Memories Fucking Suck
(or Why I Can’t Listen to Pop-Punk)
Do you remember how we met? I saw you from a distance, your perfect smile blowing through my eyes like a god damned gunshot. We were cooped up for some dumb rehearsal. Your voice reached my ears, its beauty threatening to tear the drums apart. I couldn’t focus on the lyrics, on the notes, on the fucking choreography. All I could do was melt under the heat of your eyes. I think I said hi to you that day. It’s a miracle I got that single syllable out. You had no idea that in that instant I was yours. And nobody else’s.
Do you remember our first conversation? You were crying. And I was physically the closest person to you. Your mom was sick. And you were so scared. So I held you and you wept. For hours we sat on that picnic bench, you crying me holding you. I never wanted to let go. But I had to. As I wiped a tear from your cheek, you told me I was such a good friend. I could be just a friend. As long as it meant being in your life.
Do you remember the night you finally saw me? I took you to a concert, to a headbanger’s ball. You lost yourself in the crowd, throwing your horns up to the shredding guitar, worshipping rock n’ roll. And your eyes met mine as the solo reached its climax. You knew in that instant just how much I cared. The mohawk didn’t frighten you, the tattoos didn’t scare you off. Because you saw past the rebellion, past my bullshit. You saw me.
Do you remember our first kiss? We were in your car, weeks after that concert. Your eyes bore into my soul and you hoped silently that I would make a move. And I couldn’t. You were still with whatever that fucker’s name was, your parents hated me, and I was no good for you. Not to mention I didn’t know how you felt. So we sat there, the silence dragging on and on. Until you finally grabbed my face, pulled my lips to yours, and didn’t relent until your breath was gone.
Do you remember our first real fight? I showed up drunk to your birthday. And not buzzed. But shitfaced. I couldn’t hide my inebriated state. Not from you, not from your friends, not from your parents who had chosen to fly into town. I puked all over your cake. It wasn’t your words that stung me when I sobered. It was knowing that I would lose you if I didn’t stop. The bottle didn’t touch my lips again after that night.
Do you remember the first time we made love? It was Valentine’s Day. You knocked on my door with a dozen roses in your hands, nothing but a coat on. Your lips hit mine as soon as I opened the door and didn’t abate till hours later. We couldn’t get out of bed long enough to make the dinner reservations. So we ordered Chinese takeout. You spent the whole weekend in my arms.
Do you remember when you found that needle? You had suspected something for some time. I had lost weight. My skin was graying. Not a far jump from alcoholic to addict. You didn’t cry that night. You didn’t yell at me. You just packed your shit. And left. I didn’t care in that moment. Just let you walk away.
Do you remember me? How much I loved you? That I didn’t mean to hurt you? God, I can’t stop the fucking tears anymore. Not as I stare at the granite, your name etched in the hard stone. Not as I feel the rain pelt me, soak my long hair. Not as my boots sink into the mud. If I don’t leave soon, my knees will hit the soft earth that covers your casket. And I won’t ever be able to get up.
†
About the Author
Jason Mims is a time traveler from the past, utterly lost in this era of technology. He is also the son of the dark lord Satan, who wishes to murder his father and take his place on the throne of Hell (after he conquers this future world he seems to find himself in, of course). He is single and enjoys torturing Leprechauns and running naked through busy city streets. He’s a keeper ladies.
Whoah (read as Keanu Reeves from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure). You found the bonus track of this work. So enjoy.
On Pain
“Life is pain, highness.”
Dread Pirate Westley, The Princess Bride
Life is not happy or jovial and it will never be easy. It is a sexually transmitted disease without a known cure. And like any disease, it is going to hurt. Badly. But is that such a bad thing? We have been taught by morons that pain should be avoided at all costs. But isn’t pain what life is really all about?
Pain, according to the Encarta Dictionary, is defined in four ways: an unpleasant physical sensation; a feeling of discomfort; emotional distress; or somebody or something troublesome. Since we are all products of the modern world, it makes sense to operate under the modern definition of the word. Looking at those four ways of defining pain, one will notice a curious absence of terms like “bad” or “wrong”. So where does the idea that pain is this evil that must be purged from humanity come from?
There are two places, in the humble opinion of this uneducated fuck, which this deep seated avoidance of pain is born from. The first is an ancient Greek philosophy known as Epicureanism. The Epicureans believed in one simple truth: that pleasure is the highest good. The opposite of pleasure is pain. To live a good life, the best life in fact, one must maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Detractors of the Epicurean life style claim it is fundamentally hedonistic while defenders justify it by emphasizing the need for self-control in minimizing pain. There is clearly a lot more to Epicureanism than that, but quite frankly I don’t feel like going into more detail. Deal with it.
The second birth place is Calvinism. John Calvin is the man who opened the door for the idea of “if you are prosperous, you are in God’s favor”. If this is maxim holds true, then so must its converse: that if you are you not prosperous, you are not in God’s favor. So naturally, pain implies that one has fallen out of good graces with the almighty. Once again, Calvinism is much deeper than this. Look it up (and Epicureanism while you’re at it); you might like it, or at least find it interesting.
It is not hard to see how Calvinism has shaped the Western world (see Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism), but it is slightly more difficult to see the Epicureans’ impact. But if you dig deep into the Western psyche, you will begin to uncover a subtle hedonism reminiscent of the Epicurean thought of maximizing pleasure. And because of this, you will see a tendency of Westerners to avoid that which hurts.
But what is pain? Really, what is it? Our modern definitions do not contain this attitude of hate. Like so many words, however, we often ignore the actual definition in favor of some stipulative one created by the culture. Pain, in the most basic biological sense of the word, is the body’s defense mechanism. If a given stimulus causes damage to an organism’s body, the body will feel pain, thus causing the organism to avoid said stimulus. In essence, pain is what keeps the living…living. Pain is fucking necessary.
And this principle of pain as defense goes beyond the body. Emotional or mental pain often operates in the same way. Metaphysically, pain keeps us sane the same way it keeps us alive. Pain is conducive for reaching eudaimonia (the Greek term roughly translated as “full flourishing happiness”) because without it neither the body nor the soul/mind would be able to survive. Just chew on that for a moment. Without pain, you would not be alive in any sense of the word. If that’s not a pant-shitting, mind-blowing statement, I don’t know what is. It’s almost counter intuitive to think of pain as necessary to be a healthy human being because of the afore mentioned traditions.
So what’s the point? In the pages that follow this brief introduction I will attempt to fully define pain, show just how damn useful it is to human flourishing, explain why it exists in certain places more so than in others (and how it’s a good thing in those areas), and generally piss you, the reader, off (key word there being attempt). Prepare to hurt.
Life is pain. Any fan of…well movies knows that line very well. The Dread Pirate Roberts/The Man in Black/Westley the Farm Hand (played by the brilliant Cary Elwes) famously uttered those words in the classic 80’s film The Princess Bride. As with any quote taken out of context, these words can interpreted almost in an infinite number of ways. So I choose to interpret them as such: life is pa
in. Westley is literally defining pain as life and vice versa. If life is pain, then life is going to hurt.
Hannah Arendt has been quoted as saying that “all life begins with conflict” (don’t ask me where this quote comes from; that’s what Google is for). Dr. Timothy Hoye once interpreted this émigré scholar’s words as “all life begins with violence” (that came from a lecture he gave in June of 2013 as part of a summer class he was teaching). Imagine for me a delivery room. All pristine and clean. Now imagine the actual birth. If you’re having trouble with that bit of imagination, look to the movie The Ex (starring Zach Braff and Amanda Peet). Terrible film, in this humble fuck’s opinion, but it has a good scene that I can steal for my purposes. Miss Peet’s character is beginning to give birth. She grabs Mr. Braff’s character by his collar, demanding pain killers (she had refused an epidural earlier in the movie). Wait…the miracle of childbirth hurts? It’s violent and painful and slightly scary? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! And for those of you who were unaware of this, it’s also accompanied by a lot of blood and shit. Go ahead, ask your mom.
All of our lives began with the pain of our mothers.