2004-03-18 - 2:33 p.m.
--Begin existential crisis--
So we�re reading �Waiting for Godot� in my evening class. I read it in undergrad, and I remember that I enjoyed it, and found its treatise on the meaninglessness of life fascinating. How easy it is to view life as meaningless when all you have to do go to school, come home, and party with your friends for the rest of the night? At that time nothing mattered but being happy and having fun. Everything in between was of no concern.
Reading it now, I feel differently. As my eyes travel over the page, my nose is rubbed into the fact that I lead a meaningless existence. I mean, what do I do that contributes to something that matters, that makes a difference in the state of this universe? Not a damned thing. What makes my life, my struggle better or worse, harder or easier than anyone else�s? Again, not a damned thing. It�s all an example of imposing meaning on something for the sake of feeling like life has a purpose.
What does sitting at this desk from 8:30 to 5:00 p.m. contribute to the cosmos that quitting my job and becoming a yoga instructor wouldn�t? Why this drive to go to college, enter the corporate world, and move up the ladder? Okay yeah, I�m still at the bottom, but look at my division�s publisher, who�s close to the top � she�s a miserable bitch with a reputation for being a complete and utter asshole.
That said, what should stop me from bringing in a boom box to work tomorrow, stripping, standing on the island in the middle of our area, and dancing to Usher�s �Yeah� blaring from the speakers? When the publisher comes over and asks what I�m doing, I could bop her on the top of the head, Three Stooges style. If my desk wasn�t connected to the walls of my cube, I could flip it over and scatter its contents up and down the halls. If life was really meaningless, I could do all the inappropriate things that float through my head, like attending a town hall meeting at work, and right in the middle of the CEO�s speech, ripping ass through a megaphone. The sound would just reverberate through the hall, and because everyone else there would still be operating on the premise that life has meaning, they�d stifle their laughter. Poor bastards.
Wouldn�t it be awesome to just dispense with societal norms? When I rock out at the Jet concert Saturday night, I should wear an old prom dress with my blue Chucks, bum rush the stage, snatch the mic, and start a one woman performance of Queen�s �Bohemian Rhapsody.� Maybe the next time I get a rejection letter, I�ll respond, �Fuck you, your opinion doesn�t count anyway,� because none of this matters.
--End existential crisis--
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