About two months ago I had a long talk on the phone (and people know I dont talk on the phone so that shows that it was someone special to me) with one of my closest friends about graffiti artists on the east coast and art exhibits and other stuff. He happened to mention to me at some point however that he was thinking about jumping off a bridge. I didn’t laugh or assume he was joking. And its not that he’s not the joking type. He was very much so. But something in the way it was so nonchalantly mentioned during our deep discussion of aesthetics made it very tangible.
He knew could share stuff like that with me because he knows that years ago we were about equally as crazy as each other. Suicide had been a topic of discussion before in our teenage years. I asked him what was going on but when he didn’t share much I didn’t press him. I assumed he’d just druge along and get over what it was eventually. That’s what we always did when we were down. I could tell he wasn’t happy. And in hindsight I could hear the sound of ‘wanting no more’ in his voice. Its a sound like every syllable uttered could or couldn’t be at the same time and to him it didn’t matter. If I were a psychiatrist I’d give it a name like “generalized ambivalence disorder”. Where you really just dont give a shit about shit. But not apathy… its something more humble. It comes from a humble place. It’s like having infinite disappointment with the creation of God. Infinite.
I didnt know what to say or do for him. To meet something and someone at that level you kind of have to be prepared for it. Or be a monk. I was neither. For him the world we lived in (what we call the real world) was an option, and one he was dissatisfied with. The lack of meaningful connection. The lack of true care. The lack of true meaning behind what any of us do at any given moment. He’d gone to mental distances and worlds that made the physicality of all of ‘this’ extremely trivial. Some people called him crazy. I think that’s far too reductive and simplistic. We’re all crazy in one way or another. I’ve never met a single person that I didn’t see as insane in some way or fashion. His insanity was not being able to cope with your banality. All he wanted was meaning.
After that call I would text him periodically but he never responded. I assumed he was ok if I didn’t hear from him. The problem with people who are truly suicidal is that they wont make calls to you in the hours before. Their silence is the type you have to look for, because its nothing to hear. If only the mind made noise when it churns and churns and churns.
Today I got the call. He did it. It surprised me but if it were to be anyone he was the obvious choice. There was something about music. Not loud enough to drown out the thoughts. Not quiet enough become still. Something about music. A question. An inability to cope. They probably wouldnt know. They didn’t know him like I did.
Jumping’s a great way to experience meaning, even if you don’t have much time to digest it. Its an act that in and of itself defines meaning. Its lacks the ambivalence he found in me and you. It was a yes, without vacillation, without being tortured by mundanity, by our lack of realness.
He finally found a way to say yes to insanity, to a freedom, and a relief from suffering that he would not have found naturally among us.
- May you rest in peace, Mike. Te quiero.
A friend died… I believe that grieving is natural and necessary. Grieving is necessarily sad, but as Marx once said, even sadness can be a form of pleasing the self. You will be missed but always loved! We’ll struggle to keep your smile alive…
(Source: youtube.com)
It is counterproductive to drink beer daily while trying to develop an 8 pack. Much of what the appearance of abdominal muscles requires is a simple absence of body fat. Even low-calorie beer can make enough of a difference that the abdominal muscles cease to show. For this reason I’ve given up my quest to develop any more of an 8 pack than I currently have. Prioritization is important to me.
my dream this morning reminded me of this incident in high school when some lady from the Embassy came to talk to our class and she went around asking what everyone wanted to aspire to when they were older and everyone said the usual “President”, “Astronaut”, “Businessman”, “Scientist” etc.. But when she got to me I told her i wanted to be an enlightened bum and live on the streets and write books no one would read until i was dead… She looked at me and chuckled saying “oh you’re not serious”, moving on to the next person… (but I was dead serious)..
The world isn’t violent, but there is violence in it. Between “the world is” and “there is in the world” exists an abyss. - Alejandro Jodorowski
