Good Times

Hey Kid,

I want to let you in on a Secret: all anybody wants, anywhere, is to have a good time.

Yeah, people will say they want Truth or Justice or Money or a Handful of Rice to Feed My Starving Children Before Flies Lay Eggs in Their Eyes, (you've heard about this already, haven't you?), but what it boils down to is Things Being Better Than They Are Right Now, which means "a good time."

I am not here to judge that urge. Everyone feels used, everyone feels put upon, even if their children aren't starving in little mud nests built on the sides of sewers.

But the funny thing about living in Western Civilization is that, basically, everything's okay for most people, most of the time. Very few people are incapable of feeding their babies. Most people live a long time, many of them longer than they necessarily need or want. So, for us, a "good time" means an excess, outrageous tidings, irrepressible spasms of joy. We need a heightened, abnormal reality in order to feel good about things. We need to have something that no one else has--and that's getting harder and harder to find. And if we don't have that abnormal reality to show off to all our friends and inspire their esteem, we feel shitty about ourselves and our lives. We become unhappy. We become deeply unhappy about not being abnormally happy all the time.

None of this is particularly new information. Most people who travel or read eventually hit upon these conclusions.

However, the reason I'm throwing this out there to you now is to give you a hint as you start thinking about the future: people will pay you lots of money if you can provide them with a good time.

The fastest--if not easiest--way to do this is to become a hooker. I really, really don't recommend this avenue for success, primarily because you can only do it for so long before you're old, saggy, worn-out with STDs, or pregnant, and then suddenly you're stuck with anal warts, no job, and a lifetime spent giving blowjobs and smoking crack to stay thin. No one wants to hire someone with a resume like that. So, unless you're absolutely certain you will never need or want another kind of job ever again, I suggest not going into the sex trades.

The second easiest way to get people to pay you money for a good time is in the entertainment industry. This is light years harder to get into than the sex industry, but once you're there you'll encounter somewhat less ass rape. There are also groupies. However, the main benefit of going into entertainment, (as opposed to the sex industry it so closely resembles), is that you probably won't end up with a rap sheet. At least not in the first year.

The third easiest way, which is easier to get into but harder to enjoy, is to go into a field like politics or marketing or the clergy, and simply promise people that you will EVENTUALLY provide them with a good time beyond anything they could ever imagine, as long as they give you money. These fields are interesting, because they provide nothing of value to anyone, ever, and yet people give these industries more money than you could possibly imagine. Nevertheless, they are creative, ruthless, cynical fields, and may eventually chew the center out of your soul. It may, in fact, be simpler to dispense with the notion of providing a good time altogether and go straight into organized crime. Unfortunately, organized crime has most of the same drawbacks as the sex industry, except you have to kill people.

The fourth easiest way to get lots and lots of money in exchange for providing a good time isn't actually easy at all. What you do is, you think and you work until you come up with a way to provide people with a good time in a brand new way. This may involve inventing a new amusement park ride, or writing a great book, or curing cancer. It's important to understand, however, that at this level there's usually a pretty standard reward for work done: the more people that are made happy, the more money you make. Thus, you may prove that there are an infinite number of prime Fibonacci numbers, and that would make you very clever, but since only three people care, you're still going to have go to work at the Burger Shack in the morning.

After that, your only other option is to join the rest of us slobs who wish and hope for a good time, or who selflessly volunteer their time to other people so that at least THEY can have a good time, or who join a philosophical movement in order to realign their priorities so that they more-or-less always believe that they're basically having a pretty good time. That last one requires some brainwashing, though.

The important thing to remember is that, even if you get lots and lots of money, you're probably still going to feel put upon and used and not have a good time, a lot of the time. You'll probably eat better, though.

But I should tell you, if you don't mind about having money, the absolute easiest way to have a good time is to accept that life involves pain and be consciously grateful for the good things you have, every day. People enjoy people like that. And having friends and family who love you is probably the number one way, worldwide, to have a good time. But you have to remember to practice, every day, so it gets easier. I have to remember too. I forgot today. That's why I thought I'd write you.

I love you.



C.