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There is no handbook for life. Not that I know of, anyway, and if there was, I doubt I’d listen to it. What’s the fun in that? It would be big and heavy anyway, and hard to lug around. People would just sit around their houses with their handbooks, because they wouldn’t want to lose them or let anyoen else borrow them. Which is a shame, because they’d only have to read the chapter about sitting around the house. But then again, life would be so easy. Imagine a script for life: everyone knows exactly what to say and where to be all the time. You walk down the street and a director is shouting your lines at you because you missed your last line and you’re holding everyone up. And life would be so melodramatic... plot twists, car crashes, good guys always winning in the end. I don’t think God would write a boring script. He invented the platypus, for crying out loud. Ultimately, the fact of the matter is that life has no handbook. Sure, the Bible tells us what we should be doing. But in order for it to be an effective handbook, people have to do what it says. This is a shame also, but life is life. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves. And don’t give me that “Life is Beautiful” crap, because it’s not. Life can be beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but it isn’t beautiful in itself. Anyone who has driven through Galveston, Texas, will back me up on this one. Some of life is beautiful, but definitely not all. People can be beautiful. And I’m not talking small waist or sparkling blue eyes. People can be ugly, too. I’m talking mean. People can be mean. For no reason... they’re just mean. But I don’t judge people. I think people are inherently good, so people who are often mean probably have a pretty good reason. Maybe someone was mean to them. But that doesn’t make sense: if every mean person is mean because someone was mean to them, and that person was mean because someone was mean to him, then that means there would be a long line of mean people from the beginning of time. Was there an original mean person? What made him mean? Maybe a wooly mammoth accidentally stepped on his foot. That would make someone mean, at least for a while. People can be beautiful, too, of course. Friends are beautiful. A real friend won’t mind giving you a ride anywhere you need. I can’t ask people for rides. It’s hard for me to ask for anything. It’s not that I’m afraid to inconvenience them, because a friend is not inconvenienced by his or her friends 99% of the time. It’s just that I’m afraid that, with my luck, I’d ask for something in that 1% when they’re in a bad mood or their boyfriend or girlfriend just dumped them. The handbook for life would have lots to do with love, in terms of getting it, keeping it, and using it. And not losing it. It would tell me and everyone else on Earth who their lifelong soulmate would be, so I wouldn’t have to much about with the whole “I wonder if she likes me” business that seems to have bothered me since the fifth grade or so. I think the book would also tell us how to avoid a Hell when you die. If there is a Hell. I definitely believe in Heaven, but Hell is hard to believe. The whole fire, pitchforks, and men-in-red-suits Hell doesn’t make much sense to me. Where is it? Underground? Galveston? Mars? The heating bill would be incredible. Money doesn’t grow on trees in Hell. Trees don’t grow in Hell. You can’t water anything in a pit of flame, and the water would require pumps and pipes, wouldn’t it? Who takes care of the plumbing? The men in red suits? Should they be busy tormenting someone who was too mean in life (thanks to that wretched mammoth)? What if the pipes break and Hell floods? The fires would go out! I don’t think I need a handbook, to be completely honest. I’m doing fine as it is, I think. Maybe I should be doing work instead of writing this pointless essay. As soon as I figure it out, I’ll tell you. |
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