Because I am a horrible person.

There have been times in my life when I knew I was in a relationship that was absolutely, irrefutably doomed to failure. And my attitude was, “I’m gonna get every drop out of this before I crash into the ground going the speed of sound”. I’m gonna suck it dry like a juice box on a 5 minute break. I’m gonna make memories that decapitate questions like “why did I do it?” the moment they rear their unbidden heads.

It must be a peculiarity of human psychology or society that we so easily abandon things. But I wonder if that is a modern phenomenon. Our ancestors could not afford to be so flippant; our children or children’s children might not be able to say the same, the way things are going.

The division of labour has robbed us of our skills and our raison d’etre. It is the inevitable outcome of how massive the human population has become. So many little hands, doing so many little things, that when a few pairs no longer exist, no one notices.

Maybe life in Japan has warped my worldview, but I saw a piece of American television where this guy was breaking into this families house using their GPS in their super SUV to locate their super house that was full of fucking treasure. The guy found a bottle of Dom Perignon, among other things, like diamond earrings and shit. The whole time I was watching, the same question echoed through my head: “why do you get to exist?”

I ask that question an awful lot lately.

I try to use it on myself, but I know I can’t expect an honest answer. But the law alone, as much as I appreciate it, is not justification enough for my continuing survival.

This was supposed to be a blog about how disposable music has become, and what underlies that entire phenomenon. But it has obviously opened an entire vista of thought, and feeling, that I am finding difficult to express in a disciplined way.

The disposability issue makes me sad. When I look at iTunes, I feel like a fucking bag lady pack-rat. Albums I have listened to a mere handful of times sit there fragmenting my hard drive, betraying all the love and effort that was poured into making them. It begs certain questions.

The digital age is robbing our lives of relevance. Or, scarier still, it’s only mirroring how irrelevant our lives have become. There is a kind of cancerous rancor that sits round my shoulders when I think about humanity, and how it should be culled in a very serious way. But then I think about what that really means, to me. How would I fair in a world where my wits, and my muscles, and my capacity for evil, dictate my life trajectory?

I’m a dead man, kept alive, protected by words on paper. Subjective reality is my life support system, because I would last like 5 minutes in a world where your ability to murder, rape, and be generally antisocial dictates the length and quality of your, shall we say, run. Life like that is destruction derby, and I’m a Yugo in an arena full of M1 Abrams tanks.

Why then do I long for the collapse of society, in a way? I don’t think I actually do. I think what is going on is dissatisfaction with what my imagination promised me my life would be like. It makes me self medicate with alcohol, and stolen media. I devour music, and television, and film with enormous appetite, instead of focusing on what I am so dissatisfied with in my life. And the moment I can suck no more pleasure from an album, I toss it aside like an empty juice box, and I actually lament it?!

What an asshole I are!!!

I’m fucking alive, healthy, housed, fed, employed, in a romantic relationship with a person I genuinely love, and I am boo-hooing over some frivolous esoteric details. Why do I deserve all of this? I think I am just terribly lucky, and maybe a little adept at making decisions, but less of the latter than the prior, and it makes me feel a little guilty. But not in any meaningful way, because I have zero interest in helping my fellow human being. My good fortune doesn’t infuse me with philanthropy. I am a misanthropic prick who would sell out this entire species to invading aliens for a comfortable lifestyle whose only purpose would be to explore every square micron of hedonism and dissipation possible.

Because I am a horrible person, and I am not alone.