I actually have a pre-occupation with death – because it is the one inevitability, yet we fill our lives worrying about shit – and buying shit….

I actually wish you were all dead.

Yes, really dead…. and then by some miracle you got to come back.

Would it be at this point that you realised that prior to your death, your temporary death, that just because you lived as if you were immortal, you were not and death was real – the end – no more…. well, would you then do things differently.  Fuck I would.

Firstly, I would delete every arsehole from my life – for some of you that may be me!  Secondly, I would sell everything I owned that I worked ‘all my life’ to get, as there is no point – no trailers on a hearse!  Thirdly, I would spend every minute with the ones I love, telling them that I love them – if they wouldn’t stop to talk, or catch up for a coffee or have a drink – as they were too busy, I would write them a letter, send them a card; something they could hold and feel.  Fourthly, I would go and look at stuff that was interesting, beautiful, spiritual… and travel, chat with people about their lives, share a meal, fuck I’d buy it for them, I sold all my worthless shit, I am rich for a while!  Plus, I’d send post cards back to all the people I love – post cards were good, now we just post shit on ShitBook and get likes from people that don’t like that we are travelling and they are working to buy shit for when they die.

Then if that took a day, a year or the rest of my life, which it would – then on that last day, when I spend that last dollar of my allocated time – I could say it wasn’t a waste, it was worthwhile, it was meaningful – and everyone would have good post cards to remember me by.

So, how come I write this … and I reassure you I haven’t been dead and come back to life … well, why write this?

I think it is because only a very few of us actually do…. not die and come back, but do what we really want – what is good in life… the reason is that the rest of us don’t really think we are going to die, until we do.  Then of course it is too late.

The funny part about this is when it is someone else who dies, we are also a bit surprised, sometimes.  And we think how much we miss them, and all the things we should have said, or apologised for, or all the times we almost caught up and cancelled for an urgent and unexpected work emergency…  then we just go on living and are glad we are still alive and live tomorrow just like yesterday.   Fuck we are all gutless.

If you are really into ‘self help’ you probably recently read ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck’ – I have spoken to a few people who have and they all seem to have forgotten a major point of the book is not about not giving a fuck but about giving a fuck about the right things.  A great example of this is Henry Bukowski; in the book he is put up as a hero / anti-hero and as you can see from his tombstone, he really didn’t give a fuck – which is not really what the book is about.

The point?

Old Henry really did what he wanted to – if you want a moment in the surreal, read a few of Henry’s poems or stories – he was one fucked up dude who didn’t give a fuck, and was proud of it.

I’m not saying I want to be Henry, but shit I admire him (much like most of the Australian population admire Ned Kelly and he was a thieving, horse stealing cop murderer who deserved to hang!) – but although Henry was a drunken prick at least he was funny right to the end.  (I have included one of my favourite poems at the of this post….).

Henry, thought about death a lot and realised his life was a big pile of shit, so treated it with the contempt that it, and he deserved…..  most of our lives are not like that – and there are a whole lot of people in the world who are much, much worse off than most of us – and even if you are one of them, you appear happier than most of us.

I know it will be a surprise when I die, because I wont think it will be that day; fuck it wasn’t even in my diary.  I used to have a mate who used to say (in jest, as he is still here annoying me…)  “My life is shit…. I’m going to kill myself… Oh fuck, I just don’t have the time….!”   Maybe, we all don’t have the time to actually live. let alone die.

So, that is my depressing (for you maybe, but, I am quite proud of myself…) post for today.

So, why?

Well, because today I saw a man who was looking the grim reaper in the eye, and he was shit scared – bet he never woke up this morning expecting that…..

           Death of an idiot – by Henry Bukowski

he spoke to mice and sparrows
and his hair was white at the age of 16.
his father beat him every day and his mother
lit candles in the church.
his grandmother came while the boy slept
and prayed for the devil to let loose his hold upon
him
while his mother listened and cried over the
bible.

 

he didn’t seem to notice young girls
he didn’t seem to notice the games boys played
there wasn’t much he seemed to notice
he just didn’t seem interested.

he had a very large, ugly mouth and the teeth
stuck out
and his eyes were small and lusterless.
his shoulders were slumped and his back was bent
like an old man’s.

 

he lived in our neighborhood.
we talked about him when we got bored and then
went on to more interesting things.
he seldom left his house. we would have liked to
torture him
but his father
who was a huge and terrible man
tortured him for
us.

 

one day the boy died. at 17 he was still a
boy. a death in a small neighborhood is noted with
alacrity, and then forgotten 3 or 4 days
later.

but the death of this boy seemed to stay with us
all. we kept talking about it
in our boy-men’s voices
at 6 p.m. just before dark
just before dinner.

and whenever I drive through that neighborhood now
decades later

I still think of his death
while having forgotten all the other deaths
and everything else that happened
then.