Aging in New Oreleans

. This is not going to be a feel good piece because this is a subject that I do not feel good about. This is "The Pandora Punk OCD Sooner Or Later You’re Gonna Die So Let’s Hear It For Your Future Mambo Rag In Three Quarter Time Piece". This piece is about what a killer life is.
. First off: life is not for wussies; life is not for the faint of heart; life is not for the sensitive. Hope is a four letter word; résistance c’est futile; the meek shall not inherit the earth and all that you can expect from love is a broken heart.(it's important to note here that although it may have felt like it, we've rarely lost anyone human to a broken heart; it just feels like it.) If life doesn’t kill you in your prime (or before) it will whittle you down until sometimes you’ll wonder why it just doesn’t and get it over with. That’s the good news.
. Unlike love and war, in life all is not fair and only in ignorance is there bliss. If you live long enough you’ll get old enough to watch your loved ones and your friends die. If you live long enough, If life doesn’t kill you right off, sooner or sooner (there is no later) it is going to suck being you; whether you like it or not. And believe you me; you’re not going to like it.
Let’s mention here: Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, MS, heart disease, renal failure, asthma, osteoporosis, pneumonia, spontaneous aneurisms, deadly allergies and the seventy different terminal types of cancer. Add to that, things like getting hit by a car, bus or train; slipping on stairs, ice or the sidewalk and falling; physical encounters such as muggings, runaway bicycles, terrorist attacks, a stray bullet, skateboards or some random nut with a ball peen hammer. A natural disaster such as an earthquake,fire, flood, random lightning strikes, tsunami, hurricane or open manhole cover could really ruin your day of not your life. Mental illness is another grim reaper; depression, loneliness, thoughts of suicide, paranoia, schizophrenia, anger, grief and despair can be just as debilitating as anorexia, leukemia, diabetes or bulimia. There's just no way out of this life alive.
. As you live a longer and longer life, what you will get is …older and older; and you know what? Your body does not come with a parts warranty, just as your heart and mind did not come with an instruction booklet. Piece by piece you are going to fall apart like a ’53 Buick Roadmaster; once classic, once king of the highway and now junkyard relic. Your drive train is shot; your fuel pump is clogged. Your points and plugs are beyond replacing, there’s no adjusting your carburetor or flushing your radiator. Rotating your tires, wiping your windshield, tightening your brakes and adding oil or transmission fluid ain’t going to do you one bit of good. Your body will turn against you and mock the legend of your youth. You’ll drive that car as far, and in most cases as fast as you can and then, as they say, that’s a wrap. Lights out—nobody home.
So, why do we do this? Why do we participate in this fiasco, lottery, and crap shoot? Is it the job description? No, I’ll tell you what it is: we’re not willing participators; we didn’t have much of a choice and we didn’t ask to be here, isn’t that right? We’re just now getting a dose of the real meaning of the ‘Life Ain’t Fair’ blues and why didn’t anyone ever tell you what a ball breaker life was going to be? Your parents tried to tell you but you wouldn’t listen, your grandparents didn’t tell you because they didn’t want to spoil it for you, they rathered to have let you find out for yourself, bless their cowardly, well meaning hearts. Them that knew wouldn’t tell and them that told were not listened to.
We were led into this world a blank canvass and we filled it with our dreams. “Dreamers live forever and dreams never die”, is what they told us. Rather they should have said: “You ain’t getting out of this world alive and all of your dreams will be dashed before this is over”; but, we probably wouldn’t have listened to that either.
Okay, so then what’s the point of being here? One guess is that the point is to make life a little easier for other people, the old Buddhist selfless dance, you know, karmic yoga, that old white magic and on to your next life; so what if it bites being you this time around, there’ll be pie in the sky when you die. Wanna buy some beach front property in Nevada?
So let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that you are done with disappointment, over having your hopes hung out to dry and you’ve come to realize that all along you have been nothing but a spoiled child taking advantage wherever you could and pitching fits when you couldn’t have your way; that you’re you done with whining until someone holds you and tells you that everything will be alright. (It’s not going to be alright). What’s the next logical progression of your unenlightened life, you may ask, and how soon can it start? It all starts with patience and recognition of the grand illusion of life. That’s what the Guru said.
Or it started when you woke up in the middle of the night in a sweat realizing that this is as good as it gets -- that when the lights of your life are turned off that final time, it is… final; and you become afraid to die. It’s too nice here; you’re not near done here; you’re not ready for eternal darkness; you’ll never be ready! It starts when you realize that as little of a choice you had in being alive, you have even less of a choice about leaving this life. It’s not a matter of the if; it’s just a matter of the when and you have absolutely no control over the when. Death does not make a reservation or an appointment.
It starts when you find that this is all illusion and that you are caught in the birth, life, death syndrome that has no clear evidence of any other reward than for you, at the end of this grand endeavor, to believe that you have done the best job that you could. What’s your alternative? Die ignorant. Die anyway.
How about we die young and leave a good looking corpse complete with a full set of teeth, twenty-twenty vision and no physical flaws? For most of us it’s too late for that. How about existentialism? I mean, screw it; if it’s all for naught, let’s just party ‘til we puke; bop ‘til we drop; drink a little poison ‘fore we die? That’s nice empty bravado talking.
How about we dwell on it every waking minute of our lives until we make ourselves and everyone around us miserable; we could do that. Or we could find a way to just not think about it and get going doing all of the things that we should, would and could be doing as if we were going to live forever. Not putting life off until tomorrow
because there is no tomorrow.
Okay, I’ll do that. End of piece, beginning of peace (yeah, right).