Stories of Your Life

Stories of Your Life

There is a certain point in life you try to make sense of your life, asking yourself if the direction you're heading is really the one you have wanted all along or you are just a like a fucking fluff of cloud in the sky, wandering aimlessly, depending on the chancy meteorological forces and then poof--you are no more, you either evaporate or condense into water and fall down to earth, anonymously.

"The stories" you have been writing are your way to navigate through the remaining hurricanes of your life. They have a life of their own, strangely enough. Words come out of nowhere, that is to say, from dark, remote recesses of your mind and of others, arrive in a frenzy, and demand to be written down, decorum and common sense be damned.

There were many violent storms and hurricanes in your life. Back in 2005, as the Hurricane Katrina was forming and foaming out in the Gulf Of Mexico, you were playing poker at the Grand Casino, the best action in Biloxi, MS. It was late at night. Only the diehards and hard losers were still waging war at one another through casino chips. You were losing big and trying to recoup your losses. You were on edge and belligerent. You got into a verbal altercation with a much younger and bigger fellow who happened also to be a redneck and had bad teeth, bad breath, and a bad haircut. He asked you to step outside. You backed down. You profusely apologized. The asshole glared at you, saying "Chicken-hearted Chink!" You were behind $1,650. You had a headache. You couldn't breathe easily. You were almost out of breath; you felt suffocated. So you got up and said to him, "Sorry, man." He snorted with contempt, " Coward!". You felt hot and speechless. Conflicting thoughts were flying through your ears as you walked to the cashier window to cash your pathetic, dwindled stack of chips. Your heart was racing as you walked to the garage. You got in your Maxima and drove out of the garage, parked it in the adjoining uncovered parking lot, facing the garage exit, breathing hard.

Finally, about an hour later, a stupid dark blue Ford 150 noisily exited out of the garage and got into Beach Boulevard heading west. You tailed it. You didn't forget the stupid pick-up truck. The week prior, it almost ran over you as you were walking to the garage elevator, the driver screamed at you, "Stupid Chink!" as he zoomed by.

The red neck drove fast and furiously for about two miles and then stopped in front of one of the run-down houses on Magnolia Street, west of the beach, where humongous, ancient magnolia trees stood in front of most houses. You parked a comfortable distance behind the Ford. You called out to him as he was walking up the steps to the door, "Sir, I am lost. Would you help me with the directions?" He walked back towards you, looking puzzled and annoyed. Then he recognized you. He strode briskly to you and bellowed, "It was you, what's the fuck you want again?" He was inches from you. You could smell beer on his breath and a strong body odor.

Wordlessly (there was no longer any need for words), you shot him two times in succession in the chest, and then two more in the head as he collapsed on the curb. You didn't need to get out of your car. All the shells were ejected inside. Then you drove away slowly, and kept looking for any signs of trouble in the rear mirror, especially in the form of flashing lights and stricken sirens. None came. Most of Biloxi inhabitants already left for inland up north. Probably none stayed behind on that street as it was only a block away from the beach.

You drove to the self-served car wash place and washed your Maxima thoroughly, twice, especially the left panels. You then drove to your apartment which was two blocks from the beach, gathered your things which consisted only of books, clothes, and cooking utensils and dishes. You lived a life of simplicity. The whole process took less than 30 minutes. You drove straight, nonstop, stopping only for gas and bathroom breaks, to Tunica, to avoid the hurricane and the scene of crime. Interstate 55 North was heavy with traffic, even at late hours.

The hurricane came less than 24 hours later, wiping out your apartment, along with what was on the coast and a mile inland, and you supposed also the redneck's corpse which became fish food. There were so many deaths and destructions and floating corpses that cops wouldn't give a damn. It was tough enough to haul away the debris and bury or incinerate dead bodies

The casinos in Biloxi which were all located on the beach were thoroughly damaged. Players didn't start to come back until two years later when they were rebuilt and refurbished. Nobody would remember him nor you. You hoped so. You went back and played the other day. You tempted fate. You recognized nobody in the Beau Rivage Casino, the grandest of all.

Killing the redneck asshole was not your first. Nor was it your last. Killing was not that difficult. It is living with the aftermath that poses all kinds of problems, least of which is what commonly called conscience. The problems involve having detailed, convincing alibis and arguments and acting skills. All the people who died at your hand deserved it. You would kill them again, in a heart's beat. No hesitation. Most humans are scum, if people bother to ask your opinion. They are really animals, not fit to live. And you are an avenging angel. They don't know whom they're messing with, when they mess with you. You have become taciturn and laconic in speech, and highly observant, as the circumstances require. There is no loyalty, no trust, no need to unburden yourself and open your heart to anybody. So why the fuck are you indulging in this stupid narrative? Ah, all these words are just a fictional device. You are not that dumb to go for self-entrapment and self-confession to get things off your chest. You are not that stupid and weak-minded.

You were so at one time when you were young and green and thought love was feasible between a man and a woman, even with the disparity in family backgrounds and incomes. You met her when you were a lad of eighteen, four months shy of 19th birthday. She didn't even have an attractive face. What she had were a nice body, intelligence, and a nice heart (or so you thought). In the third year of the relationship, you decided to love her and that was a wrong decision. It caused you pain and sorrow for over 30 years until you got wised up in a gorgeous Sunday morning and recognized your folly and her unworthiness of your enduring affection and affliction. She set into motion a process that you called a search for love. During the long search you realized that love was a voluntary process and you fell victim to it. Many times. You were an impractical fool. As humans we all want to be loved, but in looking back of your life, you think in all honesty that only two women really loved you because only they didn't want money from you. They gave you money instead and refused to take money from you, even in the form of provisions in a will. People laugh at and make fun of money, but it is a fucking damn good indicator of love. As you got to the twilight of your life, it occurred to you that Love was just a story, told by a narrator with many voices and disguises. He now counsels you as follows:

"Dear friend of mine
Don't overburden your mind
Consider love is just a bon voyage
But don't forget to bring along a spatula
You may meet somebody into SM
And afterwards, you won't be the same.
Life is about discovery, growth, and transformation
Be ready for moments of elation and jubilation
Enjoy life
Don't cry too much
Life is short
At any given moment you may die"

Poker is just a little story to measure your courage, self-discipline, mental toughness, understanding of the human mind, and money management. And Love is just an affliction of yours. But Poetry and Philosophy determine and reflect who you are.

You were not a natural "poet". You came to it very late, but the seeds were planted at an early age. You had known all along you had poetic sensibilities and artistic inclinations. You studied poetry at school. You were required to "analyze" poems written in a foreign language. You struggled with rhyme schemes and meters. You developed an awareness of rhythm, however. Still, you didn't write anything the day she went away and many years after that. Only when you recovered from the affliction did you start putting words together in your first foreign language, and then occasionally in your second and third foreign languages. Now and then, a thing of beauty is born and you feel good and relieved and superior to scumbags and assholes and assorted clumps of clay. Strangely enough, you rarely write in your mother tongue. You were no Rimbaud who was very precocious in poetry and was also excellent in Latin even as a kid. But when Rimbaud became a gun runner, he stopped writing poetry. He was a honest man. You are not a gun runner, but you are a myth killer and a poker aficionado, and you still write poetry.

You may be a mediocre poker player, a fool in love, and an insignificant "poet", but you regard yourself a very good philosopher. It was philosophy that made you think you were superior to about 98% of the human race. You came to philosophy when you were a young lad of 15, wondering if you should kill yourself as your life was filled with pains and uncertainties and then you would die. You saw no point in suffering when you had to die anyway. You thought it didn't matter if you died at 15 or at 95. The key thing that you would die. Death was your starting point of inquiry. Some asshole opined that life has meaning because of death. You violently disagree with that assessment. Life is nonsensical because of death. Most humans are stupid; they invert causal relationships. They "think" or are led to believe that God created Man in His own image while it is Man who created God in his image. Most humans are always in the self-projection mode when they "think". They lack empathy and imagination. They "think" whatever is "true" to them, must also be true to others. About Life and Meaning and Death, they "think" that Death renders meaning to Life while you think Life by itself has no fucking meaning. It just is. It is there. It is the most obvious and animate and kinetic embodiment of Energy (other embodiments of Energy: fossil fuels, elements like uranium and plutonium, solar radiation, waterfalls, tidal waves, winds. All around us and including us are manifestations and embodiments of various stages of Energy. The Universe is Energy). Lower forms of life just exist and their behavioral patterns are driven by instincts and some learning. Most humans behave the same way. Only a few humans who are exceptionally smart and sensitive are bothered by existential questions. And these few humans all arrive at an inescapable truth: it is Man who ascribes Meaning to Life so that he thinks his puny, short life has meaning and purpose. Thus, he plans and sets up goals. And he cares about legacies because of his vanity even though he knows he won't be around to enjoy the nice feelings that associate with legacies. Mediocre humans only have their children as their legacies.

Anyway, eventually you didn't go through with the idea of terminating your life at 15 because you didn't want to hurt your mother whom you loved dearly and who was so proud of you and who had often expressed her desire that she would like to live with you in her old age. It was love for and responsibility to your mother that carried you through life. And you turned to philosophy for understanding and inspiration. You learned to reason and respect logic. Now you realize most humans are philosophical cowards and ignoramuses. They cannot admit their errors and their ignorance. They lie to themselves and others. They are scum and they don't deserve to live. So whenever you learn of something bad happened to them or their loved ones, you are happy and you go to a bar, having a beer or two and silently celebrate. You have what the Germans call Schadenfreude. Pious folks think Schadenfreude is despicable, but it helps humans pass through many sleepless nights and makes murder and killing and torture less frequent than they should. It is inexpensive, readily generated and available, and instantly comforting and cooling to the feverish, febrile, burning, boiling, raging passions. It is an emotional, hence social, safety valve.

The human heart is something to behold. Don't inflame it. Despite all the glib and easy talk about Love and how powerful it is, it is Hate that energizes humans, no matter how corrosive it is to their souls.

To get people to see who they really are is the most difficult thing to do because they tend to over-inflate their worth and are blind about themselves. Luckily for you, you have no such problems because of your training in philosophy and of your being endowed with intellectual and emotional courage.

Everyday is great because it's a day you didn't have before and a day you won't have again.

We all have our private truths which often clash with common wisdom. Well, fuck common wisdom, you must believe in yourself.

Respect means to accept people for what they are. So, you suppose you don't respect those you name as midget ignoramuses and stupid, ugly scumbags because they incarnate traits you despise in humans.

So these are your stories. They are not pretty, but they are yours, and they are all you have. They constitute a personhood that is you. And you have learned to accept who you are, warts and all. You are far from perfect and beautiful, but in your mind and that's what matters, you have an honesty of intellect, a quivering heart that can occasionally come up with certain sublime lines of poetry, and a sense of fairness. And you still like yourself enough so you don't feel a need to stick a gun into your mouth and blow yourself to that point of infinity.

Wissai
April 27, 2013