happiness is...

Another one of those words -  like faith -  that has become utterly meaningless.  Happiness is just another manufactured concept.  It’s something else they try to sell us on.  Like religion and democracy and tooth whitener.  Anybody who tells you that life is satisfying is a mental paralytic.  The Buddhists have it about half right.  Because a Buddhist knows how s****y life really is.  A Buddhist is honest enough to admit there is only the present, and trying to go forward or backward in time is not only a monumental waste of time, but it causes increased pain, dis-ease, and dissatisfaction and eventually leads to physical and psychological damage.  Science bears this out.  Hell, I bear this out.  If I continually go back and revisit those memories of me as a child, everything about me changes. My mood, my posture, the muscles in my face. And I’ll prove this to you. Now, I’m not an actor.  I’m not making any of this up.  I haven’t even gotten this s**t I’m about to share with you down on paper. But it’s all up here.  It’s still up here.  I’m hoping one day, medical science will create a form of dynamite for the mind that will allow us to demolish all those bad memories we don’t want to think about anymore.  That’d be great.  Nevertheless. I got a lot of anger, right?  Lot of bitterness.  Frustration.  Hopelessness, yeah, I got very little faith in you, in me, in any of us.   Call me what you will.  I don’t give a damn.  What the f**k difference does it make?  Am I depressed?  Of course.  Aren’t you?  I’d be worried about you if you weren’t.  So you would prefer I smile more.  Crack a few more jokes.  Stop being so serious.  Lighten up.  That’s your hang-up.  If I bring you down, then leave me the hell alone.  It’s straightforward.  You don’t have to be around me.  It’s quite likely I don’t wanna be around you, anyway, so do yourself a favor and keep it moving.  I see some of you are laughing.  You think I’m joking.  I’m not joking.  This is what I believe.  It’s what I’ve always believed.  I’m not a f*****g comedian.  I’m a guy whose mother decided she’d be better off leaving me in a foster home so she could continue to drink herself to death.   I can’t say I blame her.  We all gotta go sometime.  We all gotta die of something.  It might as well be of our own choosing.  Might as well take control of the m**********r, in my opinion.  So, yeah, those of you out there trying to psychoanalyze me, knock yourselves out.  There’s a lot to psychoanalyze, trust me.  I’m just starting, so... Two or three more whiskeys and anything can happen. I got lucky.  I learned to string a few words together.  Some people read what I wrote and didn’t go blind.  I’m what they call a cult writer.  The eggheads and the New York critics hate me.  And they can all go f**k themselves.  They’re not fit to wipe my a*s. I’m one of those rare individuals who doesn’t give a rat’s a*s about making money.  I make enough to keep just the right percentage of alcohol in my blood.  That’s pretty much all I care about at this point in my life.  Most people think I’ve chosen to throw up my hands.  And I have.  I’m tired.  At some point, you just become tired of all the bullshit.  Another day, another holiday, another birthday, another death day.  Another bill, another trip to the doctor, another car repair, another murder, another political campaign, another war.  It’s endless... And yet we’re continually told to buck up, stay strong, laugh through the pain, endure.  When the chips are down when the going gets tough... God bless the American Spirit. I’m not a lonely man. This country, in particular, has a real problem with those who prefer to be alone.  I don’t need camaraderie.  I don’t have to go bowling or fishing or go to church.  I don’t need to bond with my fellow man or woman or have a shared experience.  If history teaches us anything about the human being, he is a complete failure.  This has been proven time and time again.  The human being can’t even get along with himself, let alone others.  A human’s only redeeming quality is that he will one day die.  That is the only redeeming quality.  Do I believe in God? Well, the only reasonable, logical, intelligent response to a question like that is I don’t know.  If people were honest enough with themselves and with each other, which they will never be... every last bloody one of them would come to that conclusion.  There is not a single man, woman, or child on this b***h of earth who can answer that question with any real certainty.  The Atheists are wrong.  The believers are wrong.  The Buddhists are about half right.  The Jews about an eighth right; maybe a quarter right.  The Christians and the Catholics are flat-out delusional.  The Muslims, who the hell knows what they believe?  And the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons, Christ, you might as well just join the circus.