Greetings readers!
What you have here is a premium bunch of words strung together. That means it costs money to read the whole thing. Sorry! Dick doctors aren't free. Except Switchblade Steve but I don't think he’s a real doctor. Like Jill Biden.
Here I muse about aging and contemplate the terror within or lack thereof.
The other day my butthole suddenly caught fire.
No reason for it, so far as I could tell. I don't put things in there, so whatever my butt was doing seemed a betrayal without cause. No warning, no rumblings of trouble on the cleftal horizon. No opportunity to anticipate and mitigate an incoming anal catastrophe. Just sudden fire and pain and a vague tension between wanting to know if I was dying and wanting to not have to go to a doctor that day.
I don’t like doctors, usually. Except you, dear reader. If you happen to be a doctor, know I don’t dislike you personally and individually unless you are my doctor. You and I would get along smashingly outside your supermarket lit examination cell. We could share drinks in a normal environment. Best of friends. Or we could be if you hadn't brought the finger into it.
I’m kidding, of course. I didn’t see the doctor in the first place so they couldn’t sodomize me. The doctor costs money and I don’t have any of that. But it certainly got me thinking about aging and getting older. I’m beginning to suspect I may die someday after all. I'm not sure how exactly, of course. But I’m fairly sure it’ll be proper embarrassing.
I’d rather not die in a hospital. Or even age a single second in one. Those places are tied up in the State too tightly to be any sort of non-hostile environment. The Agentic State not only lives among the endless army of clipboard bearing soldier-nurses, it thrives. Having a heart attack right now? Please fill out these forms so moonlighting bouncers in white shirts can legally remove your corpse from the waiting room. Tha-a-a-n-n-k-s!
I dislike authority, vagaries, probability logic, paying for sex, and expensive stuff people tell me I’ll die without. You’ll find all that at the doctor’s office. Also, when I was in Rome some years back, I saw a grave marker from over two thousand years previous claiming the dead man’s doctor killed him. I have no reason to disbelieve his final testimony, even if it was in Latin. It happens today, still.
We even have a term for it. That’s how academic people know something is real. As if the COVID-19 response wasn't enough.
I’ve read some ancient medical manuals. They are fairly alarming in the sense if you were dying these guys were your best bet. Galen, Avicenna, etc. I wouldn't let these dudes raise children and I’m fine with whatever that Octomom thing was about some years back.
I don't even think Galen or Avi are much of an improvement over what came before. They innovated some, sure. On people. But prior to them the remedy differed a bit in Rome. Rome had found the panacea of legend and just how to put it to work.
That would be mostly cabbage cleanses. Our oldest surviving Latin language literature is a book-length love letter to the Noble Cabbage, written by a hard assed Roman Senator named Cato the Elder. This guy loved cabbage so much. It's hard to overstate. So far as I can tell he started the first superfood diet fad.
The last time I tried a cleanse diet I expelled it all along with a bottle of red wine all over my bed. Felt clean after a shower, a scrub, a failed scrub, and a burning. So you could say that one worked. I don't know why I did that cabbage cleanse thing but I’m pretty sure my ex-wife had something to do with it.
All of this is to say I don’t worry too much about doctors or diets or how much longer they think they can make me live. The goal is not to live a long life in abject poverty sucking at Big Cabbage's tits. Any idiot can pull that off. We’re born suckers.
It’s not that I think I’m smarter than the doctor. I’m probably not. I’m definitely less disciplined than them. I just know the doctor doesn’t care about me as much as I do. They can’t. It’s not possible. I’m my biggest fan. At best I’m their favorite study or their least-worst headache. I know what I am.
I am rationalizing not being able to afford visiting the doctor. Making use of a skill I’ve developed in my old age. If I can't have it, I don't want it. Ironic how physical maladies can come with age and age comes with some small piece of mind.
The Prophet Muhammad defined Allah as the only self-sufficient entity in existence. Allah has no wants, no desires, and is wealthy due to this. This tracks. I also have no desire to visit the doctor, for instance. From what I hear and read about the American healthcare system this has indeed made me wealthy.
No doubt the price tag will arrive someday. But age so far has taught me worrying about it won't solve it. One thing at a time and I’m trying to make money right now.
When I was younger, I was a proudly avowed atheist. Anyone who inquired into my religious proclivities was promptly informed and those uninterested in such things weren’t escaping them, either. I was adamantly steadfast there were no gods, no God, no higher power really of any sort. I felt religion was the opiate of the masses, comfort taken when it can’t be found anywhere. There was nothing more certain than atheism.
But as things go on, I find exceptions to this proposal.
Take Exhibit A as evidence:
The above is obviously true, but only in the moment. Belief makes a fantastic drink when you’re feeling weak. And there is no instance more vulnerable or despondent than the moment you’re watching the toilet water rise up over the lip of your host’s favorite toilet bowl. “Oh God, oh God, oh God…” etc. Special pleading.
Too specific and weird? Fine. Imagine you’re in a hurry, stuck at a stop light, and it refuses to change. You mutter, “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon already…” aloud. Who do you think you’re talking to? Don’t say the traffic light. Do NOT say the traffic light. You shouldn't be allowed to drive if you think asking makes it turn.
That’s worse than talking to a God you don’t believe in. We all do things like this, but only the religious have an excuse. So I wager I can chill out on religion hating, considering we all got one. Whether it’s pleading with machines, God, gods, or the universe itself.
It is funny to me. I spent decades reading smart people on the subject and not one of them convinced me of a god. But spend enough time at stoplights and it becomes clear. God may not exist, but we’re all still trying to talk to them anyway. If one were a mathematician, they’d likely say belief is the better way to go. But I cannot.
I also can’t condemn something so universally human. No doubt an atheist is taking issue with this idea they pray. I did. But we all do it, kids. The question is not whether we do. It is to whom or what we do it.
I don't know if there is a God, gods, aliens, or any other theory one can dream up as part of a simulation. I don't know if there is more to come after life. But if it can be known I’ll get there eventually. No need to rush asking. We all seem to think we’re begging something for favors and maybe, just maybe, that thing has us all backed up in the cloud.
Stranger Things have happened. In fact, it just finished its fourth season. Admittedly, if there is a Heaven and its gates are locked to the miscreant, I won't be thrilled to enter. If people like St. Augustine, St. Paul, all of the Popes, any of The Beatles, the Donner Party, and none of the Sex Pistols are there, I’ll have to pass on that. Eternity is a long time.
I’ll wait for a better deal. One goes to Heaven for the climate and Hell for the company, as Twain hopefully quipped once upon a time. I suspect he knew more than he was letting on. He was no stranger to The Stranger.
It will be warm, down in Hell, I’m told. One of my first and favorite pieces of feedback when I started writing was the promise Satan would sodomize me for eternity. One thing about the perdition crowd is how ironically optimistic they are. They actually think their enemies are punished for eternity. My enemies just win election year after year.
God gets a lot of press for being all-good and all-knowing, but there are implications. Sure, the story goes, he invented the orgasm. That one’s pretty good. Or would be if his followers weren’t so utterly against them. The idea someone somewhere might be having a good time is vexing.
But he also went ahead and created things like psychotic blindness, post-coital weirds, rectal bleeding, genocide, erections, Sesame Street, wokeness, vaginas, national socialism, communism, anarcho-capitalism, and how easy it is to put hand dish soap in your dishwasher. And yet, this lazy prick hasn’t gotten around to inventing a way to easily undo the results of the last one. So many bubbles. Capitalism isn't going to mop my floor. Neither is God, apparently. He was so much more active back in the day, you know.
I don't view the stories as literal. I think that’s a bit too Star Wars for me. But allegorically, if you swap out the bearded, autistic sky god for the universe itself, you find great lessons. But this ain't bible class. I’m not trying to molest your kids in between stealing their souls.
And not because I think I’ll be punished. They're just not that attractive, sorry. I may know the stories, but I’m no priest. Holding out for Prophet status. Thou shalt like and subscribe and thy seed shalt do’est the same.
Speaking of genitals, looking out at the vast American market of pills and white rhino semen available, one could be forgiven for thinking impotence is a bad thing. I mean, it is, if it comes too early. But if it arrives at eighty or so? Please come. I’m begging you. I am so sick of begging people to cum.
The army of men attached to their on demand erections is staggering. This is the masculine equivalent to the pop star diva exchanging youth and firmness for age and gravity and feeling less from the bargain. This doesn't seem like a man's behavior to me. If my cock goes flaccid, one will only hear a sigh of relief. From myself and my wife.
Think about all of the things which hurt you deeply. And others. Consider that when you follow its causal chain back, you'll find genitals had much to do with it. Does she like me? Does my penis smell? Does she take PayPal? She’ll know I have a small dick if my debit card bounces.
I’ve had some success with the ladies in my life. Far more failures, of course. I am a man, it is expected I will be rejected four out of five overtures. With this face and these words, the average is likely higher. In our species, men do not decide these things. Men make fools of themselves and the world for a promise from a pair of eyes.
No other reason to tolerate us. The penis is the source of endless mischief and misery. For me, my wife, all Catholics, Lorena Bobbitt, John Bobbitt, Lauren Boebert, and so on. The list is endless since that list is humanity. True, we owe some small part of existence to the intimidatingly erect penis. A very small part, depending on one’s father. But again, all the good in the world and all the bad.
I’m not saying the penis is god. But I am saying I’ll be pleased when modern man kills it finally. Sure, humanity will crumble, society will buckle, and you'll be forced to sing along to gods know what jingles your zen fascist overlords demand. But I doubt I’ll care one wit.
Not with a limp cock. I mean, who cares?
There’s no point in lamenting onset age. You can’t do anything about it. That’s a young man's game. Pointless, penis driven behavior.
Life is like this. You’re born and for eight years or so, your brain drives the operation. It’s in your skull. It can see what’s going on. But after those years of peace and wonder, your penis wakes up, seizes the wheel, and declares we’re simply not doing that anymore like a stolen election. Multiply this by roughly four billion; the number of men annoying this planet.
This is a troublesome situation. Your penis can’t see. It’s in your pants. And by the time it can see it’s already too late, one way or the other. You're either getting your head wet or going to prison. This goes on for decades. So many years. It’ll go on after #MeToo. It has to. Why a women's movement would label itself Pound Me Too seems odd but maybe they're prostitutes. I don't judge. The economy is rough.
I look forward to aging and whenever it is my penis decides to retire. I hear they're working later and later these days. Penises, I mean. Longer and longer hours, too. Seems a shame to me. Mine doesn't have insurance benefits. He don't even get paid. The little bastard is screwed if anything happens to me.
But if something happens to him? Sandy beaches, overpriced drinks that are mostly umbrella and queludes, and an equanimity that only ends in death. That’s what I see at the end. Just love, without the lust and the sticky mess and awkwardness afterwards.
That, in fact, sounds a bit like Heaven. Guess we'll have to wait and see. No point rushing these things after all. I’m sure I’ll find out.
But not yet.