Choices: Responses

I got some responses to "Choices" on Facebook and wanted to reply to them without being confined to a "comment" box. So here are the comments and my replies.

Comment A (regarding this preface I added on Facebook: I'M YELLING BECAUSE I WANT YOU TO PAY ATTENTION TO TWO THINGS: 1. THIS IS RATHER DARK. 2. DON'T READ TOO MUCH INTO THIS! GOT IT? GOOD!):

I like it. You've done a wonderful job of capturing the "lost" feeling of having every door open for you and not knowing which one to pick, lest you pick the wrong one and can't go back.

Just one thing, though....I wish you'd stop setting rules for your readers at the beginning of the things you write. I think that clouds your readers' minds with opinions and judgment before they've even had a chance to read and react. Just write. And if you have to clear something up afterwards, deal with it then.

If you're writing to be provocative or make a certain point, warning them ahead of time that what they're about to read is "dark" and to not "read too much into this" defeats the purpose of what you just wrote, in my opinion.

But yeah, I like it.

I totally get what you’re saying about not giving readers something to judge before they even read the main text.
However, in this particular case, it was something released on Facebook, which means the majority of my family can read it. I love my fam, but my history of depression makes them a wee bit jumpy, and I’d rather preface something like this than deal with numerous texts, e-mails and phone calls asking me how I am and whether I do indeed own a Desert Eagle (I don’t). So this was really about saving me the trouble of explaining myself 50 different times and nothing else.


Comment B:

interesting, but dammit man more. give me the despair through the asperger's and alcohol. it's too uncommitted. i need the relief of the weed or the high velocity projectile into the spinal column via mouth through the words. details, details, details. oppress me then let me make a connection with the ways out... wind me up and then give me relief. if you can't give it to me full force fuck it. if i can't feel it i can't care. stop hiding what you mean behind your words,] and detach a little. other than that not bad.

Despite the title, this was never really about Xander’s two paths. That’s why I didn’t bother to go into detail about his forms of escape. This was essentially just an exercise for me, trying to relate how a person comes to this kind of choice, about how some of us are slapped in the face by reality rather late in life, the shock of it, and the inability to recover and deal with it properly.
Although I wasn’t thinking about it at the time, a Chuck Palahniuk quote (from the book Fight Club) offers a view similar to what I was trying to relate:

We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war, our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.



Comment C:

At the most basic level, humans operate out of either fear or curiosity... I think anyways. Because we're all headed for death anyways, I think life can hold much greater fears for most people. Death is a stable, certain state, but life in its unpredictable nature can change in the blink of an eye.

Death is a given, so why not have a perverse curiosity about life? I guess its an argument I always come back to every time I think about sticking my head in the oven. Besides, the "false" world of sedation is only one color in the full spectrum of reality, it's just as real as the world of celebrity obsessed pop-culture is to teenage girls. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'd like to read a sequel where this Xander fellow stops buying into what the world tells him about himself. Fascination with self-destruction, physical or psychological, is ok- it's part of a creative cycle.

I’m not entirely certain I understand everything you’re trying to say, but I’ll try to respond.
I would argue that while death is stable, there’s nothing certain about it. I’m certain it will happen, but I’m sure as hell uncertain as to what it means. And that uncertainty breeds fear. That said, I agree that, in the end, there’s much more to fear from life than death. I’d also agree that humans operate out of both fear and curiosity. I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive. In fact, I think our fears often drive our curiosity.
In regard to the “’false’ world of sedation” being an equivalent to an obsession with pop-culture, I agree to a point. Both are certainly forms of escapism, to be sure, but one does not generally die of complications due to pop-culture obsession. People do, however, die regularly due to cirrhosis of the liver brought about by alcohol abuse, smoking-induced lung cancer, and strokes caused by heavy cocaine use.
I’m not sure what you mean by Xander “buying into what the world tells him about himself.” Self-destruction is self-destruction. It is not a positive thing. One may glean positives from it, but it is, in the end, counter-productive.
The funny thing is, Xander is simply choosing between quick and slow methods of self-destruction. While a bullet is certainly more immediate and efficient, the weed, as he is using it, is not only slowly killing him physically by filling his lungs with tar and a heap of potential carcinogens, but also killing him psychologically by robbing him of the full breadth of human experience and keeping him in a state of psychological stasis.
He would be better served spending his energies addressing the root problem, rather than masking its symptoms. What he’s doing is akin to taking morphine for a broken leg and then walking on it. He may not be able to feel the pain, but the problem is still there and he’s probably making it worse.