pessimist my ass!
Last night I was talking about gifts with some kids. For a while I have kinda thought of myself as probably the worst gift giver in the history of man, but after this discussion, I decided that I am in fact waaaaay above average in this department. I may not give the traditional chocolate and flowers or whatever, but I think I give something better, something that you’ll remember when you’re fifty, something that really captures a small piece of the essence of the relationship between me and the recipient. This whole idea that it was my gifts that were bad, and that that somehow meant that I was bad, was just false. The thing is that the recipient for some unknown reason determines the value of the gift, not the person who chose it. Sure I could have gone for the obvious, fail safe, traditional things, but that just seemed a bit too cold and impersonal. I like doing things the hard way. We all know that.
In thinking back on it I kinda enjoyed the feeling of constant nausea in the morning as I choked down dry toast followed by strong black coffee. I enjoyed that small bit of martyrdom in some small way; in the way that I knew then that I had for once actually had something. I no longer had someone trying to change me, but I had that coffee to change me from the inside out into some sort of internally decaying mass of bile and frailty. I liked the lack of sleep, the constant gnawing hunger pains combined with the lack of appetite, the constant exhaustion from just getting up in the morning, the masochism of it all. The emptiness and hollowness of my own existence supplemented by my own lack of personal desire for anything greater, somehow that gave me an odd sort of satisfaction.
Ennui, that’s French for bored, that’s French for dissatisfied, that’s French for perpetual unhappiness with one’s situation, no matter how perfect. See, this is what happens when you get what you want, when you have successfully changed things; you get bored. The problem with the glass being half full is that you don’t have as much to look forward to, but if it is always half empty, well then, things could always be better. The worst thing that could possibly happen is for one’s glass to be completely filled. In this situation you have nothing to look forward to but someone spilling your glass just so you can start over. Perfection in life is a curse.
At the moment I can say I am happier now than I have ever been. I have a low paying job. I almost have a completely useless bachelor’s degree that I have wasted a large sum of my parent’s money on from a sub standard school. I have no money, no real prospect of a prosperous future, no love interest, I live in a shit hole in the ghetto in a city that is pretty mediocre, I am under slept….truly my glass is nowhere near full. Some might see this diatribe as an airing of grievances. Some might think that I am being sarcastic. In the end though I would have to emphatically say no to both of these assumptions and reassert “I am happier now than I have ever been, and tomorrow looks even better.”
In thinking back on it I kinda enjoyed the feeling of constant nausea in the morning as I choked down dry toast followed by strong black coffee. I enjoyed that small bit of martyrdom in some small way; in the way that I knew then that I had for once actually had something. I no longer had someone trying to change me, but I had that coffee to change me from the inside out into some sort of internally decaying mass of bile and frailty. I liked the lack of sleep, the constant gnawing hunger pains combined with the lack of appetite, the constant exhaustion from just getting up in the morning, the masochism of it all. The emptiness and hollowness of my own existence supplemented by my own lack of personal desire for anything greater, somehow that gave me an odd sort of satisfaction.
Ennui, that’s French for bored, that’s French for dissatisfied, that’s French for perpetual unhappiness with one’s situation, no matter how perfect. See, this is what happens when you get what you want, when you have successfully changed things; you get bored. The problem with the glass being half full is that you don’t have as much to look forward to, but if it is always half empty, well then, things could always be better. The worst thing that could possibly happen is for one’s glass to be completely filled. In this situation you have nothing to look forward to but someone spilling your glass just so you can start over. Perfection in life is a curse.
At the moment I can say I am happier now than I have ever been. I have a low paying job. I almost have a completely useless bachelor’s degree that I have wasted a large sum of my parent’s money on from a sub standard school. I have no money, no real prospect of a prosperous future, no love interest, I live in a shit hole in the ghetto in a city that is pretty mediocre, I am under slept….truly my glass is nowhere near full. Some might see this diatribe as an airing of grievances. Some might think that I am being sarcastic. In the end though I would have to emphatically say no to both of these assumptions and reassert “I am happier now than I have ever been, and tomorrow looks even better.”