Not really. Not in a way that counts.
Oh sure, it might seem like I am here. I reflect light, I displace air, I produce the usual set of organic odors appropriate to a live human being.
But don’t be fooled because it’s all a lie. A trick of the light, a facsimile of meaning, the deliberate confusion of similar ideas.
A bad joke taken too far but with nowhere left to die.
I don’t blame you for being confused, though, as I have gone to great lengths to convince the world of my existence.
Really, this entire illusion called “Michael John Bertrand” is a masterstroke that could only come from the truly brilliant (but non-existent) mind of one such as me.
I mean, sure, anyone who actually exists could do it. But to pull it off without the benefit of existence can only be the work of a real genius.
A brief but heartfelt round of applause would be appropriate. Thank you.
You see, back when I did, in the strictest sense of the word, exist, I found being a real love human being to be such a bore. All that existing all the time. All the annoying little tasks like eating and drinking and breathing and metabolizing glucose and such really got to be a pain in the ass.
The pooping alone was such a chore.
And besides, reality was such a commitment, I can’t even. Stuck in this one life, being this one person, with one set of bullshit random factors like body mass, place of origin, phenotype, and even gender (what a bore!), and only one brief lifetime to explore the possibilities of that limited little life, even.
Christ, what a load of crap.
Clearly, the most efficient and elegant solution was to simply stop existing, and so that is what I did.
Oh, not by the messy and time-consuming method of death, of course. Perish the thought. Death is far too much of a commitment too, and very limiting.
And funerals are so damned expensive, too. It really isn’t fair.
Plus death is like, really fucking gross.
There’s bugs and worms and body fluids EVERYwhere.
Hardly seems worth it, really.
No, mere death was nowhere good enough for me. Too messy, too mundane, to obvious. Entirely unsuitable for a magnificent unprecedented unique genius like me.
You don’t stick a brilliant spinning shining iridescent twenty four dimensional gemstone like me in a dirty little box, darling.
No, I simply willed myself out of existence. It’s easy when you’re a demigod. I filled my mind with a total picture of my entire being in all its wholeness and then simply erased all the lines that define me.
Now, I am mere protean pre-existence, as is proper. An intricate lattice of potential without probability or presence.
With no more substance than the reflection of a shadow and no more importance than an idle thought in the mind of an idiot child in some long forgotten Eastern European orphanage buried deep in the Urals.
Yes. This is how it should be. This is…. right.
Thank goodness you don’t need to exist to blog!
More after the break.
That went unexpectedly well
For something that started off as pseudo-suicidal nihilism, my little piece about not existing turned out to be quite whimsical and silly.
Maybe this turning depression into comedy concept is more of a possibility for me than I first thought. In general, when my therapist has suggested I alchemize my suffering into guffaws, I have shrugged it off.
Just another thing that it looks like I “could” do, but in reality cannot.
But him repeatedly suggesting it did produce one vaguely helpful result : it got me to ask myself why it wasn’t possible for me.
And after a lot of digging around in the root cellar of my soul, I realized the problem was very simple : I just didn’t find my depression or the trauma that caused it funny.
I just can’t see the lighter side of my inner darkness. I wish I could – it would undoubtedly make me a far, far healthier person.
I think I could benefit from an enormous reduction in taking like seriously overall.
It’s only life, after all.
But for now, I just don’t see the funny side of being brutally raped at 4, thrown to the wolves on my first day of school, spending my childhood isolated and alone, and all the other awful things that happened to make me the shambling shibboleth I am today.
I know other comedians can do it. And I know there has never been a better time for that kind of bare-all confessional comedy. The market is there for it.
But I am not there yet. Right now, if I tried to write comedy about my depression, it would turn into utterly unhinged screaming and ranting and paranoia within seconds.
At best, it would be the sort of comedy that is scary, not funny.
“I spent my childhood feeling like an unwanted guest in my own home. ISN’T THAT HILARIOUS EVERYBODY? Laugh god damn you! “
And then I shoot a bullet into the ceiling.
So no, I don’t think I will be spinning my teardrops into teapots any time soon. Not until I find a way to vent enough of my simmering rage to calm down inside enough to maybe see the lighter side of things.
The other problem is that my misery has been quite boring. No suicide attempts, no acts of sudden and terrible violence, no time spent eating institutional food, no substance induced wacky hijinks.
Just me, miserable and alone, day after day. Alone at school, alone at home, alone in between. Alone watching TV. Alone playing video games. Alone lying in bed staring into the middle nothing because I can’t seem to pull myself together enough to get out of bed and go pee, even though my bladder is bursting.
Where is the comedy in a life that’s mostly nothing?
Let alone the deep shame I feel about my worthless life.
No, no comedy to be found there. I have nothing people could even relate to.
And there is nothing funny about that.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.