Life. What’s The Fucking Point?

Boredom and death. Two inevitable cornerstones of the human condition. The solution? A good old fashioned moan.

I’m bored. So very bored. A profound existential boredom that’s corroding my soul. The monotony, the routine, the grey calendar of existence, the blah blah blah more boring words, BORED!

I’d like to share a quote - taken from The Dice Man - that captures exactly how I feel:

“Life is islands of ecstasy in an ocean of ennui, and after the age of thirty land is seldom seen. At best we wander from one much-worn sandbar to the next, soon familiar with each grain of sand we see.”

I’m drowning in an ocean of ennui. And the closest I’ve come to a cure is HBO. Yes, Home Box Office, the American cable network. HBO offers some of the highest quality escapism there is. The Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Boardwalk Empire, The Wire, Band Of Brothers – in other words some of the best TV ever made. All wonderful, all offering momentary respite from the grinding reality of life. But once you’re done watching The Pacific DVD boxset, what then?

What other brightly coloured baubles are there to distract us from our slow inevitable slide into the grave? Sex, food, porn, booze, - an endless list of comforting self-indulgence , each performed with mechanical regularity to help divert us from our meaningless trudge towards oblivion.

Knowing too that others have articulated this age old battle with boredom better than I ever could - Nietzsche, Camus, Dostoyevsky, Kafka, to name a few. The helpless realisation that the more you learn, the more aware you are of your own ignorance, and the equally sickening epiphany that life is simply too short to do much about it, to even scratch the surface.

Begrudgingly accepting that there’ll always be someone better than you, no matter how hard you try, no matter how much you sweat and toil and fret over a personal undertaking, there’ll always be someone who’ll undermine your effort.

And secretly, perversely, enjoying the fucked-up pointlessness of it all. The helpless frustration, the ridiculous unbearable boredom. Somehow there’s a freedom in it.

And that is why I am lost.

Yup, it's not easy being a human being. Ever since evolution saddled us with self-awareness, we've been wallowing in existential angst. Why are we here? What does it all mean? What's the fucking point? Life is complicated enough without the added burden of unanswerable questions plaguing our every thought. Add to that our inherent ability to feel guilt, shame and paranoia and you begin to wonder how we ever make it through the day.

So then, how to cope with the problem of being a living breathing human being? Well, if you're a veteran curmudgeon, like me, you'll write whiny articles, like this. Because writing about people, and why those people are such insufferable bastards, is undeniably cathartic.

When the simpleton in front of you takes longer than five minutes to withdraw money from the cash point, they should be put on the sex offenders register. All those humourless wankers who write to The Daily Mail because they were offended by a joke they heard on TV should be rounded up and bulldozed into an industrial meat grinder.

When confronted, day after sodding day, with this endless conveyor belt of cunts, it takes an iron will not to indulge the murderous fury that lurks deep within our souls. And so I write, to help ease the pain, and the red mist of rage dissipates. But one day, when words are no longer enough to tame the devil inside, and I finally snap, I hope you're not in the immediate vicinity. Because, baby, it's gonna get messy.