Coping Saws

I keep telling myself I’m going to die.

But not for the reason or reasons you might think.

I tell myself I’m going to die because its the truth. I dig the truth.

Who has two thumbs and loves the truth? This guy [thumbs pointed at me]. 

I also keep telling myself that I’m going to die to get perspective. Knowing I’m going to die makes the two hour commute a little easier ya know.  Some things truly are small stuff and don’t need sweated (can sweated be past tense?) so letting go of the tension from jerk-offs (massholes they call them in the Bay State) that don’t abide traffic laws, makes good sense. So does the occasional mishap at work, or gaining a few extra pounds, or fight with the wife, or when you get the stink eye from other parents at the soccer game because you are being a little too, ahem, loud on the sideline. All small schtuff in the big scheme o’ things. And nothing sets matters to scale better than imagining your death. You know, how not living -at all- minimizes all the trivial/minor/ho-hum/molehill “problems” of life.  

Which begs the questions…

But wait, does it really beg the question? Maybe it slightly pleads or strongly encourages the question.

I digress, which begs the question: what are the problems that don’t benefit from imagining your death? Don’t sweat the small stuff I got, but for heaven’s sake, can someone tell me the big stuff I do need to sweat? Certainly the it’s all small stuff, while fun for a t-shirt or bumper sticker, is inane at best and dangerous at worst.

I mean to play devil’s advocate a tad: Because the masshole going 88 mph on 195 east while creeping into your lane is taking your life into his me-machine clutching hands while his oblivious-to-you eyes are texting out 

tom brady is the goat bro

Failing to get angry (sweating) about this -the possibility of death via lack of concern from Pat Patriot driving like a masshole -shows a disregard for your own life on a par with suicide. Does it not?

In the parlance of our time, distracted drivers are, kind of a big deal, because they take your life and death into their me-machine clutching hands and distracted eyes. This is certainly not small stuff, right?

Someone tell me which is which. Someone tell me what I should get fired up, angry, irate, upset about because I honestly don’t know anymore. Imagining my death cannot be a sustainable coping mechanism...if it means not caring a hoot about the guy stabbing me in the throat with a chinese throwing star or inserting a civil war era, rusty sabre through my carotid artery...right?

But how to cope with all of this, this, or these, people, and all the nasty, horrible stuff they do, commit, violate? Reminds me of the George Carlin question about exactly how humans have passed chickens in goodness. Consider that chickens don’t torture their own kind, only humans do that. Neato.

Still, George Carlin aside, how to cope?

How. To. Cope?

Small stuff ends where….worrisome stuff begins…?

I know it’s possible. Look at the life of Nelson Mandela for perspective. But I can’t get there when I need to get there. I can’t get there when I give a shit about something. When I feel mistreated or abused I can’t just tell myself that others are mistreated and abused, and sometimes far worse...can I? How would that mechanism work in the ole Kantian categorical imperative?

What if everyone just said “someone has/had it worse” every time some injustice was committed against them?

Seems like a recipe for disaster; seems like the recipe we’ve been following - maybe.

I don’t know man. Maybe I need a new paradigm? A coping paradigm. Current shit isn’t working.

(notice how Clooney pronounced it para-dine)