Send me your poor, your tired, your depressed

Here’s how I pass my mornings: I wake up and stare out the window as the sun rises over the low-rise garden apartments that look exactly like mine. I watch the early commuters flock to their cars. I listen to the goddamn motherfucking squirrel that’s nesting in my ceiling try to chew through and kill me in a blood frenzy. Then I move slowly into my deep thought for the day (I only allow one).

So, today, I just have to know about the .1% of germs and bacteria out there. You know how all these cleaners and antibacterial soap and so on kill 99.9% of shit? What’s up with that .1%? And if it’s so crazy strong that nothing can kill it, why hasn’t it killed us? Every once in a while, I see something that says it kills 99.7%. Talk about cutting corners.

But, really, I lie awake and stare hard into the sun every morning because I’ve finally realized my problem with depressed people: They make me depressed.

It’s the “I’m depressed” mantra. All these people I meet in my life – in passing, or intimately – who start out with “I’m depressed” like it’s their name. Some badge to be worn for all to see. A desperate cry for pity. Misery has always loved company, and I’ve certainly been companionably miserable at times, but come on. Get a grip.

I’ve really had it with depressed people. I just can’t continue dealing with them. Look, people, the world sucks. It won’t — can’t — get better. Nothing will improve. In fact, you’re getting older…and older…and older… Even if there is a ray of light at the end of the Zoloft tunnel, it won’t matter because you’ve probably got cancer and, certainly, your knees are going to go out and your hair is thinning. Your health and your beauty are fleeting. So what’s the point? Why should I sit here my whole life and swallow your depressive shit? Your religion of Depression. Your great god of self-inflicted misery and doubt? There’s no way you can improve, and that’s why you should shoot yourself as soon as possible. Then I won’t have to worry about anything and I can enjoy each day like a normal human being.

Now, hear me out, suicide would be a good thing for everyone. Not just a cure for depression, but, if enough of you pansies do it, it’ll probably increase the chances of keeping Social Security around. Imagine that! A mass depressed-people’s suicide could be a boon for an entire generation.

I guess I just don’t get what depressed people are striving for. Maybe the act of striving for something, in itself, is the cause for depression, eh? I gave up long ago. I’m going to work shit jobs my whole life and then I’m going to retire to an Airstream trailer in the hills of West Virginia and eat roadkill. And if every silver lining has a cloud, well, that’s nothing new. I’ll just suck it up and chow down on week-old raccoon.

I recently learned that my friend’s wife is set to inherit 30 acres of rocky hilltop in northern West Virginia and that made my heart soar. There is where I’ll stick my retirement trailer. Pay her some modest sum and die alone in that used Airstream watching satellite TV. How perfect can you get?

It must be awful, my depressed comrades, to think that there’s beauty, and a way out. Or is it awful to get on the drugs to try and get to that goal, paying some soft-science misfit an extraordinary amount of money to tell you that clowns are not, in fact, going to eat your liver? Like, duh, doc.

I need to see you twice a week, to the tune of hundreds of dollars, because that’s how much it costs to keep all these prescription pads around, or to regurgitate stuff from books all in the hopes that you’ll ask yourself a pointed question. You know, like trying to teach a kid something. Now what did you do wrong, Tommy?

Except the answer isn’t ever that Tommy did something wrong, it’s that something’s being done to Tommy. That’s what we want. We all want to scapegoat someone. That’s how the Jews got burned up by the Nazis. We’re desperate for it. Sure, they’re the problem. Sure, mommy and daddy did it. Sure, it was that long ago rape/murder/car crash/divorce/beating/whatever. Can I get a refill?

I’m not saying it’s your fault if some great evil was visited upon you. I’m just saying that great evil is visited upon everyone. Even if your life is beautiful, it wouldn’t surprise me if someone flew a plane into you. There’s an example. Look how fucked up this world is. We’ve gotten soft in America. I hope more shit gets attacked. I hope whole cities die in flames and horror. I hope this happens because I am so fucking tired of the “I’m depressed” thing.

So, just to prove that I’m not in the suicide business (DO IT AND FILM IT AND EMAIL IT TO ME), I’ll provide my ten easy steps to avoiding depression:

(1) Rent, don’t own

We’re still living that whole your home is your castle 1950’s weird-ass dream. So we’re all shoveling ourselves into condos and town homes, or seeking that perfect house without paying attention to the fact that the foundation is made of cardboard, or whatever. Owning property is insane for many reasons, but there are two primary ones:

Without fail, something will fuck up. I don’t care about tax savings. If you do save money on taxes, then you can be sure that it’ll go right back into the house when the water heater inexplicably blows up, or you learn a dark truth such as your plumbing is made with Double Bubble. When renting, other people have to come and fix that stupid shit.

If you freak out, then you can’t run. You’re mortgaged to the hilt, you have to go through hell to unload the property (assuming the market is right). You can’t have a legitimate freak-out and just pull out of the world. But, as a renter, fuck you. Breaking the lease. Throwing everything out today and getting the first bus to Pierre, South Dakota, because that’s what the bird on the windowsill told me to do.

(2) Stay away from medication

Hey, back to that .1%. If you have some legitimate head problem, then okay. But the 99.9 (or 99.7, if you buy off-brand) of people who are taking Zoloft and all that because their daddy died or something, get a grip. It’s not even fun, is it? I mean, if it were meth or something, at least you could say you were doing something constructive.

(3) Travel

Money doesn’t matter. Now, at my age, the depressed people tend to be in deep financial holes. That changes things. That means you can only travel to places where you know people. That dear friend in Spain? Just go stay in their house for a week or two and penny-pinch and nickel and dime the fuck out of them. That’s what friends are for. Most real friends will get a kick out of showing you around, and take heart that you can’t afford to pull that stunt more than once every few years.

Travel heals all wounds. Just simply getting a hotel room 20 miles away does the trick. It’s really about changing your environment here. Because you’re a depressed person and everything in your house is dark, dirty, and smells like urine. Even the Verizon tech is horrified, and he’s walked in on corpses before.

(4) Money is not a problem

Touchy subject here because, if you’re having money problems in your 30’s (or beyond), then you’re a fuck up and you deserve to die. You should be able to live on a budget by now, retard!

But, okay. In the end, the money doesn’t matter. Cut up your credit cards, don’t splurge, blah blah. There are a million ways to save. But if you’re carrying some sort of fucked up debt, don’t let it eat at you. Does it really matter? People say that they need money to do the things they want to do. How the fuck did you get in debt, then? One has to assume that was because you were doing what you wanted to do. So, there, you’ve made your bed.

Now you’re going to have to eat Ramen and wear tattered clothes and shoes held together with duct tape for three years. Easy.

(5) Love

Nobody will love you. Ever. Not the way you’re thinking of, you depressed fruitcake. It’s a two way street, love is. Or so I’m told. So just let that shit go. If you find someone, great. If you don’t, fuck them. Whatever. Battlestar Galactica is probably on, so there’s something to do. Oh, and porn is your friend.

(6) Your parents were wrong

I don’t care what they said or did, it doesn’t matter. For my age group, our parents are the great traitors. The fuckers who fought against Vietnam, then voted in Nixon. Or, if they didn’t, then they just gave up sometime in the late 70’s because everything was so fucking horrible they couldn’t stand tasting blood every morning.

Can’t blame them, really, but they are the failed revolution. They are the machine. They made us the law-abiding, insular waterheads we are today.

You younger folk are even worse off. I pity everyone born after 1980. Welcome to the empire of ashes, assholes.

I’m especially confused when people are depressed because their parents abused them. Hey, what better object lesson do you need? Instead of moping around because your perfect family is corrupt at the core, your parents just hauled off and beat you up. More power to them for expressing their own hatred and bitterness in a way that can so clearly set you on an opposing path. That should have, you know, built character or something. Parents suck. I’m glad mine are dead. I celebrate every day with a ding dong, the witches are dead dance. You freed us, Dorothy!

(7) Surprise – you’re moving forward, not back

I’m all for nostalgia. Hell, I’ve been posting about how I’m going to build my Lego Town from when I was ten years old and drunkenly relive those days. But you can’t relive those days, and I know that. My Lego Town at 33 is going to be more for show than anything else. What was a toy is really just a collectible now.

Too bad, baby, you missed this year, or that phase, or this time in your life. You’ll never reclaim it. You’ll never correct what happened. You’ll never find a solution to whatever the problem is. We’re now in carpe diem territory, if only because it’s all you ever have. Seize the day, by the way, is from a poem, which tells us we should do so while “trusting little in the future.” Ooh…arty. Where’s my beret?

The past is lost, the future is a cancer-riddled mass of heart attacks and fibrous growths in your ass, so the point is pretty clear.

(8) God hates you

What do we have to do to become post-religion? Religion is just Zoloft without the FDA controls. I don’t care what you are – or how groovy and funky it is – it’s all a lie. There’s you, and there’s some shit that makes sure the world keeps turning, and whatever. If there is any sort of greater consciousness out there, then it should be pretty clear – especially to a depressed person – that it’s out to get you in a bad way.

I believe in God simply because I refuse to accept that all the evil in the world is pure chance. There has to be a grand design behind all the nasty shit that flies at me all fucking day. Bury me with a shotgun, because I’m going to blow off Christ’s head. Or Allah, or whatever. The goddess of the moon’s getting shot, too. I’ll be on CNN: Man walks around heaven shooting people, then shoots self. It’ll be like Columbine. I’ll make a video with heavy metal music playing in the background. People will ask why. Jesus will have a state funeral. God, of course, will be on vacation that day and miss the whole thing.

(9) Work sucks

It goes against everything human about you to get up and go to work. Unless you’re a doctor or someone benefiting humanity, you’re wasting your time. But you’re in debt, idiot, so that’s that. Pay your penance and do as little work as possible. If you’re sitting there bored for seven hours, fine. That’s the only way you can fight back. Do no more than 45 minutes of work a day, befriend no one at the office unless they are really spectacular people, always be aware that your boss is out to kill you, steal everything, and cash your paychecks immediately. That’s how I live each day!

(10) Stop telling me you’re depressed.

I don’t care. I make fun of you behind your back when you do. I want your CD’s after you hang yourself. And I’m hoping you hang yourself soon because…stop telling me you’re depressed.