The one on the shoulder’s real. I called him Louis. As in King Louis. As in a monarch. I cried hot tears when he died. Let me tell you something.
The story is never over until it’s over. That’s why, in the end, you don’t commit suicide.
Listen to me you fucking idiot, because I have spent literally 50 years thinking about this. (If that offends you, because you’re in so much pain you can’t feel humor right now, pretend I’m talking to myself, and you’re just listening in. Because I was talking to myself about this, all that time. But now I’m talking to you.)
Even though you want to kill yourself so bad sometimes, we are going to discuss why you’re not going to do that. Please listen with an open heart, even if it’s the last thing you do, because just considering this will be a nod to God on the way out, and you might be heard just because your heart opened for a minute at the end. Listening? Don’t be an idiot before you die.
Sometimes it’s so dark that suicide seems like a very reasonable solution. Cf. the people who set themselves on fire for a cause. Mostly though, it’s not a bigger cause. Usually it’s the cause of you. And that cause is failing and nobody fucking cares. Man, it is really dark in this part of the story. You will shed a lot of real tears that come from a real place, and, yes, evil people would probably find them tasty they’re so God damn pure. That is your crucifixion. Don’t get tangled up in religion or distracted by that. Romans really crucified human beings. Whether or not you dig Jesus, you can understand crucifixion if you have considered killing yourself.
Here’s the rub. It feels like the end. It really, in your fucking bones, feels like your life has come to an end, and the end is really fucking bad. Nobody could have predicted this, whatever it is. You are forsaken. You are sick. In body or mind or both. Really sick. Really hurting. Nobody cares.
People will actually starve babies on purpose and kill women and children and it’s always happened and you can see reality. It’s dark. This is where it all led. And it’s the end.
But really, it’s not the end. You are a Monarch, because you are a human. Please let the reality of that fact sink in. This ain’t fucking new age shit, no offense. This ain’t even religion per se, though it may stir what we commonly refer to as the religious part of the soul. (The part that knows there’s God somewhere. Fucking somewhere God fucking damn it. There has to be.)
This is science. There is a God damn creature on this terrifying, beautiful Earth that experiences a biological metamorphosis, a transformation, that tracks from (a) crawling in the dirt to (b) dancing through the sky. Complete polar opposites. Same lifetime. Scientific fact.
You are human, a biological entity not too different from that creature, and through your lifetime you also experience transformation. You can deny it or ignore it, but it’s science, so good luck. It’s also God, but you don’t have to believe that. Seriously, you really don’t. (Nobody cares, so stop arguing about it. Believe, or not, NOBODY CARES. For fuck’s sake.)
You are transformation. Do you see it in the butterfly? Then know that it is real. What is the difference between you and Louis, crawling on the ground as a caterpillar, having no idea that at the next moment Stephen is going to almost step on you, but he doesn’t, he sees you, and he picks you up and puts you on some milkweed, so you can recover from your fall and your disorientation. Your long, disorienting walk across the patio, through all the leaves, over all the obstacles, through the muddy water, leading to absolutely fucking nothing at all you worthless pathetic fuck what are these fingers? Am I being crushed? Oh wait, no. Lifted. And milkweed? And what is happening to me? Boom, feast. It was just famine a second ago, but now, boom. Feast. Well, that’s life too. Always has been. Right alongside the dark.
After the feast, what’s next? That felt good, like maybe I should have hope. Why am I now going into even more darkness again? Is this endless repetition? Am I creating a shell around me because I’m crawling into it to die? It really feels that way now. And you want to give in. For all the irony of it, because life had no meaning whatsoever, it now really feels like somehow there is really meaning in this suicide. Someone unexpectedly gave you a meal, and out of your meaninglessness dark came some flickering meaning so you could die in peace. Is that it? There is meaning and expression in this death of mine. God will see it and see that meaning, even if I can’t right now. All I can do is hear the message that I should end it. As my body finally wraps me in total darkness.
And then you really go into the real darkness. You go to sleep. Particles. The infinite. Sometimes you don’t wake up. I’m sorry about that part. That is also science. That wasn’t suicide though. God took you, even if you weren’t believing. God took you in the dark. I’m sorry you didn’t make it, but hey. God.
Usually, though, the odds are in your favor for once, and you do wake up. Awakening. What is this? I’m not even myself anymore. This isn’t even the same machinery. It doesn’t feel like any fucking miracle. It still feels like shit. Be prepared for that. It still feels like shit at first. This is a hard game. The. Hardest. Game. Ever. You’re in it. You’ve survived this far.
What the fuck is going on? Oh fucking Christ. I’m still earthbound, but now I have this unbelievable burden on my back. How am I supposed to manage with this? At least, before, I was crawling around in the semi-sunlight with some self-respect, and I was lucky enough not to end up shoe paste. And, before, there was at least one sign, an unexpected feast, a feeling that the world might actually work with me in it. Even if I was still going to leave it.
What am I supposed to do now with this shit on my back? Is there hope then or not? Is this all still repeating endlessly, but now on a different frequency or something? Will somebody fucking EXPLAIN WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?
And you know what? Sometimes it’s raining. Yes, you should cry. Go ahead. Just like I cried for Louis. Sometimes, after all that, after real hope is given, it’s taken away. It’s worse. Now I have this wet burden of a biological change I had no control over and I’m going to starve to death in the mud. And, yes, you are. Unless you are lucky enough to be eaten. If you have cancer, for example, you might very well feel this way. There are a million ways to fall to the bottom and feel this way and it’s not your fault that it’s raining.
In this sad case, there’s no time to commit suicide, because life is so fucking horrible that it gave you hope, dashed it, gave it to you again, sent you into a dark, lifeless tunnel, so that you could emerge with a little hope again, against all odds, only to find that it’s raining, and you will never fly, and you will starve to death. You’re going to die without having flown.
This happens. Because life is also about odds. And your life may end before all the biological changes occur. If this feels like cruelty, that’s fine. It should. You should want to live, and to want to live, to truly want to live, you must know what cruelty is. You must know that it’s really fucking possible that after all the effort, after all the hope and not hope, the struggle and joy, and then not joy and then more darkness…after enduring all of that, you will not make it. You could die, despite all your real best efforts. And death is real. The realest of real things. If it weren’t real, life wouldn’t be real. This is the dimension we are in. Take a breath. That’s the only way you’re gonna get through it. Until you can’t anymore.
But if it’s not raining, then…glory. Glory is also real. Glory is also a scientific fact. You know this, even if you don’t believe you will experience it. You know it’s a fact. There’s glory out there sometimes and it’s fucking glorious because that’s what glory is. Right? Something that makes you say God damn fuck shit, it was worth it. Glory.
The glory of flight. Look at a butterfly. That’s not just the enjoyment of one of the most miraculous feelings in the universe, that’s the fucking enjoyment of it after having crawled on the ground and beat the odds. The dance is vital, and it’s experienced so vividly, because you know the horrible endless depth of dark not-dancing. You were so completely broken that your soul had to go through a metamorphosis. Have you considered the possibility that you’re on the verge of suicide because this is also the path to glory, and the ones who died before getting to glory never made it out of the chrysalis, or they were rained on? They were on the path but they didn’t make it. Like Phil Ochs.
That means you are on the path right now. That means that you are, right now, closer to metamorphosis than you have ever been. And you’re still breathing.
You’re still breathing. You’re not dead yet. In this moment of darkest true desperation, you don’t know what kind of synchronicities can occur. It’s precisely in this darkest of moments that the weirdest quantum phenomena occur. The universe is built that way, and a lot of people will testify to it. Like a minor chord magically changing to a major chord. We call those things miracles, and they are. You don’t have to believe in God to believe that miracles are possible. Glory is a miracle, and you just admitted that exists.
Take heart, fucking literally let fire come back to your heart, because you have wings. You are waiting for them to dry. Just wait. The story is never fucking over until it’s over. The ending to your story could make the moment you are in right now so beautifully meaningful, so powerful and full of nourishing meaning, that the entire thing, all of it, even right now, was fully fucking worth it. And you should be around to see it. You really should. Because you’ve already worked so fucking hard.
You are a Monarch. A super rugged, incredibly beautiful sky dancer lives in your genes. Keep waiting. Never give up. Meditate. Make music. Feed people. Fight oil. Ignore bullies. Laugh at war for profit. Slow down when everyone is speeding. In the darkest moment that ever existed in fucking history, across all time, you will remember that one Ramones song that introduced you to the commonest human language.
You will experience a connection to the infinite, which is a quantum phenomenon. And you will know the story is not over.
I love you. Go bang a drum. It’s never over until God says so. Even if there’s no God. But there is. It’s you. It’s the message in your DNA that you are God and God needs to connect all of his pieces together to bring peace. But more on that later. Let’s take it one step at a time.
Then, let’s completely fucking change the universe together. Cool?