David Wickes
22
June 09:06
Another day another essay
I once read somewhere (it was a review of a film about a newspaper with Michael Keaton in it, the quote is dialogue from the film. If you must know. Pedant.) that nobody gets older and wiser. For some reason when we are young stupid asses we hold to this strange belief that the passage of time will make us change radically somehow. That we will stop being so goddamn stupid and useless and lazy and all of a sudden be those dedicated rigourous organized masters of Kung Fu that we always could be.Unfortunately what really happens is that you get older. Just that. You remain the same lazy, useless and stupid asshole that you were when you were 18 (or 16 even). But now you are around 2 stone heavier, have crows-feet around your eyes and are beginning to lose your hair. Same jack-ass + wrinkles.
Which is all to say that once again I have completed the minimal requirements of my degree by finishing an essay four hours before it is due in. It's now a quater past eight, all the printing is done, and I've cracked open the last remaining Carling in the fridge to celebrate.
Celebrate. This really isn't much of a celebration: 'whoop-dee-doo, Dave. You are not a complete failure bum. Hey, you tramp wannabe, why not crack open a beer for breakfast? This English piss-water lager imitation's for you!"
So maybe nothing does change (apart from weight, skin and hair), but you gain stuff (not just weight). A whole arsenal of techniques opens up to you, subtle and refined techniques that you learn from years of practice. If you put them on a CV they'd take up at least three pages, maybe more. They are the key skills that you must learn. No, not leadership and teamworking. Much more important. These skills woul best fall under the heading of 'how to pass this twisted fool (yourself) off as a regular human being type guy'. People who go to AA would pretty well as much know what we're talking about here, because they have to deal with one particular aspect of their idiocy—alcoholism. But what about all the other less respectable dysfunctions? What about laziness? Or swearing too much? Or finding cancer funny? Where are the support groups for people who can't help fidgeting? Or can't help finding fidgeting annoying? Where's 'Far Too Cocky Anonymous'?
Face it, kidz, we're on our own. We've got to work out the best way around these ourselves. The only thing we have to cling on to is this small intuition that everyone else is struggling to be normal too. Not that I'm saying we should all be ourselves. God, can you think of anything more horrible? No, none of this American touchy-feely crap of constructing a 'genuine' self behind all the societal crap. All there is is the societal crap fighting itself and finding cancer funny.
I'm really sorry; I know cancer isn't funny. But I remember a conversation in the Graduate with this guy called Alex who I barely knew. Chatting away, he gets a text.
"What was that?" says I
"Oh my friend from home. He's got cancer" grin.
I guffaw
he laughs
"No, really; he has"
"Oh. Mate, sorry."
He laughs
I guffaw
"But he's got cancer."
I'm embarassed "mate"
he laughs...
etc. etc. ad nauseam
You see the problem there? That twisted fuck was playing with me and my finding cancer both funny and deadly serious depending upon what, aw shucks, language game I was playing. We've got to keep finding cancer funny as if we don't everything will become crap and simple. Everything will mean what we say. I hate that.
So to summarise: meh.
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