamic!  So enraptured!  So invigorated!So…..so…..so…..so…..so fuckin’ LUCKY, I tell ya!!!!!  Yes, so fuckin’ lucky!!!!!  LUCKY AS ALL GET OUT!!!  Luckier than a tomcat in a flophouse!!!  Luckier than a lascivious hen at a rooster convention!!!  Luckier than the undisputable LOAT—sneaky, devious, cheating Tom Brady!!!  I know “lucky” may seem like an extremely odd choice of words here, yet that is exactly how this hyperventilating chump was feeling:  Lucky as holy bejesus, and intoxicated beyond belief with the epinephrine that was coursing through every square millimeter of his body with the speed of a photon and the blunt force of a Himalayan avalanche.  He might die in the next minute, he well knew, but if the Grim Reaper did choose to harvest his body right now he would perish feeling happier and more ebullient than he could ever recall feeling just sitting behind a desk at what passed for “work” or slouched in front of a television set at home watching a rerun of “Seinfeld” for the fiftieth time or just plain doing fuckin’ nothing and feeling both morose and guilty in the same instant for wantonly wasting his ethereal lease on life …..

Too often, the easiest thing to do—as well as the right thing to do and the undisputed advisable course of action—becomes the hardest thing to do and impossible to resist, namely…..doing nothing!!!  That’s right, doing nothing!  Don’t interfere.  Don’t meddle.  Stay in your own lane at all times.  Mind your own business but not others’.  Don’t pretend to be informed, even expert, on a subject you know nothing about.  Sit on your hands and just do NOTHING, for God’s sake.  Above all else, resist the temptation to take some sort of action that will inadvertently wind up harming someone else or cause them unnecessary complications, tribulation, and misery.  Actioneering seems almost instinctive in a crunch but, trust me, it isn’t.  Do what your best judgment tells you to do, which in not infrequent instances is nothing at all.  And as part and parcel of this same advice paradigm, if you have nothing to say that can improve upon silence, don’t say anything.

They are who they are.  Don’t glorify them.  Don’t make them into something they aren’t.  And surely do not make excuses to justify their inexcusable behavior. So what exactly are they then?  Aliens?  Visitors from another realm of consciousness?  Androids imbued with unimaginably sensitive emotions?  No, none of these things.  They are instead adult human beings purportedly capable of making intelligent decisions predicated on information available to them at the time—precisely the same information available to the rest of us, by the way.  Now whether they use that information to full advantage is entirely up to them.  That is their decision to make, not mine or yours or even God Almighty’s.  The power—or lack thereof—thus lies strictly within their very adult hands.  So best wishes to them, but no more than that; that’s right…..no more than that!  They are grown people who are rightfully expected to wear Big Boy Britches and to brush their teeth in the morning and to utilize crosswalks for walking across busy streets and to make grown-up decisions.  Ergo no more excuses or rationalizing for them in the future, okay?  They are what they are, and if you don’t like what you behold the blame lies solely with them—Right there!!–those vulgarly immature people directly in front of you now who you are somewhat rudely staring at.

Compliments born of pity are worse than no compliments at all; they are the epitome of condescension.  If someone is no good at a particular activity, at the bare minimum preserve for them that last great bastion of humanity:  Pride.  Do not eviscerate someone’s pride by paying that person a “compliment” that is at best undeserved, and at its worst—patronizing and demeaning.  Better to say nothing at all than to pay a person a “compliment” that is transparently false or hyperbolic and makes the subject feel worse and more incompetent than they already did.  A striking majority of people are not guileless and wholly oblivious to their surroundings.  Thus, do not treat them as such and regale them with “compliments” that are no more sincere or deserved than a hard kick in the testicles.  These people instinctually know better, and so should you.

I no longer live my life for myself, I live it for them; I live it for my three daughters.  Honestly.  But I don’t find this behavior particularly selfless or heroic.  Rather, it just seems normal to me, behavior that any sane, centered person should also be willing and eager to embrace.  I am a big believer in the Circle of Life, that what goes round comes round.  Life itself is the most salient example of this most grandiose of theories.  We are born, we live and eventually sire offspring if we are lucky enough to survive until that requisite age and our reproductive apparatus is suitably charmed, and then we die.  And on the back side of this epochal journey, we begin focusing our attention on our progeny to a greater and greater extent.  This is only right.  No one lives forever (Irrespective of some oldsters’ selfish and uber-expensive crusades on Medicare dollars to prove otherwise!), but we CAN pass our DNA down through countless succeeding generations of humans on Earth if we are both fecund and fortunate.  Ergo that’s why the second half of anyone’s life, excepting egocentric, conceited people, should be offered up to our descendants.  In deference to the Law of Averages—the most important and magniloquent of all the laws known to mankind—these young people will outlive us on Earth’s surface, and therefore we should do everything within our humanly means to make the transition from our world to their world as smooth and enhanced as possible.

…..it was all she knew.  Being without money was all she ever knew.  So when rumors started circulating that some people actually had more than others—that their personal possessions far outstripped their basic physical needs—she was amazed by this startling revelation.  Why did certain people feel they needed more than basic necessities?  What was wrong with these individuals?  Could they not harness their greedy impulses?  Didn’t they feel guilty all the time? What did they use as their justification for cheating other disadvantaged members of humanity?  And she continued to ponder this question interminably, rolling it over and over in her brain as she futilely sought a solution.  She was perfectly happy and content living with only the bare essentials. After all, she had entered this world with nothing and she would be leaving with nothing atomic as well.  Why did the interval between these two seminal events have to be characterized by a mad dash to acquire as many objects as humanly possible, objects that could best be described as mere rental items anyway?  Why didn’t others feel the same way?  Why was greed and avarice and treachery so pervasive throughout the world?  Her chin drooped and she sighed despairingly.  These were impossible questions she knew could never be answered, at least to her satisfaction…..