Normal State

One finds that, humans, as a whole, are apt to have anxiety over upcoming events of varying significance. For instance, one might have anxiety over a job interview, or a wedding, or going out in public, or whether they will die young, or whether their blog is actually worth reading. Alas, such anxiety can render gastrointestinal tracts harmful, and create an entire host of sickly physical responses.

One way, then, to combat having anxiety over specific events, large in scale or not, would be to simply have one's default state as having anxiety all the time. This assures one that they will not have to deal with a sudden influx of anxiety at certain, important times, but instead conditions them to accept anxiety, and all its baggage, as part of the menagerie of life experiences, with the possible result of becoming used to anxiety and simply having it as part of day-to-day existence.

Degradation

One finds that, given the present author's job - one in which very few skills and little mental capacity are required - the present author's skills in areas of math, socialization, learning, and multitasking have all suffered from degradation at not being used. Given the fact that the present author also does not possess any sort of degree that suggests at one point that these skills were in fact present (which, itself, is a very contentious claim), it is reasonable to assume that the degradation of what limited skill the present author even had in the first place renders said author without any appreciable talent or marketable skill.

And The Night Swallowed Us While Nobody Was Looking

It's 12:30 AM on a Sunday that some people think is still Saturday and someone is working their ass off at their own company even though the healthy thing would be to be in bed and having a good night's sleep.

A man kisses someone he loves in South Dakota.

Restaurants are still open on the west coast where a woman spills coffee on an expensive dress she picked up with some friends at a trendy shop in San Diego so she could impress tonight's date.

Someone drives their car through fields and holds their hand out the window and feels the warm summer air caress it as they see fireflies dance over the tall grass.

A club is just getting started for the night.

A man sweeps up trash after extra hours in Disney World and wonders why he is stuck working the graveyard shift.

In Tokyo a woman sits down for a late lunch. It is the last lunch she will ever eat.

A man kills another man with a gun.

A woman gives birth and decides her child is the most beautiful thing in the world.

Two young kids stay up way past their bedtime watching old Godzilla movies and making shadow puppets on the wall and are oblivious to the existential crisis that awaits them as they age.

The moon is high in the sky.

A plastic bag gets blown down our street but there is no American Beauty to eulogize its existence.

I crawl into bed and decide that today is worth nothing and tomorrow is the same.

The sun sets in Hawaii over the ocean and some friends decide to do the same thing again tomorrow night.

Easy

It's been said that, nothing in life is easy, by an abundance of people from various walks of life. The present author would like to contend that this turn of phrase is not, indeed, a foolproof statement, as some things, like failure, do come easy, rendering the vast majority of humans as disparaging existentialists, and the statement as anything but universal, considering how commonly the present author does, indeed, proceed to fail, demonstrating that some things in life are easy.

Hierarchy of Realities

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs may be a crude and pseudo-scientific attempt to classify human needs, but the present author would like to suggest a new pyramid; aptly named, Maslow's Hierarchy of Realities, in which each layer of the pyramid is represented not by needs, but by what each individual human is likely to experience over the course of their lifetime. Luckily, such a pyramid is rather simple to draw or represent visually, as it contains simply one section that encompasses the entire pyramid, and said section simply reads "Failure," in order to represent the inescapable folly of which all humans suffer under. 

DOPAmine

L-dopa? Side effects. Have to have green tree extract. Increases dopamine, but eventually tolerance and melancholy result. So much for a long-term fix.

Serotonin reuptake inhibitors? Prescriptions, only options. Too many and serotonin syndrome kicks in, fatal.

Cigs? Serotonin-norepinephrine-dopamine. Hits all three, feels good, dies down in about 5 minutes, leaves you smelling like shit. Cancer sticks.

Cocaine? Breaks down the blood-brain barrier. Dependence. Withdrawal side effects. Cost. Danger.

Kratom? Inconsistent. Fantastic one batch, dud the next. Tastes like shit. Make your own pills, dozens of them, and swallow them. Work. Time. Dependence.

Kava? Who needs livers anyways. What's the latest? Some swear by it. Others swear it will destroy your liver.

Caffeine? Hah. We're all immune, and those who aren't get the shakes. Limited dopamine agonist. Never felt anything, myself.

So many ways to try to feel better, so many ways to kill yourself, so many prices to pay.

Cigarettes

I will never besmirch someone for smoking. I will besmirch someone for smoking in the presence of others, particularly children, but if you've never smoked a cigarette, it's hard to understand what makes them so compelling, especially to those overworked and underpaid and those with high anxiety, or those in creative industries. It is a triple reuptake inhibitor, an antidepressant on steroids, dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine suddenly coursing through you, confidence coming in waves, an appreciation for the world, a creative spark, a love of people. It remains one of the best legal highs on the market, better than kratom, less memory-destroying than Xanax. It is no wonder people get addicted, people turn to it, people depend on it. We need to be asking ourselves what we can do to provide people who are smoking said positive feelings without having them rely on cancer sticks. Life is stressful. Escapes are sometimes needed. Alas, sometimes the easiest ways to escape carry with them the greatest tendency towards self-harm.

Coffee

One finds that, as one gets older, one is more predisposed to drinking coffee. Given that coffee does not change in flavor as one ages, and retains its bitter nature, one has to wonder what it is that drives adults to drink something that as kids they can't stand - and if it is indeed some deeper metaphor for simply putting up with something we do not like - as everyone else does it, and life is a series of timed events doing things we don't like, punctuated briefly by short timed events of things we do.

A Repeat

2016, while possessing qualities distinct from 2015, also possesses some qualities that are similar, i.e., the present author has submitted a large number of short stories to journals and contests in an effort to get published, only to receive rote, bot-formed rejection emails. Given that 2017 will also be like 2016 before it, in this way, it can be expressed that the present author has a degree of ability to predict the future. That said future has an almost 100% guarantee of occurrence renders said ability rather unimpressive.