jonesenstein

7-8-01

Sunday, July 08, 2001
You knew I had to be getting to this: what is the
meaning of life?
A lot of people would say happiness. Yeah, that’s
a given. People, since the beginning of time (or at least
from the point where man imagined such a thing
called ‘happiness’), have tried to achieve a sort of ever-
lasting happiness. That’s probably why Heaven and Hell
were initially invented. Heaven was a place where people
would always be happy, and Hell was a place where it was
worse than life.
And, no, I don’t think either exist. An after-
life: definitely; heaven and hell: no.
Life just doesn’t work to make a person happy.
Life is not set up in such a way that everyone can be happy
all the time. I suppose it could work like that, but
society itself is not set up in this manner. People are
raised to think that they have to function in this trap,
and then they’re taught how to function in this trap.
I think that’s why I don’t care about stuff (which
has really been eating me up lately. I care about almost
nothing). Because just about everything that I should care
about (school, job, money, clothes, reputation, car, etc.)
is just a part of the trap. All that shit is simply shit.
There’s nothing more than what’s on the surface. I care
about levels. I care about people. Not people in general,
but single people. I care about my parents, about Lindsay,
about Jaime and Jamie, about Harris, about Bulldog, about
Kristi (even though I don’t talk to her), about Roy and
Peg, and Tripp. I care about those people. If someone
died in Indonesia right now I wouldn’t really give two
shits.
Anyway, back to what I was saying: the Trap
After they’re taught how to function in this trap,
they care only about functioning in the trap. That’s why
people watch TV, and read celebrity magazines, and drink
specialty coffee, and work at jobs they hate. That’s why
people use drugs, that’s why people do anything but live
their lives: because it makes them happy.
I don’t wanna do that. I want to live my life.
I have to figure out how to live it without falling
into the trap.
How’d I get from “The Meaning of Life” to “Life
Sucks?”