"LIFE SUCKS, THEN YOU DIE"... IS THAT WHAT YOU BELIEVE? - PART ONE

Go ahead, type that query into Google and you'll get 2, 130,000 results. Yikes! That many hits??? So, where to begin?

How about the English Rock Band album - Cerebral Fix, the band that released an album by that name - "Life Sucks, Then You Die" in 1988. The origin of the expression itself I don't believe is known. The reality is, many people feel this expression is true on a daily basis. That is the reason for this topic... dealing with the reality.

Mike Treder, who posts on IEET.org writes as good of an article on the topic as I believe is possible. A brief excerpt:

"As an existentialist, I am committed to the recognition that most of life is suffering. To be born is to die, and to live is to experience pain and agony.

Only the tiniest fragment of humanity has ever been so fortunate as to “enjoy” life, even briefly. The vast majority of humans who have ever lived have perished in anonymity, their hopes, dreams, joys, passions, laughter, tears, toils, fears, and even names lost forever, abandoned to oblivion."

He goes on to offer hope:

"But, aha, it doesn’t have to be that way."

"If we have proven anything in the last 10,000 years of advancing civilization, and especially in the last 300 years of the scientific era, we have shown an ability—indeed a compulsion—to kick against the pricks, no matter how painful that might be, until we break free from whatever bonds held us down. We will not be satisfied with the status quo. Life can be better, and we can make it so."

Ahhh...

Others are not so optimistic:

ThinkExist, for example...

“Most people think life sucks, and then you die. Not me. I beg to differ. I think life sucks, then you get cancer, then your dog dies, your wife leaves you, the cancer goes into remission, you get a new dog, you get remarried, you owe ten million dollars in medical bills but you work hard for thirty-five years and you pay it back and then -- one day -- you have a massive stroke, your whole right side is paralyzed, you have to limp along the streets and speak out of the left side of your mouth and drool but you go into rehabilitation and regain the power to walk and the power to talk and then -- one day -- you step off a curb at Sixty-seventh Street, and BANG you get hit by a city bus and then you die. Maybe.”

Wow! That sucks!

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I have the sort of job where I can browse the internet 8 hours a day in between the work I do. I read the news... most of it is bad news. What's not bad is offensive... what's not offensive is disgusting. So why do I do it. I do it because the internet is my only way to keep abreast of life, and whats happening.

Not all of it is depressing, though. I love what's happening in science, space exploration, cures for diseases, and positive people with a positive role in shaping our future. Angelina Jolie, for example; Bill Gates and malaria prevention and cures; Lady Gaga, her activism! ... yeah, odd choices. Forever being edited, updated and subject to change.

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It ALL started for me at birth. Yeah, imagine that - birth. Something my mother would remind me about for 50 years of my existence until I finally told her I don't want to be reminded... about how she gave birth to me... oh joy! And all.

My parents were very decent folks, even if they were neurotic. But here's the thing... on a personal level, why I am a member of the "Life Sucks, Then You Die" collective.

When I was around 16 they took me to a shrink... I was bullied terribly in MS and HS and they were very concerned. It turned out I saw the shrink once, however my parents went for months.

The shrink told them I was "normal", yes, NORMAL but that I needed direction and rules. He told them 1 in 99 people are what shrinks consider "normal"; and to imagine that he considered me one of the 1% who were normal. Let me tell you, looking back, that is not a good thing! I'd give anything to be abnormal... lol!

What was barely tolerable before I saw the shrink, became completely intolerable afterwards. To this day I'm not sure what really happened, I simply know my mother started controlling my every move and my father, oddly, was the "good guy". Like bad cop/good cop.

I graduated HS and by age 18 I couldn't wait to get out on my own... my psyche was changing, maturing...

At the time the only things I knew about life was that "when the bird leaves the nest it needs to survive"... which is exactly what my plan was. To survive, and prosper. That was the seed my parents planted, a seed I wished to grow.

This is simply the tip of the iceberg...

I became the Titanic... unsinkable. Or so I believed. What i didn't adjust for was family tradition... the lengths my mother would go to, especially after I moved out on my own, to assure that I conformed to expectations and tradition.

Although I know the simple answer, to this day I'm tortured by the WHY?

The best years of my life were age 18 to 24... after that it was plain old survival. I'm not ashamed to admit I was defeated, my goals destroyed, my life sent off in directions I'd never intended.

It was almost as if, finding "success" personally was a selfish objective. I know this is not true as I read about personal success stories everyday. I was simply not so fortunate, and it's been a curse ever since a particular day, an event that happened back in July, 1979.

My sinking ship...

And making the best of defeat and rebuilding my life...

Next Post: Life Sucks, Then You Die, but why by suicide (?) and what's the big deal about being unconventional? Why does life have to suck? Why can't we choose how to live and die? Why do some people have the urge to take down others with themselves? Is life really unfair, or is it simply a choice we've accepted as fact?