Pickle the Day: October 29th - Derail Your Own Train

I'm going to warn you right away that this post is about death. I know that subject matter bothers a lot of people and the rest of you are sick and tired of me being so morose all the time. Deal with it. You can leave now and I won't be upset. The clicker already got your visit as a "view" on my page. But I'm still asking you to hear me out. Things aren't always what they appear folks. Every day on the way to work I pass over some railroad tracks. As I'm crossing over, I look down the tracks for a second and stare off into the distance. This doesn't last long because I soon continue along my way. Looking on down the line makes me think of death because of the movie Big Fish. I love this movie and I think it is Tim Burton's finest movie because it is completely different than anything else he has directed. It doesn't have the signature Tim Burton weird style that he seems obsessed with overdoing. But the best part about it is the story. I won't spoil it if you haven't seen the movie but the basic plot is this - as a father lays dying, he retells his incredible life story filled with tall tales that his son is sick of hearing and doesn't believe. The son wants to figure out the truth behind his father's stories to separate the man from the myth. He wants to know who is father really was because he feels lied to for his entire life. Through a series of flashbacks we learn that there's a little bit of truth to every story and that life is really just one big adventure. The reason that I bring that up is that as a boy, Edward Bloom (the father) visits a witch and sees when and how he is going to die. While he is always painted as a brave and adventuresome person, this knowledge allows him to take risks and face danger head-on because he knows he will not die until he is an old man. That makes me think - if given the choice, would I want to know how and when I will die?

It's an interesting conundrum because it could either take all of the fun out of life or give you the chance to live life to the fullest. If I found out I would die alone at 100 that doesn't sound like a future worth looking forward to. But if I found out that I was going to die by 40, would that scare me or inspire me? I'm not sure. I'd probably give up. Say fuck it, quit my job and destroy what remains of my life. What's the point in trying now if I knew I only had 8 years left to reap the rewards. There would be no sense trying to start a family or creating something grand or beautiful because I wouldn't be around to enjoy it. I would probably sink into a dark depression and waste my time on this planet. I wish I could say that I would finally live life but I know how I am. Most people would get to work crossing things off of their bucket lists and quit putting things off for tomorrow, because one of these days there won't be a tomorrow. I would be worse than I am right now. I would be a walking disaster. I would succumb to the evils that torment me every day. Things that tell me to lie, cheat, steal, drink, gamble and be a total asshole. What's the point of living if you have nothing to live for? 

Alright so I went there. Sorry. But the other inspiration behind this article is if you could choose how you die, would you want to? If you haven't already figured it out then you most certainly know by now that I'm a little different than everyone else. If I was allowed to choose my method of death I want to die derailing a train. You know, like when a train goes too fast and falls off the tracks which usually results in a big collision and explosion? That's how I want to go. But I have a couple of rules about it. 1. - I am the only person who dies from the derailing. It's not fair to them if I take some innocent people or animals out with me. I need to do this in an unpopulated area where the impact to the Earth will be minimal. That leads to my second rule. 2. - I do what to die in a fiery and jaw dropping crash. It needs to be big and grand. But I also don't want to cause long-term harm to the environment due to a chemical spill or burn down an entire forest with the blaze. So it needs to be explosive yet contained. Kind of like fireworks. My next rule is 3. - People need to be around to see it. I want video of me in the train (an old school train like in Back to the Future III) wearing a conductor's hat pulling the chord with the train horn signalling my impending death. Then I want the camera to pull back so you can see the entire scene and once I derail, it gets captured in multiple angles in stunning high definition display. I don't want it to be so graphic so that you can see me die but I do want you see the train derailment in all the glorious details - wide shot, close up, slow motion, 7 angles, instant replay, from the ground and from the sky. I want to be a spectacle in death as I was in life. Besides, how many times have you see a live train derailment? Plus it would make for an interesting story if I managed to get into Heaven. How'd you die? Guy #1: old age, in my sleep. Guy #2: heart attack at 55. Should have taken better care of myself. Girl #1: car crash. I was texting and driving. Girl #2: complications during childbirth. I never even got to see my baby. Kid #1: hit by a drunk driver. Kid #2: cancer. Me: derailed my own train. All of them had the same result but mine is the only story that isn't sad. Death shouldn't be sad. You should be able to go out on your own terms when you are ready. And when I'm ready I want to derail a train.

It's no secret that I want to die by train derailment. I don't know why I talk about it so much but many of my friends are aware of my final plan. What's wrong with me? Sometimes I think that I'm a little messed up in the head but then a part of me starts to think - does anyone else do this kind of thing? Do you think about death in weird ways? Do you plan out your demise in such unique fashion? I doubt it. If there ever was a question that I'm unique, this is yet another resounding YES from the amassed crowd. I don't know why I'm so different but I like it. What's the point in being like everyone else? Speaking of, here's the part where I have to assure you that I'm O.K. and you don't have to elevate the death watch to Orange or some shit. I'm not going anywhere, or at least I don't know that I am. I don't plan on dying any time soon but that is the mystery surrounding it. We never quite know when or how we die and I'm sure that when I do, it probably won't be by train derailment. But it doesn't hurt to dream, right?

 - pookon -

www.pookon.com
https://twitter.com/pookondotcom
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Pickle the Day: October 18th - Even Straw People Die

They try to do things at work to make us interact and get along and shit and they call them Team Building Activities. This isn't unique to my workplace. I'm sure that a lot of places do this. I bet that studies have proven that you will create a friendly and more productive work environment if the employees are in a positive mood and get to know each other better. So what. I don't care about shit like that. If I'm going to goof around at work I'm doing it my own way and on my own time. I don't like being at work. And not just this job. It's work in general. I've learned to put up with it because I have to pay bills and I understand that I'm never going to be rich enough to quit my job. So I just deal with it. I want to clock in, do my job then clock out. I hate working overtime even if they pay me time and a half because I can't fathom spending more than the bare minimum (40 hours a week) doing something that I hate to do. This is my true passion. Writing, working on the websites, creating entertainment like podcasts, movies and music. So why don't I do that full time instead of the shit I do now? Well the truth is I'm really not that good at it compared to the real talented people in the World. Would you pay me money to do this? Hell no you wouldn't. I can't even get people to read my shit for free, let alone toss me a couple of bucks to keep me endeavors going. This blog is free but everything else costs me money and I lose about $200 some dollars a year keeping my various projects going. I don't mind spending the money because it is spent doing something that I love, but it angers me that I have to suffer through something I hate to afford to do something I love. I wish there was a better way... OK. Enough of this shit, time to explain my picture.

At one of these Team Building events, we were paired up with a co-worker, given 10 minutes, a handful of straws, some string, scissors and tape and had to come up with something travel related (I work for a travel company). My teammate and I both didn't feel like doing anything so we complained about it for a few minutes. Then she just started putting straws together and I grouped some together so they looked like a palm tree. Then we decided to do a hotel in Hawaii and leave it at that. I started putting some straws together and it looked like a mountain, so I decided to make a volcano that was erupting which then led to the hotel being flattened by the sonic boom of the explosion and the ash cloud that followed. I have a real morbid imagination. If you've been following me at all over the last 2 1/2 years then you've most certainly noticed that I often speak of death rather candidly. In my explanation to the group I described what we had created and said that everyone died. If we had more straws and more than 10 minutes I would have made some dead bodies to lay on the ground by the hotel. I'm sure that someone has a problem with this but I don't care. We're all going to die someday. That is something every living thing on this planet has in common. So I don't understand why we are so scared to talk about it. It's going to happen whether you like it or not. I have chosen to embrace it and accept it. I am going to die someday.

It sucks when people die. I know that all too well. So I'm not trying to make light of it when I create an art project involving death. Yeah I guess I joke about it, and I know that those fictional straw people that I would have laid dead on the slops of the erupting volcano would have had families and friends who would miss them immensely. Imagine straw people in a big straw church and they are all bent over (cause they are bendy straws!) in sorrow as the casket of their straw families/friends are carried down the aisle and placed in a straw hearse while the straw musician plays a sad song on the straw baby grand piano. It's a real sad scene. But that straw volcano would have erupted, flattened the straw hotel and killed those straw people even if I didn't imagine it in my head and partially create it during a work exercise. We can't control death. It's going to happen. But I guess I don't have to be so morbid all the time, asking for the Rapture or the End of the World to kill me and do it now because I'm he-ere, but I can't help it. 

If you are a faithful visitor to this blog then you will have no doubt seen that I record a podcast called The Drive to Stay Alive. I don't expect you to listen to it because the basic point is this - I'm in search of a reason to keep living. That's exactly why I don't do anything to better my life. When you have to question the point of living, you don't care about dying. Plain and simple. I don't care about being in shape, maintaining friendships, meeting a girl, starting a family, excelling in my career, changing the World, etc. etc. You know, all of the shit that you normies do. I'm different man. I used to think that was going to be my path in life as well. But then someone died. And when he died I died a little bit as well. And I die a little bit more every single day as the constant reminder sinks in that life is always going to suck. Chances are I'm going to live to be 100 just so I have to suffer through a long battle with these problems and it's going to take me an eternity to get my wish - that I can die too. Everyone dies. Even straw people. I'm hoping my next pickle won't be something so morbid. In fact, if I have it my way it will actually be a celebration of life. But that is another pickle in the full jar that will be shared with you tomorrow. That is unless everyone dies before then.

 - pookon -

www.pookon.com
https://twitter.com/pookondotcom
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Pickle the Day: October 8th - And Soon the Darkness...

For whatever reason, I have started to get into the habit of writing at 1am while I'm listening to Classical music. I don't exactly know why, but it has really set the tone for me to just let go and write whatever is on my mind. While not everything I say on here is positive (in fact it's starting to skew rather negative) it is 100% me at this moment in time. This is how I feel today. This is real. No bullshit. I wouldn't trade that in for 100 puppy dogs, smiling happy faces or romantic comedy movie endings. Not everyone gets the girl. But everyone dies in the end. And soon the darkness comes. I'm more or less forced to do mandatory overtime at work this week so I was there from 845am - 630pm. That doesn't leave a whole lot of time to get out in the World and find something to take a picture of. I had something in mind but I knew I wouldn't get there in time today in this race against the darkness, so I stopped at this cemetery that I pass every day on the way to and from work. As you can see from the picture the sun was slowing fading away, allowing the darkness of night to come and bring the mystery of the unknown. 

I don't really like the night because it reminds me that I'm alone. But I also don't like to sleep. So I often lie awake in my bed at night and let my mind wander. And when my mind is allowed to wander without proper supervision, that's when the darkness takes over. I think a lot about death. I wonder what it is like to die. Does it just happen and you are gone? Does your life really flash before your eyes? Do you wander the Earth as a ghost with unfinished business before you can go to Heaven or Hell? Is there even a Heaven or Hell? What is God like? What if God was one of us? Just a stranger on the bus trying to make his way home? Do we have a soul? Do we own it? If you get buried, do you one day have the option of coming back as a Zombie or skeleton when the dead rise from their graves? I think about a lot of stuff in the darkness, but mostly I think about Timmy. 

I dream about him a whole lot. That's probably one of the only reasons why I sleep. Aside from the my body forcing me to do it thing. When I dream the fantasy of being able to create new adventures and stories with my brother takes over the darkness that crept in there before I succumbed to slumber. In my dreams it feels so real. There is no death, only life. Everything is as it once was before the sadness and the emptiness took it all away. There is still something for me in life and I can appreciate the joy and beauty of this World, but I know that no matter how hard I try, things will never be the way they were before or how they exist in my dreams. But everyone can say that. And soon the darkness comes...

It may be light outside, but the World is still dark because I wake up and I'm still me. My dreams have ended. I have to face the life that I have constructed for myself. A life that I cannot change. I hate what I have done and don't know what to do to fix it. Nothing has worked. There is no point in trying anymore. Every now and then I make an attempt to better myself or to put myself in a position to succeed. It lasts for about 3 days before the darkness returns. It's always there. Lurking over my shoulder just waiting to bring me down. And for some strange reason it sounds just like James Woods. That's never how I imagined it to be. I would have expected someone a little more high profile but I guess you just take what you are given. But this isn't the end. I hope I'm not the next body in that cemetery. There might still be some light left in my World. It's going to take some searching but I have to want to find it. And therein lies the problem. But there will be another day for that and tomorrow there will be another pickle. And soon the darkness comes to take them all away, but I still have a full jar of them just waiting to be shared.

 - pookon - 

www.pookon.com
https://twitter.com/pookondotcom
https://www.facebook.com/MilwaukeeIceman