Children of the Damned

As anyone who has known me in real life for more than ten minutes can tell you, I don't like kids. I frequently refer to them as larva, homunculi, spawn, etc. usually in jest. But I am serious about not liking them and having them make me uncomfortable, and I did not realize until just recently why that is.

I am afraid of not doing what is right by them. In my particular case just having one could end up a disaster just on the grounds that my genes are a minefield of debilitating migraines, epilepsy, eye damage, and the obnoxious task of trying to find pants that fit someone over six feet tall but has no waist to speak of. But even if I adopted a child I would still be paralyzed by the fact that I wouldn't know what to teach it, how to talk to it, or how to help it grow into a decent human being. The running joke is that I couldn't shut it out in the hall when it cries like I do the cats.

The reason I feel this was is because we are never really taught what having kids is like. We always hear about how they are a gift, a blessing, a wonder, a treasure, and numerous other positive value adjectives. We hear about how they make your life complete, and for some I imagine that to be true. But the thing is that we are not taught about how they scream all night, need to eat at irregular hours (another reason for me not to have kids since I never grew out of this one), that they are smelly and weird looking, or that your life as you knew it ends when their's begins. This is not to say that my parents never taught me. They did a pretty good job all things considered.

That last point always seems to rub people the wrong way. "That is selfish," they tell me. "It isn't all about you, you know." "They bring value to your life."

Bullshit. It is actually all about me because I am the only person responsible for adding value to my life. Thus that last response is a damned good way to get my blood pressure up. If you require an external source to add value to your life then having children will not make you any more fulfilled and when they grow up and move on you will be stuck with a stranger that looks just like you in the mirror.

Like I said, some people may feel fulfilled by having children. These are people who see that as the path they want to take in life. More power too them since this species, despite its numerous and destructive faults, deserves a future to make things better. Hell, we are genetically programmed to feel that way about kids. But that is no excuse to hide the realities of parenthood from our children.

So I beseech you, people who think its so damn important to have kids, instead of telling people how wonderful it is and giving the false impression of puppies and rainbows all the time, teach them the hard parts too. Teach about the parts that keep you up at night. Teach about the parts skipped in movies and books.

All of the Small Things

Last May was a rather insane month for me. It involved a new addition to the family (a small fluffy one, not a human larva), the loss of my job, and my first award for painting that actually came with a medal. Had losing my job not been so awful, it would have been the best month I'd had in a long time.

But that last bit is what I really want to talk about. ( I will discuss the puppy later, she requires a bit of time to talk about) What is it about losing one's job that is so devastating? When I lost mine it was like the entire world dumped upside down and broke into a shower of tiny glittering pieces. The initial shock just left me sitting among the ruins of a future that would never be, and I had no idea why I wasn't able to simply pick up and move on.

I still haven't completely moved on due to the fact that I haven't found a job and other extenuating circumstances continue to have the details of the loss of my job haunt me constantly. It is just like having food poisoning. Whenever I think of starting a new job I get sick to my stomach even though I know it is what I need in order to stay afloat.

Lucky for us all there is a cure. It has to be drained out, in drips and gushes, until it is no longer in one's system. The trick is finding an outlet fast enough to stop it from spreading to other parts of your life and even future performance.

And so that is what I am doing. In drips and gushes, I am removing this poison one letter at a time.

What are you doing?

I ran into one of my old professors today and like many people who have not seen each other in a while we asked one another what we were up to.

I asked him about what he was teaching, and he cut that off and asked me point blank:

"Forget about that though. What are you doing?"

It was right about then that two thoughts came into my head. One was a screaming shallow noise machine designed to mask its quiet and powerful partner. This first thought gave all of the normal excuses:

"Looking for work."

"Working on my writing/painting/underwater basket weaving."

"Taking care of the puppy."

All of them true but useless and unspecific.

The other thought that was hiding right behind them was far more terrifying. It whispered its quiet poison into my mind:

"nothing"

It was then that Nietzsche's abyss stared back into me for it was also the moment that I realized I had been staring into it ever since I had lost my job. Or, more ominously, longer still.

Like all good questions it opened up into many more, but only two really mattered in this transcendental 'oh shit' moment: "Why?" and "What are you going to do about it?"

At this current time I don't know the answer to either one.

Conveniently by the time I got home I had come down with one of those psyche shattering migraines I am prone to and as such had a great excuse for lying curled in the fetal position in my bed. I spent the rest of my day running on automatic as my mind raced through oblivion and arrived at nowhere.

It was definitely one of those damn days.