Storyteller

Of course we all know everyone of us is a storyteller. To live is to tell stories about ourselves and others for fun and/or profit. Most of us do so orally; others opt for the printed words or other medium. I consider myself an accidental storyteller. I was forced into it. And I am doing it with no motive of profit, very little fun, and a great need for survival. I simply want to make sense of my haunting, harrowing, and hellish existence. I have tried so many times to tell my life chronologically, but never had the energy to get to the finish line. I always ended up short, stopped at the cusp of my reaching the work force. Meanwhile I take meandering detours and try to put on a voice of unflappable insouciance layered over a faux cynicism in my overworked, tired attempts at poetry and short story writing. But prudence be damned. I just want to write, to dwell on junks of my heart and pieces of my mind. If any artistic merits come out of these sessions of "literary masturbations", somebody would surely let me know soon enough, don't you think? What do we find about ourselves when we think we have fallen between the cracks of life and cannot get out? Should we give in to despair or make the most of our experiences? I know we should live one day at a time, but if we find we are being attacked by several days at once, what should we do? I humbly submit that do as I do, stay calm and prepare to die but fight as hard for your life as you can. That's what I'm doing with the words at my disposal. They console me. They keep me company. They calm me down. I'm carving and chiseling the words on the walls until I die. If one day my body (or my bones) is discovered in the crack, at least people would know that I didn't die in silence. Silence is overrated. I was born with a voice and I want to use it.

There once was a man who was afflicted with a fascination for facts and the extremes. He thought by staying with facts and the extremes, and not with the banal and the prosaic, he would understand himself and the world better. So he constantly put his survival on the line, besides deliberately going against the flow in choosing romantic interests. Incredibly he managed to survive well into his 60's until one day he put a bullet through his mouth after leaving a farewell letter to his surviving son which reads as follows:

" Dear Son:

By the time this letter reached you, you had ready known that I had decided to leave this world in a dramatic and gruesome manner. Please forgive me if that upset you, but I didn't want to leave things to chance. I was firm with my decision and had no wish to appear as a sissy even in death. The purpose of this letter is to impart some hard-earned lessons for whatever values they may be to you. Most, if not all, of them may come across prosaic and banal to you, but as I said, i didn't wish to leave things to chance.

1. Most life's problems can be avoided if you stay away from greed, anger, and mania.
2. Cultivate patience, forbearance, and forgiveness.
3. Love is important but not indispensable. You can still have a good life without it. So don't be stupid in your quest for a mate. Keep your head together, and your wallet in secure place.
4. Finally, we all have to die someday. Thus, you must live your life with dignity and purpose.

Your Dad"

When the letter was handed to me after the funeral, I was consumed with anger and grief and contempt for my father. I felt he was weak and cowardly. I was in my second year in college and was discovering Nietzsche. I felt that if Nietzsche could combat migraines and stomach ailments and poverty and lack of recognition for his genius, then my father could have fought for reasons to live. To give up on life would be so damn fucking easy. My father should have tried to grapple with the "why" of living as Nietzsche did, and he would have found the "how" of doing so. So I vowed silently to myself that I would never as weak and cowardly as my father as I was kneeling in front of the coffin containing his corpse, together with my siblings who were wailing over the stupid and nonsensical chanting of the Buddhist monk who was hired by my mother to ensure my father's self-inflicted passing of this world would not encounter encumbrances.

I have kept the vow. I don't have thoughts of self-destruction or flirtation of doing myself bodily harm. On the contrary, I have struggled against homicidal urges. The longer I live, the more powerful the urges become. I have had dreams in which I acted out my urges. The dreams were vivid and seemed so real that they invariably woke me up and I had to spend time double-checking my surroundings to make sure that I was dreaming. I know that I am living in borrowed time and at any given time I may flip out and act on my long-suppressed urges. Nowadays I am no longer garrulous and gullible and glib. I am quiet and slowly getting rid of lingering vestiges of humanity and human kindness inside me although I do routinely hand out small changes and food to homeless folks. It is toward the assholes and scumbags that I am preparing myself for.

You probably wonder why I'm ignoring my father's advice about unsolicited forgiveness. The answer is that I don't suffer fools gladly and I have a deep thirst for vengeance. On the other hand, if the offenders are sincerely remorseful and contrite, I would gladly let bygones be bygones. We all make mistakes. And we all deserve second chances. It is our stupid pride that prompts us to do and stay stupid things and prevents us from apologizing to those we hurt. You probably don't believe this, but I am very quick to offer apologies the moment i reaize i have stepped out of line.
(to be continued)