THE CONTRARY MAN

I have tirelessly trained and run in the most competitive of races with the greatest of athletes and, on the cusp of victory, I have slowed my pace to ensure I finish last. I have prepared the sweetest tasting meals in all of culinary history and put them straight in the bin. I composed the most stirring musical composition that ever would've been heard had I not performed it on only one occasion, in a remote and unpopulated vicinity, with my ears plugged so even I would not hear it. Every single time someone wins a lottery and does not claim the winnings, it is me. I painted the greatest painting ever painted and then I painted over it. I wrote the greatest work of literature anyone would've ever read had I not rewritten it so that every word was 'shiteballs'. I then retitled the piece 'Shiteballs'. I have invented things that would have changed humanity's course for the better had I not placed them in a locked safe and hurled that safe into the core of a nuclear reactor. I have also learned the ultimate truth and when people ask me to share it with them I tell them a lie.

I have done all these things because I am The Contrary Man. I have devoted my life to mastering the art of living and then denied myself and the rest of you the fruits of my talents and knowledge. This is my ultimate revenge on the existence that has been foisted upon me and upon us all. An existence that, for many, consists largely of suffering without explanation. This compulsory existence is the ultimate injustice and my greatest achievement is to deny the challenges set before us by learning to overcome them and then not overcoming them. I have even discovered the secret of immortality only to cremate it and when I breathe my last I want to go to the afterlife and I want God to look at me and I want God to ask me 'why?' and I want to relish the look of incomprehension on God's face.

This will be my victory but the effort has not been an easy one. In the struggle there is a small amount of satisfaction. I have learned to love the meaninglessness of it all and I have learned that the most tragic failure, when executed correctly, is the greatest triumph. I have come to understand that the only finishing line that matters is death and even that doesn't matter very much in the dribbling staccato overwhelming context of this, ...whatever this is.

ALWAYS HOME

The world is a great big beautiful organic ball. It breathes with its trees and has seas that teem with plants and creatures, spawning and flowing and darting about. Birds glide above in great wispy rain makers. The whole thing as an indefatigable system of indestructible life. Pure life. Even when something ceases to be it breaks down and feeds the future and gets born again in a new form. There's no end to the élan vital. It is unstoppable. Get over yourself and show me death. Where is there death? Point me to a single place where death resides outside of human perception. There is even radiotrophic fungi growing inside the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Life is everywhere. Death is nowhere to be found. Death does not exist. There is no death. There is only change. Change is sometimes scary and change is sometimes sad but it is never the end and you are always home.

...and those were the words I used to comfort my terrified Uncle Stan just before I pushed him down the elevator shaft and set about gaining possession of his estate.

WATCH WHERE YOU POINT YOUR HEAD

The other night I saw a fox sitting completely still in the middle of the road. Sodium streetlight spilled through tree branches and caused a nervous system to dance across the tarmac. There was a full moon above. A really really full moon. Fuck, that moon was full. Earlier, at dusk, I watched the city from a hilltop as it turned into a web of stars. The wind was just about cold enough to remind you that there is such a thing as cold and to remind you that you are warm.

The next day I woke up and so had the world, ahead of me. Birds were sending beautiful code. Clouds clumped and swirled and sent smoke signals beyond human ken. The burning ball of the sun sometimes showed itself but mainly hid. And the sea too, different to the day before or even the minute before or the second. Ever changing and never the same. It made the soaking sound of a stadium roar. Foamy fractals dissolved on its glistening shore.

And back inland, the flowers are coming. All different colors. All different sizes and shapes and permutations of those sizes and shapes and permutations of those again, an endless variety, endlessly. And if we're miserable it's because our heads are pointed at the wrong place. Not everything is a given but these things are guaranteed. These things are free. So much to see. Seriously, you'd never catch up. How could you ever leave?
Watch where you point your head. Please.