What Makes Life Worth Living?

The Man in Black, the coolest country singer I heard growing up, singing the Nine Inch Nails song "Hurt."  With this bittersweet cover, nearing the end of his life, Johnny Cash touched a generation who was largely unaware of him.  This song sent thousands back into his life of songwriting about the struggles of life we all face and try to cope with.

From 1982, riding my BMX bike nearly every day was the main thing that helped me cope with the stress and pain and craziness of life.  As I got more into riding, first racing, and then freestyle, I did what most BMXers did in the 1980's.  I told my family and friends it was all about winning a race, or winning a trophy at the next freestyle contest.  I told them I was "practicing" to win a "competition."  Average people understood that.  That's what mainstream sports were for.  You practiced to become a "winner" by beating another team on a certain day.

But BMX riding wasn't about that, tough I managed to convince myself that it was, for a few years.  Really, like most BMXers and skaters and surfers and snowboarders, I was escaping.  My bike was the vessel that took me away from the craziness of the world for a couple of hours.  I could do whatever I wanted.  I could go fast and just pedal to blow off steam and vent frustration.  I could practice a flatland move over and over and over, a moving meditation of sorts.  Some days I would just ride around the Jeep trails of the desert outside Boise for hours.

BMX was never really about "winning" for me.  It was about survival.  I think that's why so many riders are still doing it now, in their 40's and 50's.  That's why it's a lifestyle sport, using the term "sport" very loosely.  It's not a hobby.  It's something we need, something simply necessary, no matter our age, to deal with this wonderful, terrible, incredible, painful opera called life on Earth.

Loser and Bitch... a love story
In the late 1990's working at Cirque du Soleil, I met a woman several years younger than me.  She was a petite little thing, really cute, but with a huge attitude.  One of our first days working in the box office, she came in and started bitching about something at her other job.  After venting about someone getting pissed at her there, I said, half jokingly, "Doesn't he know you're bitch?"  She jumped off her stool stomped over to mine, and punched me in the arm.  Hard.  It actually hurt.  "Loser," she snapped, as she walked back to her spot.  But she smiled a little.  We ate lunch together in the Cirque cuisine that day, hit it off, and became friends.  From that day on, she called me Loser and I called her Bitch.

On one hand, she was like a second chance at the little hotties I'd never hooked up with in high school.  She was smart and funny and cute and feisty as could be.  We became really close friends, but never did hook up.  Yet we could talk about anything.  We both came from families that were more dysfunctional than most.  Between us, we had more issues than a magazine rack at Barnes & Noble.  We both had sick senses of humor, and made each other laugh a lot.

But she was also a cutter. One three occasions, I called her when she was in her room at home, dragging the a razor blade lightly across her wrist.  One night, the first, was worse than the other two.  She didn't seem to fit in anywhere, much like me, freaks even in the crazy world of Southern California.  She was in the depths of depression and saw no future.  She was completely suicidal, something the majority of people don't understand, though half think about at some point.

The popular belief is that suicidal people want to kill themselves.  In most cases, that isn't true.  In my experience, most of the time, it isn't that a suicidal person wants to die, what they really want is to escape the incredible pain of living that they just can't take anymore.  They want away from it, out of the pain, and killing themselves seems the best way to do that at times.  In those times, depression envelopes them, like a dark, humid, tangible cloud of pain, depression, and self-loathing.  That's where Bitch was on those nights, the razor blade nights.

On the first of those, the worst one, I knew by talking to her on the phone that I may never see her again. The cloud of darkness was worse than ever, and that really bummed me out.  I loved that crazy little chick.  So I did the best thing I could think of, knowing her pretty well at that point.  I fucked with her, I helped her plan the perfect suicide.

"So how you gonna do it?" I asked.  "Please tell me you're not going to do the whole razor blade in the bathtub thing, that is so fucking cliche'."  "Fuck you," she snapped.  Then she told me she was sitting next to the tub on her bathroom floor.  "Are you naked?" I asked.  "What? No," she replied, "Fuck you."  I continued, "You're hot, I mean you have to kill yourself naked.  You aren't going to care, but at least the ambulance drivers get to see your hot body as they clean up the mess."  "Fuck you," she replied, a tiny bit softer than the previous ones.

"You don't have to do it tonight," I prodded, "you could do it tomorrow.  You could go BASE jumping somewhere, and just forget the parachute.  Are there any tall buildings near you?"  "You're an asshole," she snapped back.  "An asshole you've never fucked, by the way.  That's another reason you can't do it right now.  I mean, I'm a Loser, but if you're going to off yourself, you might as well let me fuck you first.  I never get laid, I'm terrible in bed, you'll be more motivated to die afterwards, I promise."  "Fuck you," she said, a little slower.  And a little softer.  I thought I heard a whisper of a smile on that "fuck you."

I kept pressing.  Several tense minutes and about 20 more fuck you's later, she started laughing.  The spell broke.  The thick dark cloud of pain and self-loathing and despair dissolved quite a bit.  "God dammit, I'm trying to commit suicide here," she said.  "I know," I responded, "I'm your friend, I'm trying to help."  She broke into more laughter.  We talked a few more minutes.  She was still incredibly depressed, and although she told me she had set the razor blade down, I knew it was still only a 50/50 chance I'd see her alive again.  She might fall right back into the deep spell of despair later that night.  And she wouldn't call me. We hung up our phones.  I didn't have a car, and she lived 15 miles away or so. Going there wasn't really an option.  I hoped things would be alright.  They were.

We helped each other through tough times for 3 or 4 years, and then went our separate ways.  We needed each other to work through certain issues we each had, for a while.  That's what all relationships are ultimately about.  I realize that now.  We are drawn to the people we're drawn to for a reason.

On that particular night, and a few more like it, I helped my friend Bitch break the spell of suicidal depression.  I was able to do that because I'd been there myself, thinking about suicide, and I knew it was a spell.  When someone is suicidal, people think that they need to give that person a reason to live for the rest of their lives.  What people need is help breaking the spell of the dark cloud of depression that has been woven by all the horrible words and actions they've experienced, and then repeated in their own thoughts until it seems impossible to escape from.  You don't have to help a suicidal person find a reason to live to 40 or 50 or 60 more years.  You just need to help them find a reason to live for ten more minutes.  And then ten more.  Then an hour more.

That is exactly what BMX freestyle did for me for the 20 years I rode nearly eve;ry day, from 1982 to 2002.  That's why I want to get a bike again, as soon as I can, to get that ability to blow off steam back.  There are some financial hurdles to make it over first, though.  But that ability to vent and escape and ride, that's why surfers surf, and skaters skate, and snowboarders board, and all the rest.  This is a part of why artists make art and writers write and musicians play.  Those are other forms of creative outlets.  And it's works of art, often created in dark times by their creators, that help everyone else get through their tough times.  That's one of the biggest reasons society NEEDS art and artists of all kinds.

I came to McDonald's tonight more depressed than I'd been in a while.  My life is somewhat challenging right now, and I was tired and frustrated and a bit of depression set in.  I set a goal today for the little business I'm trying to build up around my Sharpie art and writing.  And I did amazing today, several drawings sold.  But I didn't reach the goal I really was aiming for.  Being tired and frustrated, I started thinking about all the things that could go wrong.  I started weaving my own little spell of depression.  So I came here, got something to eat, clicked onto the wifi, and did what I often do when kind of depressed, I listened to "Hey Nonny Nonny" by The Poxy Boggards.  Yeah, try staying depressed while listening to that.  Afterwards I listened to this song, and then this song.  My little spell of minor depression was broken, and I got back to creative work, which happened to be writing this blog post.

There are times  when we wonder what life's about.  Then there are times we're doing things we love, like riding a BMX bike for me and many of my friends, or a skateboard, or creating art.  We don't question life while doing those things, because while doing them, life is worthwhile.  It feels worthwhile.  There's no need to question it.

The challenge of being human is to create a life where you spend as much of your time as possible doing the things you don't have to question, the things that are inherently worthwhile to you.  Ride, skate, play with your kids, paint, write a song, take a walk in the woods, whatever.  So start building that life. It's not supposed to be easy.  That's the whole point, to learn to handle whatever life can throw at us.