Whore mongering and the meaning of life

I just got news that a guy I know back home died. I went to school with him and we were good friends. At some point during school we drifted apart for whatever reason. I would see him around and say “what’s up” but that was about it. Then I turned 19 and decided that I would take a different path in life. I turned my back on the respectable route, left American and began an adventure around the world that I continue on today.

My man back home did everything he was supposed to. First he did his four years in college. Then he got married and had a kid. He went to work every day and church on Sundays.

I on the other hand bounced from city to city having sex with as many women as I could. I found a lot of freebies but I also paid for my fair share of action. While I did keep up on stuff like reading and exercising my body my main motivation was always women and particularly sex with women.

My man ended up with a nice house in a gated community. He also had a nice car. So did his wife and his child. The car ended up being his downfall. He was hit by a truck in a very bad accident. This put him out of commission. He lost his ability to walk and with that his will to live. He tried to keep on but he soon turned bitter and depressed.

His wife left him a year later. I’ve heard different stories about this. Some say she was upset about the fall in living standards that came when he went from earning a good paycheck to going on disability relief. Even with insurance his income was cut down in a major way. But others tell me the wife left because she couldn’t take his depressive mood.

I don’t really care why the wife left. In my eyes she did the wrong thing. She should have stayed by the guy who spent years supporting her and her child. There’s no satisfactory motivation to abandon someone like that. Especially when I heard that she ended up with another guy days after the split.

The dude ended up falling further into depression. He ended up by himself in some shitty apartment with no one even coming by to check in on him other than the occasional friend or social worker. Where was his family? His church? I don’t know!

It is no surprise to me that he fell further into depression. He stopped getting his regular medical treatment or even eating. From what I hear he literally wasted away in his bed wondering what he did wrong to deserve this. And that is all I know. For me it is enough to know this.

Meanwhile, while my old friend was drowning in pain and suffering, I was galivanting around, fucking various women while working a mere few hours of month. If you could even call it what I was doing work at all.

I say this not to denigrate the guy. Like I said I haven’t even seen him since we were still in school. But he was a good guy back then and by all reports he became an even better man in the years after. He contributed to society. He raised up a son and took care of him well. I am very sad to hear about what came of him. But I am sure my feelings can’t even approach what he must have felt himself in his dying days. Nor can I find a definitive answer for how and why we went our different ways or ended up how we did.

Sometimes this sort of stuff happens and snaps us back into “reality.” We can start thinking about the meaning of life. Or maybe the meaninglessness of it all. We come into this indifferent universe alone and unarmed. All too often we go out the same way, no matter what we did in the years between.

Some of us will contribute in a meaningful way. Others will evade society or at least social expectations. In the end we all end up in the same place. Though some of us suffer more in the meantime than others. Part of it comes down to sheer happenstance. Chance, luck, fate, whatever you want to call it. It happens. And all too often it sucks.

Think of the poor child born into poverty who knows nothing but suffering until he starves to death a few years later. Think of those born with a silver spoon who have no knowledge of suffering at all. Think of those who have to work in a factory or suck a dick for money to get by. And think of those who purchase the sneakers and the blowjobs.

Think of the lottery winner. And think of the family man struck down in the prime of his life by a vehicle in a seemingly random accident.

Think of my old pal back home. You don’t know him, but he was a man nonetheless. So are you. And so am I. We’re all connected in some way, whether we like it or not. If you’re alive, healthy and reading this, be glad. Embrace life and do all you can, while you still can.

I wish I had more to say. But I don’t. So I will end here.