by Jack Bragen
Many emotions that we attribute to human beings appear to be universal among all animal life, even insects and maybe even plant life.
I have dealt with insect life invading my dwelling. I have adopted a policy of killing the bugs, because I feel strongly that I can’t coexist with “vermin.” When a bug realizes I’m after it, it will become fearful, and it will try anything at its disposal to evade death. My behavior is not very Zen Buddhist, but to me, it is a choice between me or them.
In a previous residence, I had a nice front patio where I could sit. One day, I witnessed a small lizard chasing down a beetle. And I witnessed the beetle in its death agony as the small lizard wrapped its mouth around the bug and began chomping, with the beetle’s head and front body still protruding. I could “read” how the beetle felt while it was being eaten alive and I could sense that it didn’t want to die. While I looked at the beetle’s antennae and face, that was how I could see that the tiny creature was capable of suffering, and this is just like you, the reader, and me, the person writing this. And it seemed to me, also, that the beetle had consciousness.
It seems that “the human condition” is not just about humans.
How are we to deal with this? I don’t think it’s something you deal with; I think it just is. There may be no specific strategy or solution to “the human condition” or the condition of being alive. You merely live.
If you have been homeless or have lived through harrowing experiences, you might understand what I’m talking about. But if you have been wealthy for more than two decades, you might have forgotten what it is like to feel real pain. Wealth is an insulator from the hardness of life, but that can also mean being out of touch, numb, dispassionate, and uncaring. The rich can shield themselves using money, but this works only to an extent.
Rich people, as all living beings, have to die too. They too are subject to sickness, physical and mental. They go into a panic mode and they will do almost anything to quell a perceived or real threat to their wealth, including hurting people.
Some people might deal with the predicament of life through becoming interpersonally and socially predatory. Some deal with the hardness of life by drinking alcohol or using drugs. And some deal with life by aspiring to improbable ambitions, some of which are achieved while others are unrealistic.
Everybody has to die, though most don’t want to. And this simple fact causes most medical doctors to be able to make a very good living. Other doctors specialize in some aspect of being healthy, and like the renowned Doctor Andrew Weil, who gives talks and writes books, and who became rich and famous. But Dr. Weil is subject to all of the same conditions of living as the rest of us, including the beetle whose death I witnessed.
At this point, a reader might be wondering, “What is he getting at?”
This piece doesn’t cast anyone as the villain. The takeaway is that you are not alone. No one lives forever. And no matter how rich you are, financially, you must still deal with illness, old age, suffering and death. A reader going through a rough time can take solace in the fact: This is a part of life.
I’ve been there and done that. I have lived through situations that would have killed many. But concerning “the good stuff,” I feel as if I’ve been shortchanged.
Human life is not just about pain, illness, fear and death. If it were, very few people would bother with it, and we wouldn’t have Homo Sapiens. There are some good things in life.
Sometimes, when things have been really bad for a really long time, it might be hard to imagine being happy in the future. Yet, we must. Maybe we can invent a purpose. We can invent an attainable purpose and live to see it unfold.
I’m in some hard times in my life. Yet I also get a lot of alone time and quiet time. This formula helps to create great writing, or at least good writing, depending on who you talk to. They say it takes a lot of manure to produce prize-winning roses or a tremendous amount of pressure to create a diamond.
In rough times, we should remember this is part of the condition of being alive, part of the human condition, or the inevitable conditions of life of any living creature.
We can take comfort in the realization that when we feel out of sorts, frightened and pained, this is all part of life. It means we are alive, and everyone goes through this.
I have been in life situations where I truly did not know if I would come out alive. People have pointed firearms at me, and they were serious about it. In one situation I was an innocent bystander at a robbery of a supermarket where I worked. I was held captive by two gunmen for about eleven hours overnight. I had to do exactly as I was told. Was I afraid? You bet I was.
I was in self-created crises where I was almost killed by my own folly. This was a recurring pattern when I was younger. At 16, I got myself into a car wreck in which I capsized a Toyota station wagon, and this was just the tip of the iceberg. How did I survive all of this? Your guess is as good as mine.
Along the way I’ve had a ton of emotional pain: Terror, anxiety, anguish, loneliness, sadness. But I’ve also experienced a few bits and pieces of happiness.
Apparently, I have a reason for being here, because otherwise I’d be gone by now. My chosen purpose is to keep writing for the good of mentally ill people and other humanity—but also to make big money at it so that I will live to a comfortable old age.
Jack Bragen is author of “Instructions for Dealing with Schizophrenia: A Self-Help Manual,” and of three fiction collections. He lives in Martinez, California.
