On a recent drive down California’s central valley, one of my favorite songs of all time popped up on my playlist. The song is “Santa Monica”, by Everclear, which must have come out in the 1990s. It’s an upbeat, chipper song, has a catchy rhythm and melody, is easy to sing and/or dance to, but more importantly it reaches a place in my soul that needs occasional expression, and that place is:
THE HELL WITH ALL OF THIS.
It is the same place that is reached for me by the ending of Dr. Strangelove. I’ve never actually talked to anyone about what they take from that ending, and so I just assume that everyone reacts to it the same way I do, which is almost always a stupid assumption. But for me the end of that movie is a relief. The tension of the plot, the disgust and contempt I feel for the powerful players and the system that enabled them, and the dissonance of rooting for my favorite characters to get shot out of the sky, builds up to a point where I just think, you know what, the hell with all of this. To me, nuclear annihilation feels like a reasonable, fitting, even a happy ending for that dumpster fire of a reality.
In related news, 64% of New Hampshire Democrats indicated earlier this year that they would prefer a giant meteor hitting the earth, to a Trump re-election. I would have selected that option as well, given the choice. I would have been at least partly serious. The hell with all of this.
Now, in reality, I don’t think the rest of the world’s population deserves a ginormous fireball of death because Americans are idiots. And for whatever reason, it’s verboten in most cultures for individuals to check out by means of suicide. So, fine, you slog through whatever egregious mess life serves you up, until you die anyway of more natural means. And I’m okay with that. I guess. But somewhere in my soul, sometimes, it’s still simple and beautiful and deeply comforting to think:
We could live beside the ocean, leave the fire behind,
Swim out past the breakers, and watch the world die.
I think maybe that’s what a lot of people who don’t experience depression don’t understand about it. It’s not necessarily about actions or events, what you said or didn’t say, what you did or didn’t do. For many (most?) people, depression is essentially just a profound, enveloping weariness. You get tired of the slog. You get tired of the fight. You get tired of getting out of bed. You get tired of worrying or failing or working or arguing, you get tired of stupidity and ignorance, you get tired of the system, of having to justify yourself, of whatever your life demands of you. And at some point, just, you know what, the hell with all of this.
And although I’ve learned to identify that siren-song for what it is, and resist its darker pull, and although I fiercely love being alive, and I love my life in particular, I can still hear the song and feel its pull. And sometimes that meteor sounds pretty darn good to me.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have a catchy tune, either.
I don’t want to be the bad guy.
I don’t want to do your sleepwalk dance anymore.
I just want to feel some sunshine. I just want to find some place to be alone.
We could live beside the ocean, leave the fire behind,
Swim out past the breakers, and watch the world die.
Yeah. Watch the world die.
Yeah.
Watch the world die.