Despicable Fate

As I was sitting at the airport waiting for my flight just over a week ago, I was reading through the only magazine that even remotely caught my attention when I was browsing through the store in the terminal. It was an astronomy magazine that had a cover article about how physicists are saying that time-travel may actually be possible.

I think the main reason I got the magazine is because I’ve often believed that time travel is impossible and only can only happen in the small confines between the ears of people given to dreams and too much imagination. Yet this was an article telling of well-schooled scholars who are convinced that it can happen.

Not to get too technical about how they said it could happen, but their theories are mainly based on Einstein’s theory of relativity. They argue that according to the theory, time travel would be possible if conditions were right and that since the theory has proven true thus far, that the time-travel aspect of the theory would as well.

I was pondering this whole thing for a while today as I was also pondering the fact that I’ve gotten myself into a bit of a situation. I wonder if time travel was possible and people could go back and change events and choices in their lives if they would really do it (or be able to do it), or if perhaps there is some other unseen force besides time that would drive people and events to always turn out the same. Perhaps that would be called “fate.”

Just over two and a half years ago my car was broken into one night while it was in the driveway of my parent’s house (where I lived at the time). I had a fairly decent system in there which was taken, along with 150 or so CD’s.

Up until that time I had been very responsible with credit cards and debt and things of that sort. Up until then I nearly always paid off any credit card balances every month and only rarely charged something that would take more than a month to pay off. This was partly because of the fact that I despised the idea of paying interest to a bank, and partly because I hated the idea of being in the hole.

Yet my car was broken into.

I felt violated. I felt rage. I felt lost without all the music that had been such a constant part of my life for so many years.

That was the trigger that sent me on my first real “fuck-it-all” spending spree.

That same day I went to Audio King (now Ultimate Electronics) and blew almost $5,000, that I didn’t have, on new stereo equipment. I also went that same day and applied for a permit to buy a handgun, which I got a week later.

There have been a few times I’ve come close to climbing out of the hole since then, yet I always do something and blow a bunch of money and end up in a shittier spot than when I started.

I had hoped to be out of debt by the end of this year, but I know that’ll never happen now. Not including my mortgage or the monthly bills like phones and gas and utilities, I’m currently over $16,000 in the hole.

What does this have to do with time-travel?

You see, I was trying to honestly figure out if I would still have gone on that first spending spree if I had known what I’d be like now and how deep in the hole I’d be today. It’d be nice to think, “No, I would’ve been much smarter and would’ve made much better choices if I knew where it’d stick me in the future.” Yet in all honesty, I probably would’ve just had the same attitude I had when I went and blew all the money the first time (and every subsequent time); I would’ve just said, “Fuck it,” and I would’ve spent it anyhow.

But now I’m a spending addict. I spend because I hate the thought of having to tell myself “no” when I want something, because somehow it reminds me of when I was a kid and we were poor. I spend because I walk into a store and I’m as impulsive as fucking Paris Hilton at Sach’s Fifth Avenue. I spend when I’m in a shitty mood because somehow it feels good to think that I might be able to buy something to get my mind off of whatever. I spend because I’m kind of alone at the present and sometimes the solitude is more than I can bear and many times drives me to the point of insanity, so spending helps keep me “sane.”

I guess when you get down to the root of everything, I’m just an addict. No need to say what kind, because I’m addicted to (or have been) to damn near everything a person can be addicted to. Fuck, I’m addicted to being addicted to things. How messed up is that?

God, I’m a vile, despicable, disgusting excuse for a human being. I don’t even have the willpower to control myself.

When I was young and I’d have those dreams where people or things were trying to kill me (which strangely happened rather often) I would always wake up and think, “If that happened in real life, I know I’d survive because I’d have the sheer will to do it.”

In all reality, I’d probably be the first one in line to die.

There are tons of other instances I could pull from my own life, as I’m sure most people could pull from their own lives, to point to and say, “Yeah, I’d probably do it the same even if I knew the outcome.” We humans may have “free will,” but I’m pretty sure that the extent of that free will is to make the decisions that fate has already chosen for us.

Or perhaps it’s more like playing chess against an unbeatable opponent. We have “free will” to make any move we want as long as it’s within the rules. Yet in the end, all our efforts only lead to checkmate.

Maybe someday things will be different. Maybe someday things will be better. Maybe someday I’ll be the last one standing.

Then again, maybe not. I suck at chess.

*
“It’s the saddest thing when angels fly away
*
I can’t be home tonight
I’ll make it back
It’s alright
No one could ever love me
Half as good as you.”
*
Cold