October, 2006: The Letter I Sent To Chuck Palahniuk
Piss, shit or fuck.
Given that everything has already been
done by Jesus or written by Shakespeare, I find myself properly unable
to express myself completely. I’d like to blame those two – but I don’t
like to take the easy outs the rest of my Nintendo generation seems to
want to. I like difficult situations that define instead of easy answers
to redundant questions. I hate rote, but work at a university. Figure
that one out.
Enough of that. I’m writing to you as you are one
of the last great bastions of western intellect and this is my awful,
amateur attempt to save my goddamned eternal soul. Since leaving high
school in 1999, I’ve felt largely disconnected and dissatisfied with the
majority of everything everywhere. At first, I figured it was just my
being shat out into the real world – and keeping busy with large
quantities of Sam Adams and fucking a bunch of girls kept me from
thinking too heavily on it. Now I’m 25, facing down the barrel of 2007
and have done nothing with my life. No higher education, a menial job,
no girlfriend. Unless the afterlife smiles upon a respectable film music
collection – I’m pushing zilch.
At the risk of sounding like
some terrible rock cliché, it all seems for naught. On one hand, I’m
pulled toward the extreme of living some impossible romantic lifestyle
as some kind of wandering journeyman. Maybe Chris McCandless had the
right idea. On the other hand, I also feel the pull to be a working,
shitting, drinking human being that is personable and well-known. The
mess of the situation is like Travis Bickle, Willy Loman and Holden
Caulfield all rolled into one confused mix. I feel singularly like one
of the lost masses.
Everyone tells you that you need to have a
career and a wife and a fairly nice car. However, I can’t seem to get my
hands around it for reasons I don’t understand. Everything is
dissatisfying. People my age seem soft-minded and square-jawed. Either
I’m too mature for my age or being unsociable is the new NBC Today Show
buzzword.
You want goals? How about my being here a year from
now. You want recent accomplishments? How about getting through the last
year.
I won’t regale you with the boredom that details my
everyday life, save to say I haven’t fucked a woman in a year, I spent
the majority of my money on music, I regret quitting smoking and am
generally fed up with a whole lot of things. I sense a lot of such
things in your books – a protagonist as much afraid of the world as he
is being the Übermensch (though I don’t think I’m a Nietzsche-esque
creation).
Am I missing something? Twenty-five and still living
at home. Am I wrong in being dissatisfied with so much? Is it truly too
much to ask for some great moment or crisis to occur, just so I can find
out what I really am? Where was that wrong turn I made? Is life always
hope with empty meaning?
I’m not asking you for answers, per se. A
direction, perhaps. You seem to be an anwser man of sorts and I
probably seem as lost and disjointed as this letter.
I truly
appreciate the chance to write to you, knowing you’ll read this and give
me an honest anwser – be it a “fuck you” or a “fuck that”.
Many ernest thanks to you in advanced for your expected reply and the best of everything to you and yours.
======
November 22, 2006: Chuck's Reply
Dear Justin,
Wow... you want answers from me? After I wrote "Survivor"?
You
at least have a pretty nice family, or my guess is that you'd have fled
at 18. They must make it pretty comfortable, or you'd be out on your
own now. Maybe they like keeping you around.
I hope by the time
this arrives you're feeling better. Maybe even regretting your letter, a
little. Things are always at their worst just before they change. We
seem to have to reach a crisis - suffer enough pain - before we'll
abandon our old way of being, and risk something really new.
The
trick is always recognizing this and holding on. Yes, life is unstable
and slippery and gets sucky fast - but that also means it can get
better, really fast.
To help tide you over until better times,
I'm sending an early Christmas-like stocking package. Here's some
retired book tour stories to fill your head with more darkness. And
other sundry stuff to make a mess when you get the box open.
At
your age, I was terrified. My worst fear was becoming the cautionary
tale my family would tell for generations: Whatever you do with your
life, don't end up like Uncle Chuck. I could see myself dead in some
Marla Singer downtown hotel room. That said, picture yourself dead.
You're dead and rotted and everyone's stopped crying and started to
forget how you looked. You are gone.
Now, worst case realized,
what does that give you the freedom to do? Give yourself ten days to
resolve everything - like you would before a suicide. Tell everyone you
love or hate them. Give away stuff. Let go of all the shit you hold on
to. My bet is that ten days later, you won't die.
Thats just a
secret method I use myself. Like doing your own Human Sacrifice. Die
without dying. Then get born. And just in case no one else says it:
Merry Christmas.
I'll shut up now,
Chuck Palahniuk
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