Apocalyptic Rabbit Speaks

DISCLAIMER: the following essay comes from ME, and not from “WordPress”, its
owners/sublets, and is not meant as an “attack” on anyone. It is TRUTH.
And this truth comes from REASON. Now, with that out of the way, here it is…….

My Own Undeniable Truth: Mortality, Celebrity & Solipsism (A Primer On Basic Philosophy)

All this incessant talk about Michael Jackson, and the bemoanful fact of his dying,
has got me to thinking, hard, about mortality, yours and mine.
I watched all those people, the famous and the dirty,
the press, the wealthy and also those who are sinners,
all assembled there this afternoon in that colossal memorial amphitheater
and as I did so I couldn’t help but realize that none of them have ever come to know ME.

Yes. I’ll say it: it’s a shame that Michael Jackson died, but only in the same way that it is
generally a shame that a person has to die. Anybody. Think about it.
How much did we even know, really, about Michael Jackson?
Some say he was a pedophile. But no one knows that for sure.
There isn’t anyone on this whole planet who knows anything at all about it.
Not even two words. Some say that he had little children over the house, inappropriately,
overnight, from time to time. There isn’t any way to prove that. There are some
who say he was an entertainer. Really? How do you know that? Some even say that
he made “music that will last forever“, but no one can really say for sure.
All we have are recordings, photographs, and eyewitnesses.
Everything, and I mean everything now, can be doctored.
We’ve finally come to that place. The soft white room we deserve.
I’m crying as I write this, because I saw on the news today
how no one at CNN knows who I am. Like they care.
And I cannot help but think about the Taliban, and how they don’t seem to give a shit
about what I need in my life. I need a job. I need fun and games. Nintendo keeps
releasing all of these really cool games for the new Nintendo DSi, and yet all I seem to be
hearing nowadays is that such and such a celebrity died, and will be missed.
I mean, come on, doesn’t anybody just, you know, stay alive anymore?
Maybe Michael Jackson will be missed. Maybe he won’t. That’s not for me,
or for anyone else to say. In my thinking tonight about death, I think about
Iran, and all of the people who drink too much and then get on the public bus
with me. Why? What have Iran and I done that was so hurtful, so cruel, so unfeeling
that both me AND Iran have to deal with drunks on the bus? DRUNKS WITH
FRIGHTENING TATTOOS. CNN WITH FRIGHTENING TATTOOS. But why?

As I watched , helplessly, as the Michael Jackson memorial progressed in its
inexorable march to the end, I noticed that so many there were wearing sunglasses.
Again, this reminded me of death, in the sense that when I was a younger man,
it would not have been acceptable to go to a funeral wearing sunglasses.
I remember. I was right there, with me, all those years ago.
And just look at us now, just watch us go. Times have changed. None of those people
at the “Los Angeles” “Staples Center” today will ever know me, what I write about,
or all of the things I would like to own before I die. And that may be the greatest
shame in all of this. We talk about mortality so freely, such easy, easy poetry;
we talk a good game, all of us, about “what we want to leave behind”,
but it’s all just so many empty words. Nintendo, of Japan,
just came out with this really cool game for the DSi that lets you “find” a new
treasure every time you boot up the DSi near a unique “wifi hotspot”, but all we
seem to talk about is the “untimely death” of a superstar. What does that even
mean, though? I’m not trying to diminish people’s grief over someone they cared about,
and I am also not trying to dismiss other peoples’ concerns about certain “elements”
of Michael Jackson’s life. There isn’t anyone who knows anything at all about
Michael Jackson: doesn’t anyone understand that? Hello?

What I’m trying to get across is that all of these people on television,
all of these Iranians fighting for democracy, all of these mothers out there posing
as teenage boys just to cause a teen girl to kill herself live on” MySpace”, all of these
famous people dying in the months between June and July,
all of these people need to seriously start thinking about me.
And the things that I want and need. It’s really not that
hard to figure out. Al Qaueada doesn’t care about Nintendo, at least right now they
don’t, but maybe, just maybe, they should start caring. Truth hurts, doesn’t it?
Life isn’t that hard to figure out, either. It’s not hard, I mean, when
you put a little “elbow grease” into your thinking. Maybe, and I know this is
a very naïve thing to say aloud, but maybe we all learned something today:
life is not about how many calendars come off the wall before your number is called;
it’s about how you check off the days in those calendars. Life is not about hash marks
crossed on some corporate chalkboard, it’s about remembering to do what you need
to do in permanent ink. Life is not about vicarious triumphs or surreptitious
misdemeanors; it’s about knowing what you want to order when you get to the front
of the line. I am behind you 100%. And I really 100% want to get to my seat in the theater
of living in a timely way, so don’t you take too long deciding what you want for a snack.
None of us, and by “us” I mean ALL OF WE, none of us have forever, my friends.

MORTUERRE ES PATRIS NOCTUS SANGORUM.

July 7, 2009 by Rich Boucher.