My friend Sunshine killed herself more then two years ago, by walking down into her basement with a rope, tying it around her neck, and hanging from this damned noose until she choked to death. The echoes of her death reverberate in my thin skull. She was, and I use the past tense hesitantly and unwillingly, a genius in her own way, a person with a vision of life unlike that of 99.9% of the populace, yet she would never have thought that of herself. She was and is unique in many ways. When she took her own life I couldn't understand how she could have made this choice, considering that she was the toughest person I knew. I still can't understand.
David Foster Wallace hung himself on Friday. He was a literary genius, and, as is the case with some special authors, I felt like I knew him better then I knew my friends or myself. I was shocked that he had taken leave of this plane of existence. It didn't seem possible that someone of such brilliance could off himself. Perhaps brilliance can blind you to the idiocy of such an action.
This culture tells us that we have to be something. I disagree. I believe that there is no one to be, and nothing to do. The harder we try to be someone, the less we are ourselves, because our selves exist naturally. Practice makes perfect. Time never stops and the hardest thing we can do is simply be. Take the time to really notice the way the leaves shine in the sun. Make an omelette slowly.
I turned thirty a couple weeks ago. There was nothing I could do about it. There is nothing I can be because I am already everything that I am.
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