Losing all hope was freedom. — The Narrator, Fight Club
I try to live a life without regrets. Regret always seemed pointless. If you’ve screwed up – particularly if you’ve hurt someone – you apologize. Don’t regret your actions. All that does is assign blame: apologize, mean it and move on.
Where I think I’ve gone wrong the few times in life that I’ve made wrong turns was in having hope. Hope is the most powerful of emotions. It certainly outmuscles negative things like hate and anger and generally shoulders aside – even while engendering – the positive things like love and joy. Hope can make you believe and do anything. Hope is the utter abandonment of logic. Hope has caused more horror throughout human history than any other impulse in the human heart. I am firmly of the opinion that hope ought to be classed in the negative column of emotion. I cannot think of one example where it alone has done good.
It certainly doesn’t jive with my personality.
So, once again I make a resolution to never hope again. For anything. I resolve never to put any effort forth in any endeavour where I do not have one-hundred percent control of the method and outcome.
This does not mean I won’t take risks: both the good and bad kind. I like risks. I like calculated risks. I can jump off a cliff and have some idea of my odds of survival. I don’t have to hope I grow wings or land in a soft patch of grass. I can drink ten cases of bourbon in a sitting and know the pain I’ll be in the next day as well as the possibility of massive bodily harm. I don’t have to hope for a liver transplant.
I suppose that’s what I resolve: I resolve to always know. Uncertainty is the thing I really can’t deal with. Uncertainty breeds panic, questions, paranoia and hope.
Those I can deal without.
So, the hell with it. Time for a reappraisal. If you’ve made an utter hash of your first go-round at life, admit the failure and move on. I figure I have nearly sixty more years to endure on this worthless rock. If I can stomach two years per place I have eight years covered, or ten if I can bring myself back east. Any suggestions?
Ahh, the Black Stench of Despair. How I’ve missed your warm embrace; like driving by the sewage plant on a warm summer’s day.