January 16, 2008

In Pursuit of Nothingness

Peter Brueghel the Elder, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, ca. 1558

Given my penchant in the past couple years for alternating between nonsensical discussions of soul-crushing existential angst and inexplicable idolatry of quixotic lawlessness, intrepid readers might be left wondering why I have not yet collapsed in heap of self-induced moral turpitude and cognitive dissonance. Is my consummate inadequacy¹ and general worthlessness of such a prolific magnitude that, having wandered aimlessly onto a path of self-destruction many years ago, I cannot even seem to muster the talent or skill required to properly follow that path to its natural conclusion? Am I really so impotent as to be incapable of fulfilling as trivial a task as ruining my (necessarily futile) existence? Perhaps, as readers enamored by (foolish) notions of love and happiness have observed, I have simply not yet met the proverbial right woman. I am skeptical, however.² The way I see it, ruination, like contentment, cannot be effected from without; it must be wrought from within.

The answer to the opening question, in my opinion, lies in the nuances of what is meant by ruining one's life. Certainly, if the only goal were to destroy my life in the normative sense, I would not be wasting my time drowning in Latin jargon and reading until my eyes bleed while incurring massive, potentially crippling debt (i.e., attending law school). I would have long ago succeeded, even given my material worthlessness; a couple speedballs, a fifth of Jack®, and a Desert Eagle would have been all it took. But as a conversation I had recently with my sister—who shares my goal of self-destruction—made clear, the purpose is not to ruin my life in any normative sense; it is much more metaphysical than that.

My real goal—what may very well be said to be my raison d'être, insofar as I have one—is to ruin my life in a literary sense, a much more pretentious undertaking, and as such, perfect for this website. Daedalus and Icarus meets Shakespearean tragedy meets the Byronic hero meets Eugene Onegin. And in that sense, the character of Heathcliff in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights has become emblematic of my pursuit. Tormented and abused in the first part of the novel (chronologically speaking, anyway), Heathcliff eventually became part and parcel of the very system he had long railed against, effecting the same abuse he had suffered at the hands of Hindley onto everyone around him, only to eventually die a broken wreck of former humanity. What's not to love about that?

Scoff if you wish, but I am not really being facetious. So many people spend their entire life in pursuit of something, whether it be love, or happiness, or material success, or accomplishment, or family, only to find themselves at the end of their sorry existence having never found the object of their pursuit, having never met their own lofty expectations. To me, this is the worst possible fate: to die dissatisfied is to admit, once and for all, that it would have probably been better had you never lasted as long as you did, and perhaps best if you had never been born to begin with. So much the better to pursue nothing at all.

When your goal is as mine has become—to lead a life of tacit failure and assured meaninglessness, to become a part of the very system I unequivocally loathe—the inevitable realization at the end of life that your existence was without purpose, rather than lamented in self-pity, is to be cherished in exuberance. Your tacit failure will reflect your patent success (at self-destruction). Ironic value will have been maximized. You will know satisfaction and contentment for the first—and only—time in your wretched existence. Life will be complete.

If that is not a pursuit worth undertaking, I do not know what is; sure as hell beats dying wishing you had made enough money to buy that Ferrari, right?

^ ¹ In case you were wondering, my consummate inadequacy is not by any means limited to closing the (proverbial) deal; it is characteristic of all my endeavors in life as a whole.
^ ² This should not be taken as a repudiation of my much-touted romantic quest to ruin my life. I am still in search of a woman to help me ruin my life, if only so as to improve my writing, and consequently, the Realm. Considering however that I have no income and a steadily growing debt, I might have to put this quest on hold until after I graduate.