02-11-2001
so much of life sucks, no matter what we do. people die. things break. the bus is late. friends drift apart. it rains. and, for many of us, there's an incessant voice inside, criticizing, belittling, undermining.
i think there are three basic varieties of suckage: unavoidable suckage, avoidable suckage, and avoidable suckage that it's best not to avoid. the secret of a minimum-suck life is the ability to distinguish among them.
as you know if you've read any four things i've written in the last four years, my partner, my love, my light, my heart, died after i'd cared for her at home for a year. her death was absolutely unavoidable suckage. there was not a thing in the world anybody could have done to make her live for five more minutes. she was the wrong age, sex and color to get the cancer she got. she insisted on a low-sodium, low-fat diet until the very end. (i thought that was excessive, but it was her call.) she exercised. she never smoked. half a drink made her silly, and then sleepy: she didn't drink. she drove defensively. she didn't die of any of the things you can prevent. but she died before she got a chance to be middle-aged.
with unavoidable suckage, you just have to face it, mitigate it as much as you can, and roll with it. and don't make it worse than it has to be. grief is bad, any way you cut it. it is unnecessary and nonuseful to add regret, or to dwell on what one should or shouldn't have done. i will go farther: it's suicidal. during hard grief, suicide can be mighty attractive, but there are less grisly ways to go.
avoidable suckage is what youth is for. i'm crazy about my co-workers at a dot-com. they're brilliant, quirky, creative, intense. most of them were born after i became sexually active. many of them remind me, fondly, of myself, back in the day. they get surprised a lot: they're surprised when it rains; they're surprised when they run out of gas, money, kleenex, milk; they're surprised that the stock is underwater. i remember how much i hated advice twenty years ago (point of fact, i resent it to this day). so when it seems to me they're running a hundred miles an hour directly at a brick wall, i close my lips and turn my head away.
eventually, you start buying toilet paper before you run out, going to bed at a reasonable hour, filling the gas tank once a week, paying the bills about the same time every month, dealing with the taxes, having an umbrella in the car. you know what to expect, and you prepare for it.
the last kind of suckage is a little subtle. i know people who avoid conflict. it makes them uncomfortable. and so they, for example, accept abuse in relationships until they're so bitter (or the other person is so disgusted) that there's nothing to do but split up or commit homicide. they say yes to things they don't especially want to do, and thereby give up chunks of their time and energy that they will never get back. third-form suckage is like going to the dentist. reasonable people, by the time they're in their thirties, have figured out that it sucks less to floss and go to the dentist regularly than to wait until they've got a mouth full of trouble.
i used to know a mechanic whose answering machine admonished, "remember, if it isn't fixed, it festers."
here's a secret about the little voice inside: it's re-programmable. the first thing you have to do is listen to it. most people have been hearing the same tape so long that they couldn't tell you what it says, even though it never stops. if you pay attention, though, you can learn.
when you drop something, or stumble, notice what you tell yourself. if it's an insult about your clumsiness, take a moment to wonder if you would say such a thing to someone you loved. now consider whether it might not be well to treat yourself with the same respect and compassion you extend to your friends.
i find it amusing, when i trip over something, to think how nice it is to be so graceful. it makes me smile. when i am forgetful, i remark to myself on how much my mind resembles a steel trap. when i do something ill-considered, i appreciate that my vast intellect makes my life so much easier. it's okay to laugh. it's not okay to be mean.
hm. looks like i have a lot more to say than i thought. further topics for discussion, as i get to them:
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