Everything Is Bullshit

35 years ago, I was talking to a friend of mine named Tomas. His name wasn’t really Tomas. He was really a White guy named Tom, but everyone called him Tomas for some stoned joke reason that no one remembered. He was a great guy, and I think one night decades ago, he and I sort of shared a woman for ten minutes or so. Or something like that. The memory is dim in the drunken haze of the receding years. Anyway, he was over at my apartment one morning so many years ago. I had to go to work later on. Not sure if we smoked some pot or not. I think we did though because that was what we tended to do whenever we met. I think he was laying hard truths into me and saying that some of our mutual friends were mad at me for some reason or other. I was being a Jew and pissing everyone people off somehow. Or they had some complaints against me. That sort of thing is never easy to listen to, but I am the least irritable person you will ever meet, so it went down, and I didn’t spit it back up violently. Went down like cod liver oil, but went down nevertheless. Hard truths you know. Nobody wants to hear them. Our first reaction is always, “This is a lie! This can’t be true!” Then the shock of recognition that maybe just maybe you are messing up, maybe even big-time. And that always feels bad because failure like that never feels good. There’s often some hurt that goes along with it which probably boils down to feelings of betrayal. Anyway, the conversation got a bit awkward, and I leaned back in my chair. My anxiety level was going up, and I wasn’t very comfortable, but that’s a normal reaction to any hard truth. They hit you like a wrecking ball right in the gut, knock the wind out of you, and there’s your anxiety energy right there. He leaned back in his chair, and we both sort of stared at the wall for a few minutes. He knew I was hurt by the harsh revelation. Then he leaned over in his chair towards me and smiled that wicked elfish smile of his. “Oh fuck it,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. It’s all bullshit anyway.” I was a bit confused. What was all bullshit? The harsh truths were bullshit? My reaction was bullshit? Color me perplexed. “What’s all bullshit?” I asked. I really wanted to know. My eyes were darting back and forth, and my head was deliberately mini-shaking around like when I am confused and need an answer, the sooner the better. He leaned over a bit more, and there was warm energy flowing off of him heading my way. It felt like a warm blanket or a silk cocoon. A cozy little snuggle. He started to barely chuckle with that stoner nihilism all potheads recognize well. His eyes were twinkling, dancing gems in the half dark room. “Everything,” he said conspiratorially. There was a soft laugh and a barely stifled snort. It wasn’t really a chuckle, more of a pre-chuckle. He let the word hang a bit, and now he was into a soft rolling bit of a laugh. “Everything?” I asked dumbfounded. “Everything’s bullshit?” I was shaking my head in disbelief. I was a bit stunned. I mean, some things are serious or sacred, right? The very thought was a bit disorienting, like being cast tumbling into a bewildering, head shaking, blinking universe where nothing meant anything or mattered at all. It was almost frightening. “Yep,” he said, and he started that soft laugh again. Now I caught on and sunk back into my chair with the realization. Well, of course it was true. Nothing still meant anything at all, but now I didn’t care anymore, and the whole idea of a meaningless trifling world seemed more funny than anything else. And I knew that of course I had figured this out long ago anyway. I just never realized I had. “Wanna do another bong hit?” Tomas asked. “Sure,” I said.

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0 thoughts on “Everything Is Bullshit”

  1. Sort of how my reaction is to my idealistic liberal relative. She posts on social media on and on about racism. While one side agrees with her and feels sympathy for the heart she has, the other side views her as a nutcase and fool. I think, “What good will this stuff do? It does nothing. Nothing changes, so why bother with all the calls for social justice?” Also, of course, as with most liberals, she will not look at the other POV. For instance, “How about the Muslim racists? How about the fact so many extreme racists were abused in life?

    1. Meant to say “How about Muslim rapists?”
      Also, I’m quite cynical with both sides, right and left, but at least the left has a heart.

    2. How would India play into this except it’s just a nation where most people have accepted social justice is bullshit and, hence the society you see.? However, could that eventually be the case in the USA, as liberal idealism loses touch with people?
      I expect what I said will spark debate with RobertLindsay and others.

      1. So a deep though even arising out of this is, “Should people strive for revolution or just accept things the way they are? Is material and social gain the path to real happiness?” For instance, the untouchables might be bullied and treated like crap, but at least they have each other. They cannot focus on better conditons, cause odds are they won’t be able to change them.
        So the church for centuries was always arguing people should hope for a better life later, rather than protest now.

      2. Depends.
        There’s two kinds of bullshit – worthwhile bullshit and worthless bullshit. Everything in the universe falls into one of those two categories. Which one are you referring to?

    3. To Jason Y:
      How about the fact so many extreme racists were abused in life?
      How did you come to this conclusion..? If you examine the known histories of the upper echelon of the Nazi party, some of the most notorious racists, few were abused (One big exception, Hitler, but to some when taken into context for the time – his father was strict disciplinarian but not really an abuser – His half brother, Alois, moved to Britain, led an uneventful life, even worked in a Jewish cafe and never joined the Nazi party :http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2616624/Hitlers-half-brother-lived-terrace-house-Liverpool-according-census-documents.html ). Many Nazis were very close to their parents, spouses, children, etc making their evil acts incomprehensible or even banal to some. The same people who could blithely order the deaths of thousands often doted on their children and spouses. Even brothers who grew up under the same roof could chose very different paths – Herman Goering was a scumbag but his brother Albert was responsible for saving the lives of hundreds of German dissidents and Jews:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_G%C3%B6ring
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_G%C3%B6ring#Anti-Nazi_activity

      1. Shwarzenegger had a disciplined childhood, but it wasn’t abuse and he didn’t become a Nazi, only a South Park Republican lol.
        As far as racists are concerned, I don’t know if it was necessarily abuse, but some chip on the shoulder has given most of them an attitude, a psychiatric disposition that isn’t easygoing and normal, not in a cool way, but more a douchebag way.

        1. To Jason Y:
          As far as racists are concerned, I don’t know if it was necessarily abuse, but some chip on the shoulder has given most of them an attitude, a psychiatric disposition that isn’t easygoing and normal, not in a cool way, but more a douchebag way.
          Well as you probably know, racists were quite common and really considered normal until the 1960s. Now however, racist feelings among whites are still quite common but public expression of such feelings is generally heavily frowned upon by the majority of Americans. But there are often quite different standard for Blacks, as evidenced by lack of censure for repeated racist statements uttered by public figures. So I am still not sure how you can conclude that racism is the result of child abuse or bullying.

        2. Because much of it is obsessive / compulsive and overall psychologically abnormal, and would be so even in the 1950s or even 1920s.
          Yes, blacks and other NAMS have a massive double standard, and the same rules apply, the ones who are obssessed with racism have a massive psychological problem.

        3. If NAMS are still racist, it might explain why they bully whites, hence creating white racists in an age where being racist isn’t cool.

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