The Shaggiest Dog

"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1:9

My name is Timothy, or Tim.

I'm thirty years old, born in 1989.

My interests include writing, philosophy, art, history, psychology, social engineering, computer programming, biotech, and, especially, music.

Kurt Vonnegut, my favourite author, once wrote the following: "If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: The only proof he ever needed for the existence of God was music."

Years after first reading Man Without A Country, and, consequently, the above quotation, I was then exposed to abnormal psychology, especially the deeply valuable and important work of the late Oliver Sacks who, famously, treated late-stage dementia by playing music. That's not entirely true, because, as you'll soon discover, I'm an unreliable narrator. I know, I know. "New Sincerity", a respectable writer living in the 21st century should not be writing this metafictional, postmodern, gimmicky, bullshit. I guess now I can't write an homage to my favourite author, thank-you very much, David Foster Wallace.

Of course, Vonnegut was an absurdist who thought we were here to 'fart around'. He attempted suicide seven times and every attempt, I'm sure, corroded against his self-esteem like isopropyl alcohol against the tar build-up in Wallace's favourite bong. He attempted suicide because he was a war veteran who was ill-at-ease with the war he participated in. David Foster Wallace was a vaguely religious gen Xer with a history of drug abuse. Who do you think is more likely to kill themselves? A war veteran suffering from PTSD, or a Gen Xer with a Calvinist work ethic?

Well, anyone who knows both authors knows what I'm getting at, though, I imagine, that Venn diagram looks like John Lennon's sunglasses.

I know better than that. Of course I know better than that. I know what anecdotal evidence is. I know that David Foster Wallace was withdrawing from anti-depressants. But his whole philosophy, which exists in direct opposition to Vonnegut's, well, it ended up killing him, didn't it? So, a'la Breakfast of Champions, I'm tossing Infinite Jest over my shoulder, and into the gutter. It doesn't make it any less 'high culture', rather, it makes me feel better about participating in so-called 'low culture'.

Of course, I don't hate David Foster Wallace, just like I don't love Kurt Vonnegut, I never knew either of these people personally, but I know them by virtue of their writing, by virtue of their interviews, and by virtue of me being somewhat of a writer myself. What's funny to me is that, for all his contempt of postmodernist literature, 'Breakfast of Champions' ends up being a TL;DR of 'Infinite Jest'. Even cooler, contained within Breakfast of Champions is a TL;DR of both, Kilgore Trout's epitaph: "We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane."

I think, on some deep, possibly entirely unconscious, level, poor ol' DFW thought he could save the world with his writing.

Vonnegut, in stark contrast to the seriousness with which DFW felt writing should be treated, once wrote the following: "Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae." (Palm Sunday, again)

Humans, all of us, are paradoxes, and I am no exception. The universe itself, on some basic level, appears to be a paradox. As someone who has 'searched his entire life for truth and beauty and hasn't found doodley-squat' (a'la Kilgore Trout, Breakfast of Champions) I can assure you that any search for any kind of ultimate truth will leave you confused and disappointed, and any true understanding of beauty will leave you feeling estranged toward your own aesthetic interests. If you can bear the estrangement, though, eventually you can become the type of person whose aesthetic is love, and love alone.

Here's a lyric that feels relevant: "The beautiful's problems are of a different part, to we harnessed horses pulling their cart." That's from Unfair II, a song by... Jock Cheese...

Okay, I know, and I'm sorry, but need I remind you that Mozart, the dude who basically defined classical music, once wrote a symphony called "Leck mich im Arsch"? The most appropriate English translation would be "Kiss My Arse", but, literally, it translates to "Lick me in the arse."

If God exists, and that's a big if, he/she/they has put us in a box labelled 'first drafts' that they keep in some damp corner of a cluttered garage.

The following quote is from an Anonymous post on ROBOT9001, a Futaba-inspired imageboard on an infamous online backwater, and progenitor of incel culture:

"For most Robots the best thing money can do for them is give them a fresh, new, comfortable, environment that is free from psychological triggers.

Anything else is a distraction that is as equally empty as scrolling imageboards. Consumer goods end up being a pain in the ass beyond a certain threshold, mere accumulation of capital is just Eve Online but without cool space fights. Beyond providing a suitable living space, and more opportunities for developing personal projects, wealth is far from the panacea people think it is.

Remember seeing all those homeless dudes jump off the top of tall buildings during the eighties and early nineties?

Yeah, me neither."

I can’t remember what inspired this premise, that of a malevolent God, I can’t remember if I read The Sirens of Titan (feat. The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent) before, or after, considering this premise. As far as premises go it seems like low-hanging fruit and, yet, judging by how many people in the world not only believe in the existence of God, but in conflating God with love, it might just appear to me as low-hanging fruit because I’m an exceptionally tall primate.

I think I did come up with the premise of a malevolent God before I read The Sirens of Titan. I think what inspired the premise was my crummy childhood.

No amount of praying for love has brought love into my life, at least, not the love I want, not the love I need. I suppose you could say that makes me 'entitled', a pathetic incel, or some kind of Steven Morrisey wannabe. England is mine: And it owes me a living.

I’m pretty sure, had I been born in Hollywood, I would not nearly be as good at writing, since I probably could have made a decent living just through pitch meetings. Kurt Vonnegut had an agent called ‘Knox Burger’ who once said ‘It’s often more gratifying to hear stories pitched than it is to actually read them’. My hope with this is I can share with you an original, personal, story about my own grappling with the human condition, while keeping it interesting enough, in a narrative sense, to stave off the casual ennui that can often come from reading such diatribes.

There is a clear, cultural, throughline, which extends from Buddha, to Diogenes, to Jesus, to Bukowski, and now to me, I guess. What is one to make of this throughline?

Nothing.

And what should be made of a story which only features a little black book as an example of a paradox, to point out that such a book does not exist within this story?

Who knows? Who cares?

And what of the rule that states that this story must include a plot point in which a person comes across 20,000 dollars?

Well, if you can't tell by now, I write my own stories.

So, when will our protagonist find his 20,000 dollars?

I'll leave it up to you to decide.