Why am I here?

A question I’m certain we are all familiar with. Some time ago, I had a rather striking epiphany on this very topic. As is my habit, I recorded my thoughts on the matter in my personal journal. All of which I will now gladly share with you.

It begins on a train…

Saturday, March 17th, 9:48 AM

Scores of giant metallic wheels squeal and grind as they roll across the rails below me. Even with my headphones on, blasting Kermit the Frog’s timeless melody, “Rainbow Connection”, I could still hear the electronic bell chime aboard the RTD lightrail.

“This is the Bellview Station.” A disembodied female voice declared,

Out of my seat I rose, and as I prepared to disembark the lady in the speakers continued to announce possible transfers to Union Station and Lincoln destinations. I couldn’t help but notice, as I always do, I was the only one getting off the train. This must be the most unpopular station departure in all of Denver. Or, more likely, since it’s the Tech Center, most people commuting to this area can afford to do so by car. Either way, I emerged from the train, a solitary specter of pedestrianism, and began my lonely trek to work. It’s a roughly 15 minute walk to my restaurant and my shift began at 10:00. I would undoubtedly be late (and nonchalant) as per usual.

The sun was about halfway to it’s zenith at this hour, and shining brilliantly. Colorado’s weather had been abnormally warm this year. Almost as though spring had walked through the door hand in hand with winter, announcing obnoxiously that they were now a “thing”. With the warm glow of their new found love on my back, I made my way uphill upon the cracked and aging sidewalk and towards the busy intersection at Belleview Ave. As I passed the Taco Bell and crested the hill I felt my guts begin to twist and writhe. Not in reaction to the rancid smell of gallons upon gallons of toxic refried beans and what passes for beef “product”… nay. The disturbance which roiled about deep within me had a far more sinister origin.

I had to poop.

Realizing that I was already late to work, I momentarily considered restraining my bowels in order to arrive in what would be considered at least modestly late fashion. Were I to detour for a deposit, I knew with absolute certainty the nature of my lateness could push into the “heinously” or even “unforgivably” realm.

Yet, I had little choice. As the science officer and the captain of my bridge argued back and fourth the moral imperatives of punctuality amidst flashing red lights and blaring klaxons; the engineer cried desperately over the intercom in a silly Scottish accent,

“CAPTAIN! We’re moments away from Total Fecal Discharge! I don’t think she can hold out much longer!”

Opening side-work be damned. I veered off course and toward a nearby gas station.

Maximum warp.

I shuffle stepped over to the streetlight post and like a cracked-out pimp began to slap the crosswalk button like it owed me money. As an angel from heaven, the white walking man did conquer my foe, Satan’s flashing red palm; and I carried my cramping bowels across the street – toward salvation.

Without so much as a ‘hello’ to the station attendant I b-lined into the bathroom, dropped my pack, and shed my pants. Squatting over the toilet bowl just in time for my sphincter to blast its contents into the icy water below.

And blast it did.

Explosive, short, and sweet; releasing my insidious payload brought instant relief.

My transaction now complete, I reached for the toilet-paper only to find (to my great dismay) there was none to be had!

Desperately my hand probed the innards of the plastic beast in which contained the necessary tools for my personal sanitation. Alas, I searched in vain.

My need for cleanliness was great, and thus I resolved to improvise. I scanned the room for an alternative device with which to cleanse that which had been rendered filthy. My hopes soared when I spotted the paper-towel dispenser immediately to my left, and just within reach, but only just. However, no sooner had they begun to take flight than did the pilot of those soaring hopes smash (in dramatic fashion) the glass protecting the eject button and send himself caroming into the sky. Their maiden flight cut woefully short, my hopes plummeted earthbound and in flames. Though there was indeed a roll of paper present, it was placed atop the dispenser rather than conveniently inside (where it belonged) and just outside of reach, but only just.

I had little choice but to raise myself up off of my porcelain cathedra, cautiously aware of my squalid anus and reach for the bulky roll of towels. Upon appropriating them, I peeled off a generous portion of the paper and set to work restoring my buttocks to holy cleanliness.

The moment I applied the paper to skin-oh-so-tender I realized (with utmost precision) how roughly it was fabricated. I may as well have been wiping with sand-paper.

Or shark skin.

I grit my teeth and continued about my agonizing task until it was complete. Leaving my posterior restored to purity – if not ravaged and raw by the coarse paper.

It was in this particular moment I entered into what can only be described as a mild form of existential crisis.

Without much context I’m afraid that you, my poor unfortunate reader, will be lost. I shall therefore inform you of my most recent meditations on the subject of predestination. While I’m not certain I myself believe in such things, the very nature of such a concept has brought me much fascination and ample hours of philosophical meanderings. So…

Now it’s time to get philosophical.

Let’s say there is a god.

Okay, maybe not a spaghetti monster. Nor a fire breathing lobster or a pedophilic elephant. More like a great, giant, white-haired man in the sky who looks down upon us all lovingly and speaks in a deep, soulful voice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s what I’m talking about, right there.

 

 

 

If we are to take into account the majority of philosophical writing concerning such a being (Morgan Freeman) we could be here for ages. Instead, I will simply summarize in as deft a manner as possible on this awkward little blog of mine, the qualities of the aforementioned deity (Morgan Freeman). The god we are calling into question (Morgan Freeman) is considered to be Omnipotent (all powerful), Omniscient (all knowing), and Omnipresent (existing at every moment at every place, throughout space/time).  It is easy to see how a god (Morgan Freeman) on this level of existence could without effort create and manipulate the flow of events to his (Morgan Freeman’s) will. The fabric of history would simply be an elaborate tapestry and we the very fibers so expertly spun into it.

Now, let’s suppose this god (Morgan Freeman) created each person (myself implicitly for the purpose of this blog) with a highly specific purpose and loosed them upon the Earth as a means to fulfill his (Morgan Freeman’s) divine will. Being the infinitesimally small creature that I am, I would have no way of knowing what this purpose was. Utterly ignorant of why I was created or why I am here. Even if guided by hand through the entire course of my microcosm; it’s far too big a tapestry, far too grand a design, for a single fiber to be privy of it’s completeness. It dawned on me, (as I sat poised upon the John) with no way of being certain, I could be living out my entire purpose for being in that exact moment.

Hear me out on this.

Knowing the type of person I am, I took careful stock of my genuinely altruistic nature. I wouldn’t want any one else to suffer the ordeal I had just lived through. Considering this fact, upon exiting the restroom, I would no doubt inform the attendant of the lack of sanitary – comfortable – sanitary paper. Being so informed, the attendant would likely remedy the situation with haste.

Therefore, the next person to grace that same seat with their cheeks would not be forced to scrape clean their most sensitive of regions with what might as well have been steel wool. Lined with barbs. Filled with lemon juice. And pepper extract. And poison.

I could even take it a step further.

What if some old lady, some sweet blue-haired old lady, were the next person to occupy that plastic seat? What if, as I was forced to do, she reached for that roll of paper towels on its perch so high? Being the tiny, frail, old lady she is – she slips. She falls. Her hip shatters into hip-dust. The hand, connected to the wrist, which has wrapped around it the Life Alert bracelet, which would be her only possibility of any help what-so-ever, in a tragic twist of fate only feasible in fiction, falls into the bowl of the toilet and shorts out, frying poor, poor granny into a crispy corpse clinging to its own feces! (Because when a person is electrocuted their muscles tense and their fists clench. Having just relieved herself… you get the idea. I shouldn’t have to spell these things out.)

I saved an old ladies life that day.

And all it cost me was a sore butthole.

Heroes must make sacrifices, after all.

I’m a freaking hero.

 

 

 

 

 

That’s one possible outcome I suppose.

Likely, I did little more than spare another person’s orifice the indignity of a scratchy paper towel.

 

 

This however, begs the question…

What if that was my only purpose in this life? As we established earlier, it is nigh impossible to know with any certainty our preordained purpose in life and less so how our personal fate is tied into the ultimate spectacle of creation in its entirety. If, of course, such purposeful a design does indeed exist. Supposing it does, however, one can’t help but wonder at each moment – no matter how great or miniscule – is this it? Is this my destiny?

What if our supposed god (Morgan Freeman) simply cared, and cared deeply, about the next rectum to enter that room? What if I was created and slipped into the time stream for the elect purpose of preserving that perineum?

It seems to have a vaguely biblical ring about it, don’t you think?

“Thus did his anus suffer, that thine may know comfort.”

Amen.

“God preordained, for his own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their sin, to eternal damnation.”
― John Calvin