Essay: Life Sucks and Then You Die

by Pam Victor

Every morning, I wake up thinking about the futility of life. I've never been a graceful greeter of the morning dew, and I'm definitely not getting more chipper in the morning with age. No, I wake up an existentialist and becoming gradually more optimistic as the day progress. By 10pm, I'm in love with the world and all God's creatures. After a couple hours of  this renewed hope in the future, I hit the hay and the whole cycle starts again. Cue to my alarm clock and the thought, "Life sucks and then you die."

This morning, I decided to hop on the train of pessimistic logic. Life is meaningless. We are doomed. The human race is a spoiled milk long past its expiration date. Ok, so what then? Here I am with my feet on this shit-hole earth. What is the best way to make this most of my time before we're all blown to oblivion or drown with the rising tides or simply disintegrate from lack of intelligence and culture? And here's what I got:

Ease the burden of other people. Make other people's lives better. Pay it forward.

Look, I'm no Mother Teresa, for fuck's sake. Much as it embarrasses me to say this, I don't volunteer at soup kitchens. Though we do try to be as generous as possible, we don't have enough money to give to charity out the wazoo. I'm not even always such a friend indeed to a friend in need. But what I can do is try to say yes when I have an opportunity to make a difference. (As long as it doesn't inconvenience me, of course.) So I will probably throw $20 to sponsor your run for cancer or whatever. I'll put $10 towards your Kickstarter, most likely. And every year, I put some time into raising money for the high school I graduated from, a small, private school for supposedly "gifted" kids in Michigan called Roeper School. Roeper is the place where the lucky square pegs go to live after giving up on the round holes. 

Life sucks and then you die. But at least I can help a former outcast nerd be captain of the basketball team or "non-prom" queen or star of the musical. Because  if my $20 helps that kid's life suck a little less, then maybe life is not so futile after all.

 Roeper School