Monday, August 2, 2010

Don't Worry -- I Didn't Actually Get a Rusty Nail in My Ass

There's a scene in 'Forrest Gump' where Forrest helps create the saying 'Shit Happens.'  It involves a t-shirt and some shit, and I'm not describing it beyond that because you've seen the movie and you already know.  I'm just reminding you of it, in case you don't have an over-active brain with a frigging giant vault for remembering crap ALL THE TIME that you don't actually need to remember, like I do.  This is the same brain that can't remember what the stupid password is on my cable box so I can watch Pay-Per-View, yet for some reason remembers the licence plate for my first car, which was four cars ago.  YTF 848.  Why the snotty hell does my brain think I need to know that???

So, yes.  Shit does, in fact, happen.  What I'm dwelling on today is why.  Or is there no why?  And if there IS a why, then why does the whatever that decides why it should happen decide it should happen?  As far as I can gather, there are three common schools of thought.  Let's examine them, with a little help from my sweet ass and an imaginary rusty nail:

God/Buddha/Sky Bully/Something has a plan, and everything that happens is part of it.

I am on a bike ride.  I fall off my bike and land on my ass.  My ass lands on a nail, the nail is covered in rust, the nail gets stuck in my ass, I get tetanus and the left side of my body falls off.  If there is a God/Buddha/Sky Bully/Something, and that God/Buddha/Sky Bully/Something's plan involves me falling off my bike onto a rusty nail so the left side of my body falls off, then that God/Buddha/Sky Bully/Something is a dick and I can't imagine why anyone would worship him/her/it.  If some giant bully named Sven decided to punch me off my bike onto a rusty nail because it was part of his plan, I wouldn't start building buildings in his name and hanging out in them one morning a week.  I'd punch him in the nuts.  Comedian's Consensus:  If there's a higher power, he/she/it is not very nice, since there is no good reason for someone to get a rusty nail in the ass.


Everything happens for a reason.

Similar to the God/Buddha/Sky Bully/Something school of thought, but without the God/Buddha/Sky Bully/Something.  This one just figures that if I fall off my bike and land on my ass, and my ass lands on a nail, and the nail is covered in rust, and the nail gets stuck in my ass, and I get tetanus and the left side of my body falls off, then all those things happened so that something else will happen later.  Something 'better,' apparently.  Well, yes.  I assume that if half my body were to fall off, whatever happened to me after that -- short of the OTHER half of my body falling off -- would be 'better.'  It's like those dopes that say a bird shitting on you is good luck.  Yes, because for the rest of the day just about anything that happens to you that doesn't involve shit plummeting out of the sky from a bird's dirty ass onto your face will seem like a shot of good luck.  Comedian's Consensus: Shut up.  I can't hear you very well anyway, because my left ear fell off with the rest of the left side of my body........but for a reason!


Things.  Happen.

Every time something happens, a thing happens.  Sometimes it is a good thing.  Or a bad thing.  Or a thing that is just a thing and doesn't affect anything.  There is probably a reason that LED to it happening, but there is not a reason FOR it to happen.  Maybe I fell off my bike onto a rusty ass-nail because I got distracted by a memory of a naked dude, since that's apparently what my brain thinks I need to think about 75.9% of the time (SCIENCE FACT.)  Therefore, there is a reason I don't have the left side of my body anymore: because I am a pervert.  There is not, however, a reason for me not to have the left side of my body.  It will not lead to anything better.  Nothing awesome or wonderful or good will happen because half of me fell off.  It sucks hard, it's lame, and I can't fix it.  Comedian's Consensus: Yeah, you all knew already this is the one I believe in, so there's no real need to go into it any further than that.


But here's the thing:  Sometimes, I wish very very hard that I believed one of the first two.  It would be so much easier to know there was a reason for something, as opposed to knowing that sometimes the worst things you can think of will happen, and you can't stop them and you can't fix them.  I don't look down on anyone who does believe (even though I made that snarky comment about building buildings and Sunday mornings earlier - sorry) but it just doesn't work for me.  I'd probably be happier if it did.  Then I wouldn't have to spend all this time trying to think of ways to fix everything, and I could concentrate more on naked dudes.


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