Everybody wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die

Hey kids, grownups, mongaloids, geniuses and assorted perverts. It’s Monday. This weekend was crazy…I don’t even know if I can really go for it today. I need to go buy a mullet wig and I need to go to the gym and ride my bike and celebrate being alive a little. That’s what I think we should all kind of do. There’s a lot of dying going on these days and, well, frankly it’s a bummer. I mean, there’s no way to really wrap your head around dying, and as a result it’s fucking scary as shit. It’s the same reason that you get terrified when you try to imagine an infinite universe. “What’s after the planets? What’s after the black space?” Uh, sorry kid. There’s no answer to that. Just kind of keeps going. Yipes.
I always used to imagine that the universe ended with scribble lines that gave way to a white background, where whoever made the whole thing eventually just got tired of coloring everything black and just gave up. Ultimately this was unsatisfying, because the next question, “well, what comes after the white space” was even more unnerving, because yeah, what the fuck comes after that?
I read some Stephen king book when I was a kid and its whole theory was that the entire universe was contained in a molecule in a single blade of grass in some larger universe, a la the Russian Nesting Doll model. This is, for some very inexplicable reason, comforting to me, although I don’t know why. For the record, that’s not really what I think is actually going on, but I don’t mind the idea. Something about it is less terrifyingly infinite than the other way, where shit just kind of spreads and spreads forever. I remember in uh…was it calculus? I dunno, it’s been years since I took math classes, they discussed various kinds of infinities and it was pretty nutty. There’s the one that just goes on, linearly, but then there’s also the one that comes from halving a unit over and over again. So within infinity there’s like, infinite infinities, man. Woah. Uh…dave’s not here, man. I mean, I’m not trying to figure it all out tonight, I just want to hang out with your daughter, ya know?
Okay, so yeah. Point being, there’s a comfort in knowledge and a deep, deep fundamental terror that comes from not knowing. This is, one could logically conclude, why people in small towns tend to be so much more distrustful of foreign countries and foreign people than people who deal with heterogeneous culture on a day to day basis. This isn’t just an American thing either. It’s pretty across the board. Shit’s strange? Oh, that’s just another word for terrifying. Don’t get me started on hummus, homos, Hondurans, Hindus etc. That shit is all potentially pants-crapingly frightening, but death, death is pretty fucking unknowable to everyone, at least everyone who’s alive, and therefore, it’s pretty fucking scary on a whole other level.
But, here’s the deal. You die. And when you do, unless you’re Nikki Sixx, you don’t get to come back and fix all the shit you fucked up, or do all the stuff that you didn’t get around to. When I was a kid, I always thought I’d be everything. I was positive I’d be a rock star, astronaut, cop, Marine, pro athlete, author, actor, comedian, etc. At some point, I realized, nope. You’re not gonna be all that stuff. You, in fact, won’t ever be any of those things unless you pick one and really go for it. Even then, I’m learning now, there’s a good chance that “astronaut” turns out to be “busboy” and ‘pro athlete’ turns out to be ‘CPA’…Life’s brutal. Life’s brutal and the fucking reward is death. Wow. Where do I sign up? Sigh.
Point being, this morning, Michael Jackson (just for example) didn’t wake up. Not only did he not get to go buy a bunch of gigantic golden faberge eggs at barneys, but he didn’t get to drink a cup of coffee and call his mom and tell her he loves her or walk around and enjoy the weather or any of that shit. He’s dead. You, me, we’re alive. That’s pretty huge and man, I don’t want to sound like some sort of cheesy hallmark card or something, but in the end, that’s kind of all you’ve got. One life, one time to do the shit that you want to do in the brief spaces between all the bullshit and people pissing on you and stuffing you into uncomfortable positions and telling you to go fuck yourself. Then it’s done. And yeah, I see where it’d be tempting to pretend that afterwards you get to go to heaven and be an astronaut and hang out with Miles Davis and eat all the cupcakes you want and still have great abs, but come on…it’s never really about that shit anyway. I mean, I just know it’s the small things that really get me by. A little boning, a funny joke, a beer, some dog deciding it likes me, a good song, a delicious burrito…yeah. Um…I dunno. I don’t feel like I’m gonna stick the landing today, prose wise, so uh…get out there and live? Sounds pretty lame. But look, that’s your choice. The alternative sucks balls, man.