A Pat Benatar song came on the car radio the other day and I was instantly reminded of a blog post I wrote years ago about antinatalism.

Antinatalism is the belief that it’s morally wrong to have children. Why is it wrong? Because “life is harm” and because the unborn is unable to give consent.

On the face of it, this argument is just nuts. I mean, it’s unconscious knowledge that this is nuts. By unconscious knowledge, I mean instinctual knowledge. We may also find it self-evident that a person who believes that “life is harm” is a deeply unhappy person.

But in trying to refresh my memory on the lunacy of antinatalism, I came across an essay that tries to refute the idea that antinatalism is a philosophy borne of depression. Yeah, well, some depressed people may see things more realistically than an incurable optimist, but it’s inherent in the illness to see the world in distorted ways that only therapy or meds can modify. (The most well-known proponent of antinatalism is a guy who insists on strict privacy about his private life so that we can’t extrapolate anything from his history or psychological make-up. Hint: He is miserable.)

Anyway, Pat Benatar caused me to go back and read the post from 2008, and just as I recall, the comments are hilarious. Comment threads like these have kept me writing here for a million years, and while they don’t occur very often, they are pure joy. I hope you will go read that post and then laugh your heads off at the comments.

And I hope you will be moved to comment here, so we can laugh some more.

I’ve always scoffed at people who redecorate their homes. It seems like such a waste of time and money, not to mention the most bourgeois activity I could imagine.

Now, I’m thinking about redecorating, so I finally understand the motivation: I’m dead inside.

Being dead inside, I’m looking outward at my environment. I hate my curtains. Why do we have to have these ugly curtains that we bought at Target under duress when we moved into this house seven years ago?  And why should I live with corroded hardware in my bathroom sink when I can get vintage replacements from a special bathroom fixtures website? And while I’m at it, why are all the walls white? I used to love colored walls. Which walls should I paint and which colors?

Really, who cares? My house is perfectly fine as is. It’s comfortable and reflects our personalities. Redecorating is just an effort to externalize your loss of identity and self-worth. It’s an act of desperation.

I knew a couple who spend $50,000 to revamp their kitchen. They were wealthy, obviously, and they both wanted to sleep with me. I did sleep with one of them, in the end, but I can’t recall anything about their kitchen. What losers.

I know a divorced guy whose new girlfriend redecorated his entire condo in grey and black, with shit from Macy’s, it looked like. She wanted to erase all signs of his former partner, and eventually she took over every aspect of his life. He appeared to have no opinion on this. When he’s finally dead inside, he might take notice.

But with each passing day, my curtains are an increasing blight on my existence. If only I knew what to replace them with!

I have started following interior design pages on Instagram. I am especially drawn to chinoiserie. Jewel-toned velvet couches are nice too.  I could start hunting in thrift-shops for furniture instead of old cashmere sweaters and Levis!

But I would still be me, this me. This me has no social life and no mental life to speak of. I can’t turn off the TV because the silence will make me anxious. I feel I have already thought about everything there is to think about. I can’t think about the past or I will feel deprived, guilty, and pathetic. I can’t remember how I occupied myself before Covid but I didn’t watch TV all day and night.

People who exercise or go sight-seeing or attend events seem so poignantly deluded. It’s like, Aww, look at them thinking this will change anything! The more fun people appear to be having on boats, at parties, standing on mountains, the more tragic they seem.

The only time I feel at ease is when I go to bed. Being asleep is my idea of living my best life. There is just too much loss to incorporate when I’m conscious, I guess. But meanwhile, I want curtains. There are four big windows in my bedroom and I want complete darkness at night. I want flowing, floor-length velvet curtains or maybe gauzy white curtains. Or maybe white blinds to match the walls. Or maybe custom black-out shades. Something Victorian to match my dresser, or something in keeping with the craftsman style of the house. Or maybe I need to paint the walls a deep cherry red or midnight blue?

The next time someone brings up redecorating, just feel sorry for them. Explain that they are dead inside and I know they will thank you.

Thoughts on my windows, anyone?

The Sanskrit word upeksha means “equanimity, non-attachment, nondiscrimination, even-mindedness, or letting go.” Upa means ‘over,’ and iksh means ‘to look.’ You climb the mountain to be able to look over the whole situation, not bound by one side or the other.

In Buddhism, equanimity (in Pali, upekkha; in Sanskrit, upeksha) is one of the four great virtues (along with compassion, loving kindness, and sympathetic joy) that the Buddha taught his disciples to cultivate.

Equanimity isn’t indifference. It’s a balance that comes from inner stability–remaining centered when surrounded by turmoil. It’s a state of acceptance, but not in the sense of being resigned or defeated. More like being at peace with things as they are.

Does this sound like self help gibberish? I learned the concept from a podcast by an expert on family estrangement. It’s my first podcast! That’s how much the subject weighs on me. Being powerless in a critical aspect of your life is so fucking difficult. It can lead you into a never-ending loop of regret, guilt, anger, remorse, and despair.

I am beginning to see that the best way to approach insoluble situations is to do nothing. Not just do nothing, but to feel nothing. Nothing can be a good choice, and in my interpretation of equanimity, it is essential. Accept what is and let it wash over you. Don’t react to the feelings or urges attendant to helplessness or misery. Just go, Uh-huh, and go about your business.

Until this week, I would have called this approach “denial” and I would lobby hard against it. What’s more pathetic than denial? I am constantly pointing it out and deploring it. It’s part of my Just Admit It worldview. Everyone hates me for this bossy, superior stance but there you go. I want everyone to face their own life, even if it’s a tragedy, and to face up to their demons. I feel it’s their duty, as a human being.

But once you face up to it, why keep suffering? Recognize the truth, evaluate its awfulness, and then stop struggling with it. If you can’t change it, assume a state of equanimity. Say to yourself, My parents are awful, my kid hates me, I am useless, everyone’s crazy…and then return to a state of calm. I think if I practice this enough, it may set me free from my daily torment.

I will aim to only get mad about the things that are fun to be mad at. Bad grammar, hideous denim, and the ex-wife. Also, music awards shows. Did anyone see that stupid American Music Awards the other nigh?? Oh my god, so awful. I guess I should go write an exegesis.

Namaste or whatever.

Okay, it’s too much. If I implied that it wasn’t, forgive me, I was wrong.

Last week I read advice on how to take the best selfie of your asshole. It was in a newsletter for men that happens to offer a fun modern take on pop culture. The advice was not meant for me, clearly, but nevertheless she persisted.

The advice made me sad, in a deep 3 am dark night of the soul type of way. Inexpressibly sad. We have come to this, the need to capture our very asshole in the best light, for the admiration of others.

We are our own assholes. All roads lead to assholes.

We crave toilet paper. We joke about it but still look for it on Amazon. Our family members reveal the purchase of bidets from a company called “Tushy.”

The word Tushy brings a whole new cascade of agony and regret. A close friend nearly kills himself when I email him about Tushy. At least I’m not alone in the universe where a single wrong word plunges one into the abyss.

I have had many dreams about overflowing toilets, with shit everywhere. Is this a metaphor for life itself, a pile of unmanageable shit? When I told my sister about the dreams, she assured me that she’s had them too. Is that good or bad?

Now, assholes are everywhere, sharing their personal tales about how they’re spending their time in lock-down. Each asshole feels it’s important to speak their Truth about their Journey.

Here’s a quick list of what I don’t want, in case you need corroboration of your own rage:

Recipes
Exercise routines
Pictures of your cat (or asshole)
funny stories about your domestic conflicts
Cute photos of your beautiful children
Crafts and craft suggestions
Reflections on what you miss most
Platitudes
Silver linings
Amateur or professional performances with guitar or piano

I am starting fights with people, in real life and online. I can’t seem to stop being an asshole, the asshole I’ve always been but now somehow exaggerated in the absence of the usual distractions and inhibitors.

On Instagram, I commented on a nude performance artist, “she loves to be naked and yet so waxed.” This brought down the wrath of everyone across the globe. What kind of feminist was I??? I was a “diet totalitarian!” Why couldn’t I just be positive??

HOW SHOULD I KNOW, FFS! I AM JUST ANOTHER ASSHOLE!

Walking the dog and wearing a pair of Uniqlo boxers over my face, joggers and skateboarders race past me, unmasked. I mutter, “Wear a fucking mask motherfucker”, feeling my own spittle hit the boxers and fly back in my face.

The boxers once covered my ass, I now realize.

And the ex-wife just published her monthly journal thing, comparing herself to the Little Engine That Could.

I cant. I can’t even. I know I can’t, I know I can’t, I just can’t.

Recently my brain has come up with a philosophical dilemma that I can’t solve. I know the best solution would be to stop thinking about it. Nevertheless, here it is:

Does the past matter?

By “matter’, I mean does it still have a bearing on the present. Is it still relevant? Are you responsible for your past actions, and do past events have consequences that can’t be dismissed, morally speaking? Can you renounce the past and live in the present without reference or reflection? Does “Now” matter more than yesterday or tomorrow?

If only Now matters, than nothing matters. Because once it’s over, it’s a new Now. And if nothing matters, why go on?

Or, if the past matters, and you have experienced unbearable tragedy or loss, why pretend it’s over and that you can move on? According to Faulkner, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” 

Going about my daily life, I lack motivation for almost everything, and it’s easy to just decide to go back to bed. Going back to bed isn’t a crime and it’s not fattening. It’s peaceful and comforting. Sometimes, getting up again seems futile but I’m able to take a perverse satisfaction in doing it anyway, just as Camus describes Sisyphus.

Maybe the key for me is to live in the same spirit as Sisyphus. I once told Max that the purpose of life is to withstand irritation. Don’t worry: He was probably nearly thirty and already had his own ideas. Years earlier, he told me he felt like a contraption with its wires exposed. We were talking about the advent of Prozac, and whether it was a good thing or a bad thing to eliminate one’s deep sense of melancholy. What a ridiculous question! If only a drug could do that, without ultimately killing you.

Back to the original dilemma, what are your thoughts? I want to hear them.

*Also, how much would you like to hear Shakespeare done in AAVE? My kingdom for that shit. Seriously. I certainly can’t understand it as written.

1. Admit that everything is horrible and out of control.

2. Accept that no god of anyone’s understanding will step in to fix it. (see historical genocide, natural disasters, Donald Trump.)

3. Turning yourself over to any person or entity will only reduce what’s left of your free will. (see religion, social media, and advertising.)

4. Admit that you are fucked up and that in large part it was your childhood experience that is to blame, along with your genes.

5. Accept your failures and forgive yourself. Ask forgiveness where you deserve it but don’t be surprised if you don’t get it.

6. Look to thinkers you respect for the wisdom you need to keep going. Try Camus, Sartre, Schopenhauer, George Orwell, Doris Lessing, Fran Lebowitz, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, or Hermann Hesse.

7. See a professional if things get too rough.

8. Accept that you have caused harm but that you are human. Try to do your best going forward.

9. Every day, try to think about someone else and try to do one small thing to ease someone’s burden, even a phone call to someone who lives alone.

10. Realize how repetitive the 12 steps of AA are! Fucking hell! Enough guilt already!

11. Continue to think about other people, since reflecting on your flaws is an endless loop created by brain chemistry gone awry.

12. Reach out to others in your despair! They too know that everything is horrible and out of control! Ask for and offer comfort! Look to art when your brain hurts or your heart aches. And have a drink if you feel like it. I’ve just discovered Flaming Margarita’s and they are amazing!

Just kidding. 65 is old, very old, a time of Medicare, high cholesterol, and a dread of seeing that your shoes are untied and you have to go ALL THE WAY DOWN THERE to tie them.

Last week on my birthday, I wore my discounted Burberry dress to go out to dinner, vaping my MedMen product before leaving the house. The bridge entrance to Long Beach was closed, so we took a different route that had us driving around lost for a quite a while. Suddenly we made a turn and found we were driving into oncoming traffic. I didn’t see my life rewinding before my eyes but I did feel a frisson of excitement: WE’RE GOING TO DIE! I thought for a moment, and it was okay, because I was strapped into my seat-belt and wearing a nice dress. It would be quick and better than being cut into pieces by a maniac (too much crime TV.)

Anyway, we lived to make a u-turn. Dinner was good. The restaurant had huge screens showing 80s MTV videos, including my favorite Pat Benator song, Love is a Battlefield. She’s a warrior in a tube top and scrunched-down boots, shouting, “We are young!!!!”

Being young is really great. If you’re reading this and you’re young, go out and do everything except opiates, and don’t date guys from the internet who will cut you into pieces and throw them in a ditch so it takes law enforcement seven months to find you.

I hate the commercials I keep seeing with grey-haired old ladies tramping through the hills, bragging about how good they feel and how much they still plan to do. Fuck them.

I really don’t want to do anything, and I’m too old to do it anyway. I do want to finish up my time on earth with less mental suffering. So I keep reading about depression and PTSD, every new study, new treatments, new evidence that your very DNA is a portent of doom. I know that rumination is not helpful but I pretend that what I’m doing is “research.”

But now, my “research” has led me to Metacognitive Therapy. The strategy here is to stop the rumination by interrupting it. Not analyzing why you do it or why you can’t control it. When the thought appears, don’t engage with it. Practice turning your attention elsewhere. Simple as that. Also, add more activities to your daily life, limiting your time to churn worries and self-recrimination.

When you’re caught up in negative rumination, your brain is struggling with itself but it thinks it must continue, like it’s a taking the SAT and isn’t allowed to turn it in, incomplete.

My plan is to listen to more music, read short stories, write more, smoke more weed, find some volunteer work with disabled people, make some bad folk art and keep my hair looking good.

I’m still going to think about death because I like the subject. For example, this story of an 104 year old man who wanted to get it over with is so touching and filled with profound questions and insights. David Goodall seems like a great guy who was more than ready to exit. I love his last words before losing consciousness:

This is taking an awfully long time.

Thoughts, advice, birthday wishes, anyone?

I didn’t believe it when I heard there was a person with only a head, who lived in a bowl. It reminded me of my favorite publication from many years ago, a parody of the National Enquirer that featured a “human Interest” story about a head that lived on a velvet pillow. In the tradition of such stories, the head, a little boy, was brave and spunky and loved sports. He was the ball, obviously.

Anyway, I learned about Rahma Haruna, a Nigerian teenager who lived in a plastic bowl. A photo of her went viral, and someone bought her family a wheelchair to transport the bowl around. Before that, she was carried into the village every day by her younger brother, to beg for alms.

The Girl in a Bowl story is so loaded with meaning and resonance that I hardly know where to begin but here we go.

Last night, a friend came over and we discussed our antidepressants, a first-world problem if ever there was one but nevertheless we struggle. My antidepressant has stopped working and the friend is on a new one, Lexipro. It provides a feeling of numbness, which is good, but it’s fucking with their ability to be creative, and has muted their sense of humor.

In my effort to be helpful, I said, “No, not true! You thought the girl in a bowl was funny and you laughed!” Further, I pointed out, not everyone would respond by laughing. It bespeaks a particular dark and perverse sense of humor, the kind that is natural to people like us, the kind we need to survive.

So my friend agreed. I didn’t go on to quote whoever it was who said that suicide is the failure of the sense of humor. I believe this to be true. It’s not always beneficial to blurt out, though.

Moving along, the Girl in a Bowl Story is an example of courage that is beyond our imagination. Not only that, but Rahma Haruna hoped to one day own a grocery store.

Just think about this. With all my limbs, I know I couldn’t run a grocery store. I can’t even put the groceries away efficiently. I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur, lazy and stupid as I am. I have only dreamed of doing nothing.

Self-worth, courage, dignity, stoicism, hope, faith, perseverance, what else does it take to live in a bowl? In pictures of Rahma, who died in 2016, she wears eye-shadow and sometimes a radiant smile. God bless this girl and her beautiful spirit, even though if there were a god, he’d owe her a huge apology.

I usually hate those quadriplegic people who want to climb Mt. Everest, and I blame them for trying to make the rest of us look bad. But this is not that. This is kind of sui generis, I feel. And it raises the question, can you find humor in tragedy without being a mean person? Is laughing antithetical to compassion? Can you mock something while being humbled by it?

I’m going to say yes, and not just to defend myself and my friend. It doesn’t quite fit here but nonetheless I will quote Oscar Wilde on Dickens. “One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.”

He was talking about sentimentality but I think this applies to the horror of existence, to bearing up under difficult circumstances. You need to find the humor. For many of us, it is absolutely essential. I hope to suffer like Samuel Beckett and Oscar Wilde, rather than Sylvia Plath, who had no idea how funny she would look with her legs sticking out of the oven.

I wanted to rant about the celebrities on Twitter who are responding to the suicide of Kate Spade with recollections of their first Kate Spade bag.  IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU, I was thinking in disgust, who cares about your fucking personal memories right now?

But my own reaction, having been “triggered”, was equally personal and about me.

My feeling was, don’t send condolences to her family or the usual bullshit, talk about suicide prevention and signs of risk.

Some woman who claimed to be a friend told CNN that the suicide was “out of character.” Like it was unusual for Kate Spade to kill herself. Idiot.

But Kate Spade’s sister gives a harrowing account of Kate’s persistent mental illness. The sister says that for years, she’s been trying to get Kate to admit herself to a hospital, to get treatment for her depression. She recalls how fixated Kate was on Robin Williams’ death. She reveals that Kate feared going public about her depression would ruin her personal brand as a happy, bubbly person. Most upsetting, the sister says that she finally had to “let go.”

“Sometimes you simply cannot SAVE people from themselves! One of the last things she said to me was, ‘Reta, I know you hate funerals and don’t attend them, but for me would you PLEASE come to MINE, at least. Please!’ I know she perhaps had a plan, but she insisted she did not.”

Well, letting go isn’t the answer when a loved one talks about their own funeral.

Letting go is never going to help a person in crisis, even if the crisis goes on an on.

I’m so sorry about this. In order to leave a 13 year old daughter, Kate Spade must have been in unbearable pain. You take your own life only when your suffering is stronger than your resources, I have read. She must have thought her family was better off without her. Because that’s how the suicidal brain works.

I’d like everyone who is worried about someone to call them up. Remind them that you care about them, that you need them in your life. If you’ve already had enough of someone’s resistant despair, have some more of it! Do not let go. Hang on tight. If you have a gut feeling that something is wrong, don’t ignore it.

I’m sorry. Kate Spade may have found peace, but those around her are just beginning to face a loss that will never end.

Text HOME to 741741 from anywhere in the USA
for free 24/7 crisis support

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

My meds don’t work anymore but I’m afraid to get off them. Effexor is notorious for terrible withdrawal symptoms like dizziness, nausea, migraines, nightmares, brain zaps, insomnia and more. Drug companies prefer the word “discontinuation” to “withdrawal.” They warn you to seek your doctor’s help if you want to stop taking your meds; they know you will be fucked, no matter how slowly you titrate down.

My prescribing doctor insists that I should try adding Abilify. Call me crazy but I don’t want to add drowsiness, weight gain, blurred vision, drooling, restlessness and possible tardive dyskinesia to my current panoply of “challenges.” He has written prescriptions several times, saying, “What’s the worst that can happen?”

The original literature on Ability says:

[it] can be effective in treating the acute manic episodes of bipolar disorder in adults, adolescents and children. However, its effect is only useful for the manic phases with little or no effect on the depressive phases.

Abilify is an expensive drug and so naturally the strategy is, Just use it for other shit as an add-on! If I wanted some more debilitating side effects, I could just stuff my face and bang my head with a frying pan every day.

If you’re taking antidepressants, you probably had a compelling reason to start. But no one ever says, “Hey, you’re functioning pretty good now, let’s get you off these meds!” And no one knows the long term consequences for your poor brain.

Once in a while, I forget to take my Effexor. I can always tell the next morning, because one day without them triggers epic nightmares of blood pouring from the ceiling or worse.

I’m never going to be “happy” in the usual sense. I would settle for miserable. Meanwhile, my brain is stuck in exhausting circular rumination and an urge to be unconscious. I keep wondering about the purpose of life. Not just mine, but mine most acutely.

Do normal people wonder about this? I just don’t know. What are they thinking about instead?

Does anyone have any advice that isn’t a personal horror story? Or if you must, I’ll listen to your horror story. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

*