Author: Fred Blahnik

Human life is not for everyone.  Some people are not well suited for it.  They struggle to adjust, and continue struggling just as hard at eighty years of age if they happen to make it that far as they did at eight months.  Just because you are born does not mean the road ahead is perpetually straight, perpetually flat, perpetually sunny, paved with newly-poured pothole-free asphalt throughout its duration, and overhung with apple and citrus trees boasting epicurean fruit ripe for the plucking every step of the way.  For some people that scenario may be and is the case, but for others—for an unfortunately copious number, in fact—the aforementioned road is a godawfully curvy, hilly, overcast, pothole-infested nightmare with poisonous snakes periodically lunging at them from the suddenly barren apple and citrus trees. And these people have no choice but to adapt quickly and learn to survive as opposed to thrive, to count their blessings as opposed to whimpering loudly about the occasional hurdle, to settle for small pleasures in contrast to being the recipients of major oftentimes undeserved largesse, and to be satisfied with mediocrity in the end.  That’s right, to settle for mediocrity and, furthermore, to feign happiness with it.  Life is not fair, and these faux heroic people stand as Case Example #1 to support this assertion.  They did not choose life; life arbitrarily chose them and pursuantly threw significant obstacles in their pathway, but they are nonetheless left to deal with the mess they were handed in the best manner they know how.   

She honestly believes there is a higher purpose to life than chasing simple pleasures and benignly pursuing happiness.  A greater, nobler purpose for humanity.  A metaphysical calling.  A crusade of sorts.  So be it then, but I obviously do not agree with her pretentious assessment.  A higher purpose to life may indeed exist, but a case—however dubious—can likewise be made for the presence of UFOs, Dark Matter, and parallel universes to our own.  Which is to say I don’t know for sure and neither does she.  It’s all conjecturing, positing, postulating, theorizing, or any other word you can dredge up that signifies sophisticated thinking sans any proof to support a point of view.  The whole idea is subjective in nature, thus let’s leave it at that.  But a problem arises when individuals of her ilk vaingloriously attempt to inject objectivity into an innately subjective equation.  The two are not compatible and shall forever remain so.  That disconnect is plainly wrong and should never be tolerated, yet expecting her to graciously accept this logical explanation would be as futile as trying to fend off an enraged, charging bull elephant with a pea shooter.

…..one brick at a time.  There are no shortcuts.  That is the only way a construction project, even the biggest, most massive construction project one could ever imagine, can proceed.  One tiresome, exhausting, monotonous, wearying brick at a time.  And eventually progress will be noted, albeit sometimes minimal, seemingly disproportionate progress relative to the immense effort one has poured into a close-to-the-heart endeavor.  And it is at those times one should silently celebrate your perseverance and fortitude and rededicate yourself to continuing onward with the same level of dogged determination that you have exhibited up until now.  This admittedly may at times seem like a losing battle, but bless yourself for being engaged in a battle at all rather than embodying one of those wretched people who everlastingly remain on the sidelines and curse the efforts of others even while their own life—or what passes for a life anyway—unalterably slips away without causing even an inconsequential blip on the cosmic radar…..

Is that best done tomorrow…..or today?  Can you give me one compelling reason—a value added, if you will—why that task is better left for tomorrow rather than just doing it today and getting it out of the way?  In the absence of a good reason, I can surely give you one supporting the assertion that it is better to do the task right away rather than procrastinating it to another day (And let’s face the bold truth here:  If you are procrastinating the task in question to tomorrow, then you almost certainly will not do it tomorrow either and will invent come corny reason why it should be done the day after that or the day after that or the day after that, etc., etc. etc., ad infinitum  And what might that reason be?  Simple.  Tomorrow is not guaranteed, whereas the moment directly in front of you is.  Truth is, that is the ONLY piece of temporal real estate that you exercise any degree of control over; all the rest is quicksand that can pull you under at any second. Having said all this, I know you will put off doing that chore regardless.  Why?  Because just like liars lie and cheaters cheat and lovers love, procrastinators procrastinate until all their life choices suddenly pass out of their hands sans advance warning, at which point they can relax and no longer have to feel residual guilt over a job not well done for the simple reason it was never started, let alone completed.

He lived a little life, replete with little aspirations, little dreams, little excitement, and, by extension, little “accomplishments” too.  But that was all fine and dandy with him; he never aspired to be a game-changer, a world-shaker, a legacy-leaver, an exemplar.  His only goal in life for as long as he could remember was to live as long as he possibly could, which then logically translated into pursuing a life path as bereft of danger and perceived obstacles as humanly possible so as to advance his paramount objective of advancing longevity, even and ESPECIALLY if that came at the expense of excitement and risk-taking.  Adventure-seeking and risk-taking were best left to others badly in want of common sense; his primary concern was purely and simply to remain on the surface of Earth as a conscious entity for as long as he could.  They could fight all they wanted over the nectareous frosting so long as they left the lion’s share of the cake for him.  All that empyreal stuff on the emotion spectrum—excitement, piquancy, adrenaline, sexy add-ons— was for the losers in life. He didn’t require any of those non-essential things, and he found that through rote drudgery he could get by ridiculously easy without them. Other people could rue the boringness and monotony of his life all they wanted, but it suited him just fine.  At least that’s what he told himself, and a surprisingly large swath of his brain had actually come to believe this self-fed propaganda.

Words are not weapons unless you allow them to be.  Words do not inflict injury unless you allow them to.  Words are inherently weak and pathetic little cowards.  Words are nothing more than ghostly corpuscles of air that revert back to an atmospheric gaseous blend once they leave a person’s mouth.  Words are spineless wee things with an unfathomably short half-life; they are more overrated than a five second fuck in the fast lane, more overrated than a ten minute power nap, more overrated than Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.  The human psyche does not contain pain receptors, so how can one rightfully claim words are injurious in the classic sense?  Physical pain is a real, verifiable sensation.  When nerve endings are irritated, they respond by hurting, sometimes A LOT.  Psychological pain?  Hardly.  This is not to say one cannot have your feelings bruised by rude commentary because obviously that is not the case, but no useful purpose is served by assigning spoken words more heft than they deserve.  Physical pain, in its extreme, is overpowering and unassailable; it is fully capable of bringing paragons to their knees.  Psychological pain in the guise of having to endure insults and/or hurtful words is not.  One type of pain is distinctly bearable; the other is not.  And therein lies the seismic difference between physical pain and emotional discomfort.  They are not the same—not even close to being the same—and guileless attempts to conflate guns and knives and brass knuckles with evanescent corpuscles of air for the purpose of equivalence are both illogical and wrong.

Bitterness naturally metastasizes; it has no other option but to do this.  If forced to hunker down inside an organism for any appreciable period of time, bitterness will inevitably and insidiously destroy that organism from within.  In that sense, bitterness is no different than any other malignancy, because that is precisely what it manifests in the emotional arena, if not the physical one.

…..she thought she knew the right answer, but then again she thought Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy were real entities too back when she was short in the tooth and stood roughly knee-high to a grasshopper.  This just goes to show thoughts—standing alone—are largely meaningless and no more permanent than last night’s thick dew which the morning sun will unmercifully obliterate in less time than it takes to concoct a shitty poem about the miracle of a new dawn.  Thoughts ain’t worth squat if there aren’t deeds riding shotgun in the stagecoach to provide requisite muscle.  Thoughts will never prevail in the bullring, nor can thoughts do any heavy lifting or fight wars……

…..stringing together moments.  A life well spent is all about stringing together a significant number of sweet, discreet moments in a logical sequential arrangement.  And in deference to the maxim “Size matters!”, the more the better too.  One can never get enough sweet, discreet moments in a lifetime, hence never stop searching for them. Sometimes those precious moments may not be easily visible, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.  You just have to roll up your sleeves and go looking for them.  And here is where I will also rightfully chime in with a bromide utterly exhausted from wanton overuse:  The journey is two thirds of the fun!!!…..

Trust NO ONE…..and trust the immanent unpredictability of the moment even less!  Surprises only befall those who are ill-prepared or completely unprepared, so never put yourself in the position of being an unwitting victim of “unfortunate circumstances” who thereupon rants and raves ad nauseum about the gross unfairness of life while seeking pity for oneself.  There is no such thing as “unfortunate circumstances”; there are only dumb, ill-prepared imbeciles who naively expect a smooth, dreamy tour throughout the entirety of their lives and then scream bloody murder and complain loudly about inequities and “bad luck” when destiny throws them a few curveballs and leads them over a bevy of speedbumps to test their mettle.  Always be prepared and never allow yourself to be caught absolutely off-guard, lest you wind up being rightfully lumped amongst the aforementioned throng of guileless dotards!