The first rule of fight club is…..
If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person? For years now, I’ve wanted to fall asleep. The sort of slipping off, the giving up, the falling part of sleep. Now sleeping is the last thing I want to do. When you have insomnia, you’re never really asleep, and you’re never really awake. With insomnia, nothing’s real. Everything is far away. Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy.
This Is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time.
You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you’re satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you’ve got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you’re trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.
I’m Jack’s complete lack of surprise.
May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. The lower you fall, the higher you’ll fly. Maybe self-improvement isn’t the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer. Reject the basic assumptions of civilisation, especially the importance of material possessions. Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing. Like the first monkey shot into space. We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens.
Worker bees can leave.
Even drones can fly away.
The Queen is their slave.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
An exit door procedure at 30,000 feet, the illusion of safety. Do you know why they put Oxygen masks on planes? Oxygen gets you high. In a catastrophic emergency, you’re taking giant, panicked breaths. Suddenly you become euphoric, docile. You accept your fate.
I’m Jack’s Cold Sweat
Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head.
Hey, even the Mona Lisa is falling apart. Look up at the stars and they’re gone. This is why I loved the support groups so much, if people thought you were dying, they gave you their full attention. If this might be the last time they saw you, they really saw you. Everything else about their checkbook balance and radio songs and messy hair went out the window. You had their full attention. People listened instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. And when they spoke, they weren’t just telling you a story. When the two of you talked, you were building something, and afterward you were both different than before. Because everything up to now is a story and everything after now is a story.
Nothing is static. Everything is evolving. Everything is falling apart. You decide your own level of involvement. Losing all hope was freedom. A house full of condiments and no real food. If you don’t know what you want you end up with a lot you don’t.
I’m Jack’s Raging Bile Duct
Am I sleeping? Have I slept at all? This is the insomnia. Try to relax a little more with every breath out, but your heart’s still racing and your thoughts tornado in your head. Nothing works. Not guided meditation. You’re in Ireland. Not counting sheep. You count up the days, hours, minutes since you can remember falling asleep. Three weeks without sleep, and everything becomes an out-of-body experience.
I am Jack’s Smirking Revenge
Stop trying to control everything and just let go. Let Go! Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a Chicken. You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your fucking khakis. You’re the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world. Fuck Martha Stewart!
Today is the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you. At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves. I let go. Lost in oblivion. Dark and silent and complete. I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom. Only after disaster can we be resurrected. It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything. I wanted to destroy everything beautiful I’d never have. I don’t want to die without any scars.
Ask yourself, if you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose?