Okay, so that story had almost nothing to do with cunnilingus, but it’s relevant. See, it’s the experiences like that at a young age that made me such an eavesdropper as a kid. I was an only child and I liked attention, but no one gave a rat’s scrotum about my creative output back then, so I went for the other thing I liked: knowing stuff, which at the time meant getting good grades in school. And even if I got myself in trouble over it occasionally, I always learnt stuff faster than my peers because of it, and that made me feel smart.

Guess who ran around his Catholic school playground telling all the first-graders about sex. Me! I was a badass kid. I had to switch to public school in grade three, and thankfully they tolerated my crap a lot better.

Anyway, I liked being smart. I learnt a lot as a kid by spying on the adults. My mom would lie to me (as all parents do with young children) and I’d eavesdrop on her to learn the whole truth. Through eavesdropping and ignoring warnings that I wasn’t “old enough to understand”, I learnt how to tell when people were lying to me, why they were doing it, and how. I became an exceptionally good liar myself. By the time I was in middle school I could basically lie my way out of any trouble I got into at school. It was cool.

Now I obviously don’t eavesdrop on people anymore, nor encourage others over the age of 10 to do so. It’s a pretty rude breach of people’s privacy, and once you get older most of the things you’d hear from it would serve no purpose other than gossip or blackmail. But I still engage in what some call people watching.

When I’m in stores and other public places, I overhear snippets of strangers’ conversations. I’m not eavesdropping or spying on them, I just think hearing statements out of context from people I don’t know is fun, and by utilizing my aforementioned ability to piece together contextual clues, I can use it as a way to find creative inspiration.

• Nice date with a cool attractive person who holds a good conversation: good.
• Eye-opening discussion with life-long best friend: fantastic.
• Trying to piece together why that gangbanger and elderly Chinese woman are talking about the Spanish Inquisition: priceless.

Do this for a while and take some notes. I’m not saying you should sit in the coffee shop with binoculars and an ear trumpet, but just listen to the people around you during your everyday life. You’ll have a cache of different characters in your writing repertoire to draw from later, when you’re feeling lazy. Write a couple of weird strangers into a room with a normal person and they might tell you what you should write.

Then there’s, “I learnt how to perform cunnilingus while on holiday with my boyfriend.” The weirdest thing I’ve ever heard a gay man say. I mean, he had a pink v-neck, badly-dyed blond hair, and a lisp like Louis CK’s worst impression of a rollerblader. My brain’s just going to assume he loves men until I get proof to the contrary… and even then…

To this day I haven’t got a single clue what he was talking about. I like to imagine he had a Pulitzer-worthy heartwarming romance story to share with his friends in the food court. For all I know he could’ve been part of a “say something ridiculous and shocking” contest. Either way, he’s stuck out in my mind ever since, and I’m writing about him. Thanks for telling me what to write, Random Gay Dude. I couldn’t do it without you.

My mom listens to country music. Somehow, that’s related to my thoughts on suicide and life itself. As absurd as that sounds — and I’ll admit, the connection is somewhat tenuous — it makes perfect sense to me. It all boils down to the fact that people aren’t computers, and the relationships and connotations formed in their minds during the course of their lives is too complicated for anyone to really understand, least of all themselves. But as long as it makes sense to them, it essentially is, in a pragmatic sense. Wait, let me start this story from the beginning:

I don’t really like country music very much; I wouldn’t say I hate it, certainly, but it’s not a genre I actively listen to. Still, for the first 10 or so years of my life it was, with few exceptions, the only music I listened to. When you’re a kid, you don’t tend to develop your own distinct tastes very much, and since my mom listened to it all the damn time, country music was the only music I knew until I entered the preteen years and developed my own musical tastes. As a result, there are a great number of emotional country songs that aren’t necessarily good, but stick around in the back of my mind just because I was exposed to them so much. One of these songs, which I sadly can’t remember the title of, is about a man who gets the chance to go back in time and change one event in his life, but decides that he won’t do it. He says that even though he did things he regrets, those mistakes are what made him who he is, and he has grown to accept them as an important part of himself.

Growing up, I always thought I agreed with that song. Nowadays, I’m not so sure.

There are so many what ifs, so many if only I’d justs, and especially so many should I have saids — without earnestly analyzing every situation, it feels dishonest to make a blanket statement about them all, as convenient as that would be. And while it’s definitely true that I wouldn’t be the same person if some of these events had turned out differently, the real question is, do I actually want to be the person that I am?

Or am I just stuck in a sunk cost fallacy, in which I’ve invested too much to turn back?

An event in question that comes to mind every time I think about that song is January 1st, 2010. I can remember the night of that day with crystal clarity. It was the first time I actively decided to throw away social inhibition. It was the first time I ever thought going to Pizza Pizza at 3AM was a good idea. It was the first time I ever smoked weed.

I’m from Cornwall, a small place sandwiched between Ottawa and Montreal. If you know anything about weed, you know that places like Cornwall are the hotspots of pothead activity. (Incidentally, I saw a fairly good indie flick about that called Daydream Nation just last October. Look it up.) I was never a stranger to weed; I’d had a massive stoner for a friend in seventh grade, and I even held his bong for him a couple of times. I knew what it was, I knew what it did, and I knew where to get it. But it wasn’t until several years later — January 1st, 2010 — that I made the decision to try it myself.

If I could go back to that night and make different choices, would I?

I thought I wanted to have “fun”. Huge parts of me rejected the notion that I wanted to “see the world in a new way” — one person even told me that I would do just that, and I hated him. Still do. Other, even huger parts of me rejected the idea that I was doing it out of peer pressure. I had, after all, felt no desire to partake for the past several years, felt no particular pressure from anyone, and had thought about it for weeks before doing it. It wasn’t a split-second decision made in the heat of the moment — except, in retrospect, that every day of your teenage years feels like the heat of the moment, and it’s easy to fool yourself into thinking a split-second decision was made in good accord. Maybe that was the problem.

If I had to give advice to kids, I’d tell them not to smoke pot. But that’s only because I know that half of them would disobey me anyway. The fact of the matter is, a drug is a drug is a drug, and it isn’t really good or bad, it’s what you make of it. Some drugs are just harder to make positive than others. I have conflicting opinions on pot, which are pretty apparent if you read my other articles on the subject. I do firmly believe that the substance should be legal, but when it comes to its actual use… I have no idea what to honestly say about it other than the hard truth of my own experiences.

Marijuana can be fun, it can occasionally be useful, but it can also, above all, be a profound waste of time. As a social lubricant used in the same manner as alcohol, it’s completely fine (in moderation), and the laws about its cultivation and sale are absurd. The one thing it has over alcohol is its ability to inspire introspection, which can be useful — however, it’s worth remembering that the vast majority of “introspection” can more accurately be called “pointless navel-gazing”. Some time spent in one’s own thoughts is healthy, but most people don’t really have thoughts worth mulling over for any significant length of time. Marijuana has a way of tricking you into thinking that you’re deeper than you are; that’s how people become hipsters.

I’ll beat you to the joke now: I’m sober while writing this. I’ve been sober for a long time.

Back to the point, though — my decision of whether or not I should try smoking pot is one of the decisions I think about the most because it’s one of the decisions I’ve made that I can directly link to many, many major events in my life. In many ways, probably even most ways, it was positive for me — but sometimes I still wish I’d never done it. The decision I made to try it for the first time was wholly fueled by a desire to fit in, even if it didn’t seem like it at the time. It wasn’t made through an immediate thought process that blatantly said “I want to be like these people”, but it was fueled by the increasing loneliness I felt being the only person not involved in the parties, the “friends”, and all the fun I was missing out on.

As long as we’re being honest, it was a lot of fun. But not at first. It’s not until I grew up and got away from the so-called “fun” that I was able to appreciate pot for what it is: a drug. Not a lifestyle choice. The people who think otherwise are no longer my “friends”.

Usually I conclude that my decision was good, even if the reasons for it were not. I spent time rubbing shoulders with the wrong people, but they were more shitty than evil, and I’ve gained valuable experience from it. The people I’ve met have been turned into characters in my stories — one of them inspired Different, and many more of them have inspired various characters in stories I’ve yet to publish. I can tie some of my greatest accomplishments to marijuana, but how do I know if it was actually a good decision to try it in the first place? Has the good actually been worth the bad? Or would everything have been even better if I’d just never tried it in the first place?

I’ll never know. You’ll never know. It’s pointless to think about. But it’s the kind of thing you think about when you think about suicide.

One of the things I learned from smoking pot, when I’d smoked too much of it, is that life is literally one experience after another, like sequential steps in a computer program. Never, prior to pot, had I thought about how I could feel the inside of my shoes against my feet while walking, or what the exact texture of either side of a pizza slice felt like on either side of my mouth, or other inane stoner thoughts. They sound stupid (and let’s admit that they are, profoundly stupid), but that’s the kind of thing that got me to thinking: if life can be boiled down to a series of precise events and experiences, can we actually be thought of as giant, super-advanced computers?

The literal answer is… probably. I’m sure my smarmy ass of a high school science teacher would have said so. But the pragmatic answer is obviously no. Humans don’t store information in a sequential, defined manner the same way that computers do. We see life as a big cluster of emotions, thoughts, impulses, and sometimes the rare actual memory of an event. We live by connotations, not denotations; with every event being coloured by another one until we lose track of why, how, or when we got to be where we are.

Suicide is confusing because life is confusing.

Do I wish that I’d never tried pot? Maybe. When I realize that I’ve wasted an entire day getting high instead of studying, yes. When I realize that I might actually be even worse off without experiencing pot for myself, maybe not. I know people who never tried pot or alcohol until they went to university, and now they’re totally hooked and ruining what might be some of the most important years of their lives. If I didn’t try pot then, would I have tried it at an even worse time? My baby of a screenplay, the script for a movie that I have rewritten nearly five and a half times now, would never exist if I had never tried pot. But might I have written something better instead?

It’s easy to say that there’s no point worrying about the past. Except history repeats itself, and you can’t understand your future without understanding your past. Aphorisms seem to contradict themselves a lot, don’t they?

I’ve thought about suicide. Everyone has. Everyone thinks about it because life is hard. Life is really, really hard. Mainly because it’s confusing. What am I supposed to be doing with myself? How am I supposed to know?

How do I find the strength to do the right thing instead of the easy thing?

Suicide is logical. Life is far more pain than pleasure. My friends betray me. None of my dating ever goes anywhere satisfactory. I’m only passionate about career paths with no job security, and I’m not particularly confident that I’m good at them. Become a successful screenwriter? I’d love to see you do it.

I constantly find myself either being rejected, or having to grit my teeth and hate myself while rejecting someone else. I find myself writing long diatribes on the internet about my personal feelings, even though I know I look like a moron in doing so. I find myself doing all sorts of stupid, stupid things; why not suicide?

I’m not afraid of death. I never have been. It’s not denial or anything — for as long as I can remember, I’ve figured that, if I were to die, I’d be too dead to be sorry about it. But I don’t want to die. Maybe it would prove someone right. Maybe it would hurt someone I love. Maybe I just don’t know where to start and don’t want to ask.

Is the main reason I don’t commit suicide actually pride?

Suicide is confusing because life is confusing. And life is confusing because nobody know what it is, why it exists, or how to do it right. Everything just happens. I often let pragmatism dictate my actions; but if pragmatism dictated my thoughts, would I have killed myself long ago? Life is, after all, completely pointless.

Maybe that’s the point.

Or maybe I should go back in time and stop myself from ever hearing that damn country song in the first place.

Don’t pretend that you don’t know what I mean. Everyone has heard the counterexamples to this; plenty of successful, intelligent people smoke pot, and sometimes they smoke a lot of pot. That doesn’t matter. The vast, vast majority of people who smoke pot every day are lazy, stupid, and unambitious. If you disagree with this, don’t bother reading the rest of this article. I’m too busy being honest to care about people who can’t cope with reality.

There’s a very simple reason why people who smoke pot constantly are that way, though. It’s not that pot actually physiologically causes a person to behave like that (or if it does, I’m not qualified enough to know). As far as I know, it’s largely a psychological thing. Think about it: when you’re just sitting around, not doing anything, what tends to happen? You get bored. But when you’re high, you don’t get bored. Smoking pot is a great way to relax and escape the tedium of reality, but it’s also an escape from the things about reality that cause people to actually do things. If you’re just sitting around relaxing all the time, you’re being lazy. You’ll act stupid because you’ll be high all the time. You won’t be motivated to further yourself because you’ll be in a neutral state of relaxation all the time. That’s why stoners have the reputation that they have.

If you want to chase your dreams, you need the motivation to do so. If you smoke pot all the time, you’ll keep receiving the little burst of artificial happiness that being high gives you, and eventually you’ll forget how much more rewarding it is to actually do something for real. I know this because I’ve experienced it before. It’s very easy to smoke pot once, be happy, then wake up the next day and think “Hey, wouldn’t it be fun if I smoked pot again?” Pretty soon, you lose track of what you were trying to do in the first place and you end up settling for drug-induced happiness instead of actual happiness.

The scary thing is, this is an easy settlement to make. Drugs are a lot of fun.

What’s more fun than drugs? Building a house, writing a book, making a lot of money, or getting married to someone you love. What’s less fun that drugs? Doing the dishes, having a shitty job, going to class, or admitting that you’re not as successful as you always wanted to be.

Smoking pot can make all the less-fun things into more-fun things, but without all those little annoyances in your life you start to lose your motivation to achieve the actual more-fun things. Pretty soon it becomes easy to rationalize your drug intake with a line of thought that sounds an awful lot like, “Drugs make me happy without much effort, so I’ll settle for that instead of making an effort at doing something worthwhile.” That’s laziness. And the worst thing about it is, you won’t have very much respect for yourself. It might seem like you do, but when you see other people you knew in high school becoming the next Bill Gates, you’ll look at yourself and say, “What the hell did I do with my life?”

For some people, pot can cause the creative stroke of brilliance that lets them do things they only ever dreamed of. For most people, pot is just something to do for fun and really doesn’t help them at all. I always seem to hear the excuse that people are using drugs to “find themselves”. That sounds deep and meaningful when you’re sixteen, but when you get older it starts to ring hollow. How exactly are you going to find yourself if you keep using drugs to escape yourself? You need to put things in perspective in a way that indicates actual maturity.

When I see someone who has so much potential for long-term happiness throw that potential away in pursuit of short-term happiness, it’s so frustrating and depressing that I can’t put it into words. In one case, a person who did this was someone I loved like a brother, who had such an enormous impact on my life that I truly believed, even in my normally-cynical heart, that he’d be there forever. That person meant too much for me to ever fully let him go. In the end, though friendships can be repaired in time, damage is done forever, and I’ll never be able to forget the times that I’ve been lied to over a drug.

It’s easy to realize that there’s no real scientific or logical reason to make pot illegal. On paper, it seems like the people who build their lives around a drug that’s not even particularly potent or addictive could easily be ignored. It seems easy to realize that you don’t need to have them in your life. You shouldn’t have to care about them. In reality, sometimes they’re people that you love.

Their actions explain why pot is illegal better than any after-school special ever could.

You see a bunch of schlubs taking Scientologist happiness tests in the subway, you read about how a lot of Americans think their president wasn’t born in the US, or sometimes it’s just that people are generally watered-down, dull, stupid people who don’t think critically about anything and can’t spell. What the fuck is wrong with these people?

The beauty of human interaction is that even relatively stupid people can empathize with this frustration, as intelligence is not black and white but a gradient, and arguably it isn’t linear either, but more some abstract pattern which curves and spikes due to various outside influences, such as upbringing and genetics. In other words, no matter how fucking stupid you are, you’re always smarter and more insightful than someone else, because you happened to be somewhere where a lesson was learned, and they missed it by not being there. This is why even dumb kids know not to brag to their parents about getting pregnant, or walk into traffic, because they learned through first- and second-hand experience that neither of those are very good ideas.

But simply being in the right place at the right time with your eyes and ears open isn’t enough to save most people from the rapidly expanding black hole that is their own ignorance. This is evident from the fact that there are plenty of people in their old age who are still as stupid and diluted as the hood teenagers who bag their Depends at Rite-Aid, and who they just love to admonish and put down for not being successful. The difference is that these assholes have had seventy years on the Earth to figure out their shit, but instead they can’t even figure out when they have to shit.

So what is it that makes some people smart and some people incompetent? Though a lot of people would like to believe it’s all genetics and God and thetans, the truth is that it’s actually rather simple; the basis of intelligence is interest. People who are successful and intelligent and “geniuses” aren’t really endowed with something you don’t have; that’s just something we’d like to think because it gives us yet another excuse to feel deprived about something. The truth is that these people are simply interested in learning; they’re curious. If you aren’t interested in the world and how things work, you won’t learn about it. Who would have fucking thought, right?

And it’s not even something that’s terribly difficult to ascertain when you look at every day occurrences of stupidity. Many people are intense sports fanatics who follow every facet of every game and can debate these components with a shocking amount of insight and perspective, yet they will vote a make-believe cowboy into office because he reminds them of their buddies. They are clearly capable of understanding why that’s stupid, but they choose not to think about it. Again, it’s about interest. Anyone can figure out that the real reason kids don’t know how to spell beyond a first grade level on Facebook is not because they’re mentally challenged but because they simply don’t give a fuck; i.e., they have no intrinsic interest in the medium we use to interpret the world and communicate with each other: language. Now that’s the definition of stupid.

It’s really a shame, too, because aside from various exceptions due to pathological causes (autism, retardation, etc.), it’s pretty well established that kids are born curious and interested in what goes on around them. The problem is that a lot of parents are more concerned with making their child’s existence convenient for them than actually nurturing an intelligent, innovative future generation. Fun fact: your kids didn’t choose to be put on the Earth and they have no inherent obligation to you whatsoever. On the contrary, they are owed an upbringing that allows their individuality and natural inclination towards learning to flourish.

So, unless you want smug blogger assholes like me to harbor infinite amounts of disdain for your offspring and write angry rants about them on the Internet, I suggest you either invest more care into their mental and social development, or wear a rubber. Either would be a smart idea.

I used to have a friend who had a brown, ugly dog. His name was Woofers. I don’t understand why anyone would want an ugly pet. It used to run out to the road and bark at anyone who walked by. That is, until the day when it was suddenly hit by a car. Incidentally, Coke is great for getting bloodstains off your bumper before the cops show up. Anyway, after that Woofers didn’t want to be friends with me any more. Some people need to learn to forgive and forget.

The neat thing about pets is that they look cute but they can also be used to exact vengeance on your enemies or total strangers. My parents used to have a cat that would immediately scratch anybody who entered the house. Whenever Jehovah’s Witnesses showed up at the door, we would act all interested and invite them in for tea. They had to tolerate the scratching – we told them we couldn’t put the cat in another room because we were too afraid of it.

Another benefit of having a pet is that, unlike people, pets don’t talk. This is good in two ways: firstly, you don’t have to worry about your pets yelling out the answers when you’re trying to watch Jeopardy. Secondly, no matter what you do to them, they can’t tell anyone.

When I get my pet, it will be the happiest pet ever. We will play fetch and paintball and we will re-enact my favourite Western movies. I will be sure to feed it every day unless I forget or am angry at it.

Firstly, what do scientists have against God? Why is it that I never read any “scientific” papers that prove he does exist? Is it just me, or does every person claiming to be an “intellectual” deny the greatness of our Lord?

Secondly, why all the big words? Why can’t they speak English? They always use complicated terms like DNA and H₂O instead of just telling us what they’re talking about. H₂O is water, by the way — but a scientific paper won’t tell you that. I don’t even know what DNA is supposed to mean, probably alcohol or something.

Thirdly, if medicine doctors are so good at curing things, why are there so many diseases out there that have yet to be cured? They keep their patients in the hospitals for weeks (and charging them big money) instead of just fixing what’s broken and sending them on their way. I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it’s pretty clear that’s what’s happening.

Lastly, if, as they claim, they can’t cure these diseases, why do we keep funding medical research? If it’s done, it’s done. It’s not like they could have ever reversed God’s will anyway. We could be using that money for something useful, like a bigger army, or more bibles for starving kids in the Middle East.

I don’t know how we’re supposed to keep blindly trusting these so-called scientists. They lie, they make up facts, and worst of all, they appear to put absolute faith in their little “textbooks”.

The ornate wooden door crashes open and hits the doorstop. I march into the entrance hall with determination. I’ve waited so long to be here. This is the most expensive and expansive mansion in the country and I’m finally here.

Three men — petty thugs, really — enter behind me and fan out in a triangle formation. One on the left, one on the right, one in the centre as they follow me through the needlessly-fancy coat room, through the dining area, down a carpeted staircase. I can hear my footsteps and no one else’s as I pass through these beautiful places.

I’ve never been here but it all seems so familiar.

This is the house of one of my oldest enemies. The house is empty except for me and the thugs who move so silently I almost forget they’re here.

We reach the basement and the carpeting abruptly stops as the corridor leads into a sleek, metallic room. This is his storage room, where he keeps what could be the most powerful object on Earth. Money, fame, power. I just have to get through the locked vault door and I’ll have it all. It’s what I’ve always needed.

I walk across the room in long strides. No need to stall.

I’ve been looking for this since that day fifteen years ago…

September 15th, 1995

I’m sitting at my desk in the cramped dorm room. Second year in this godforsaken college and I’m still living on campus. It’s about time for me to go on duty as the floor 5 resident assistant. I work in the cheapest, lowest-class residence at the school. It’s a nightmare.

It’s been ten days since I moved in but there’s already these tottering stacks of paper on my desk. I like to pretend that it’s mostly class notes but I know at least half of these are just the little bits of thoughts I like to write down. At some point class notes transformed into diary and no one ever noticed but it still happened and it just kept happening.

There’s a banging on my door.

“Come in.”

The door creaks unpleasantly as Room 511 enters. Matted blonde hair, perpetually bloodshot eyes, the same dirty hoodie every day, never goes to class; guess what her profession is. She opens her mouth before I can mentally check my bile.

“Cameron!” she yells out, oblivious to how much hate I have just seething over here.

I’m trying to write.

“What’s up?” I say, feigning the friendly RA personality that got me this job.

“The toilet’s leaking again,” she says.

“I already put in a work order.”

“Why does it always take forever?”

“I don’t know.”

“This is urgent.”

“I know it is.”

I know it is and I’m just a writer and you’re just a shithead and all of you are getting on my nerves.

I stand up from my desk and walk over to her. Not sure why. I’m not thinking straight anymore. I feel different. She smells like Febreze, like dryer sheets, like her boyfriend’s cologne; she smells like every girl on this floor, really. But this is different. This is different and I don’t know why but I just hate her.

“Wh-what are you doing?” she says.

I’ve been staring at her for too long.

“I’ll ask them to hurry up,” I say.

My voice sounds deeper. I feel taller. There are little electrical arcs in my fingertips.

I feel different.

January 15th, 2010

There’s an Arrow Revolution lock on the vault door between me and the prize. All I have to do is destroy it. I raise my hands in front of me, pressing them together.

The funny thing about fingers is that all the muscles are actually in the palm, tugging little tendons in the finger tissue to control the joints like a marionette. We’re all puppeteers and nobody knows it but me. And I can feel every ounce of my power focusing itself in my opponens pollicis muscle and I smile at the opportunity.

I rub my hands together quickly to heat them up. Within seconds they’re hotter than they should be — hot enough to melt solid metal. At least 400 Celsius on a bad day. There’s a reason this costume stops at my shoulders. I don’t want to look like a wife beater, but it’s necessary.

When I can feel the heat-resistant fibres in my tights start to get hot, I force my hands apart and press them against the lock. The little touchscreen lights up, but is almost immediately glossed over as the monitor goes pure white from my touch.

The finish on the door starts to melt off. There’s my reflection; the smears of blood only serve to further obscure my black-and-purple insignia. It’s so tacky. I never really thought about it before.

One of the thugs falls to the floor. Forgot about convection. I take my hands off the door and look at my handiwork. The lock is too expensive to melt over something like this. It’s made of dolomite or something similar, but all I need to do is deactivate the little electronic bits inside; stop it from setting off a silent alarm.

The thug behind me sputters and gasps, on all fours. I hear one of the others make a move towards him and I snap around.

“One more step,” I whisper.

The man freezes in place for a moment. He glances between me and the man on the floor a few times.

“He can’t breathe, Tyler.”

October 15th, 1995

I’m at the local pretentious indie coffee shop when Room 511 comes in.

“Can I get a veggie chili?” she says to the pretty Jewfro boy behind the counter. Of course she’s a vegetarian. She can never get enough plants.

I was writing here in the corner of the room, just enjoying — or trying to enjoy — the atmosphere. The place is going to close in an hour and this person comes in to buy chili. It’s 9 o’clock. College students really make sense. I was trying to write and now she’s here and my hands won’t move anymore.

I leave my papers at the table and walk to the counter. 511 has gone to sit down with her stupid friends who have already been here for the past forty minutes. Jewfro looks up as I approach. I’m in full bullshit RA mode and he buys it like so much chili.

“Hey, man,” he says.

“Can I get a mango Italian soda?” I say.

Jewfro smiles knowingly. This is all I ever order. It’s the cheapest thing on the menu and I just need to avoid the get-kicked-out-because-I’m-loitering thing.

“Alright,” he laughs. “We’ll call you when it’s ready.”

I go to sit back down and write, but suddenly there are wet marks on my paper. I stare at them for a moment. I feel different. Deeper voice. Taller. Little pools of moisture on my fingertips.

It’s too late for many people to be coming to the counter, so Jewfro leaves his spot and goes to flirt with Room 511. Everyone’s oblivious to the hate that’s just seething over here.

Why am I still wet? I wipe my fingers off on my polo shirt.

Another dead-end job guy who works here bangs my soda on the counter and yells out someone’s name. He probably means for it to be mine but I feel different and I don’t think dead-end job knows what he’s talking about after all. I don’t think someone in his position has the right to define me.

This is the weak preying on the strong and an hour later he’s doing it again.

“Cameron,” he says. “What are you still doing here?”

I’m gathering up my papers and putting them in a bag. Jewfro is leaving the place. Room 511 and the stupid friends have been gone for a while, but he’s got a smile on his face and I know exactly what it means.

Dead-end job stays behind to do whatever when I leave.

It’s late enough that the streets are empty and even though it’s not winter it’s still a bit chilly as I follow Jewfro from a safe distance. Pretty soon he’s going down an alley. I follow him through the darkness. Once we’re entirely out of earshot of the street, I grab him from behind by his little Jewfro curls and I look him in the eye.

I’m towering over him and he’s got those beautiful blue eyes of his and he’s too afraid to say anything but I know he knows.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and I really mean it.

Dead-end job is going to wonder when you don’t come in to work tomorrow, and I’m sorry.

I’m holding Jewfro with one hand and forcing 150 PSI of water down his throat with the other. The idea is to drown the guy and save him from this hellhole — job, school, hairstyle — but even if he doesn’t drown the pressure is sure to rupture his insides somehow. I’ve never drowned someone before but it’s actually pretty fun.

Well, kind of.

January 15th, 2010

Dead-end job is still on the floor, hacking his lungs out. The thug who tried to save him has long since gone back to his position on the wall. Nobody else has made a move. Heat, allergy, asthma, whatever is causing this predator to hack and spread his DNA all over the floor is none of my concern. I don’t need these guys anymore. I’m almost at my goal.

“Cameron…” he gasps out. “Please.”

The other two thugs tighten up and look straight ahead. I crack a smile.

“I never knew your name,” I say. “And you never knew mine.”

Can’t help but laugh a bit when he finally collapses.

I’m Tyler now. Tyler Kennedy. Tyler Winklevoss. Tyler Durden. Look at it however you want. This is my life and I’ll call it as I see fit. No one has the right to define me and I don’t have the right to define anybody else.

Death is a definition.

Thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.

I turn back to the vault door and hold my hands out in front of me. Putting them together again, I rub them fiercely. This time, my hands defy the laws of thermodynamics and get colder the more I rub, until I see condensation on the metal surface of the door.

The remaining thugs can see their breath.

It’s winter now and it’s so chilly.

November 15th, 1995

I’m numb to it all now. I’ve been better than everyone for so long that it doesn’t even feel like a mask when I pretend to like people. I’m at the point where I get invited to parties, have people calling my room at all hours of the night, skipping every class to write but still passing the midterms in the top percentile.

I hate the school system and the school system hates me.

A douchebag starts yelling in my ear.

“Cameron, me and the bros are going to the peace room! You wanna join in?”

The guy’s got his polo shirt, his gel in the hair, and his earring. Of course I say yes.

He leads me down into the basement, then through a plain wooden door that’s been painted the same colour as the wall. Very secret. The peace room is a small square area with an old black-and-white TV in one corner, a beaten-down loveseat across from it, and the floor covered in those foam puzzle pieces you see in daycares. There are easily more than two dozen people in here, most of them sitting on the floor.

My eyes follow douchebag as he goes to sit on the loveseat with Room 511.

She’s looking her best tonight. She might even have washed that hoodie. And here goes douchebag defiling the whole get-up, putting his lips to her sweaty face, sucking on her lip like a parasite. Taking advantage of this poor girl who I hate so much.

I’ve been standing too long. The shitheads are looking at me.

I sit down on a puzzle piece, putting myself in full I’m-a-cool-college-guy mode. The guy next to me is wearing an Ace of Base t-shirt and he turns to me, half-lidded bloodshot eyes scrutinizing.

“You the RA from floor 5?” he asks.

“Yes.”

He laughs stupidly. “I didn’t know you got high, dude! You’re fuckin’ awesome!”

He holds out his fist for props, but I hesitate. This is more than getting high, dude. This is enlightenment. I’m different now. I’m taller. My voice is deeper. I’m going to leave you hanging.

Luckily the peace pipe comes around at that moment and Ace of Base doesn’t notice a thing.

He takes two puffs — everyone seems to think they’re being stealthy about not taking only one — then passes the pipe to me. I take it reluctantly, not wanting to look like this guy’s friend. Room 511 pulls her lithe little body away from douchebag for a second to look at me.

Yes, it’s me. I’m the RA from floor 5. Stop staring.

I take a puff. I take another.

Suddenly I feel this overwhelming sensation — this room is too hot. This room is too damn hot. I need to cool it down. I’m better than these people. I’m different now. Little white spots appear on the glass pipe I have in my hand, under my fingertips, spreading across the surface until the glass shatters.

Everyone looks at me. Too cool.

Douchebag jumps to his feet. He’s swearing. He’s accusing.

It’s barely a minute later that all the shitheads are out of the peace room. It’s just me, douchebag, and the little shards of broken glass. Shards of broken glass on the daycare puzzle pieces as the black-and-white TV plays a videotape of the latest Ace of Base concert. What a scene. I almost smile.

“You owe me a new pipe,” douchebag says. He hands me a broom to sweep up the glass.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“That fucking thing cost me twenty dollars,” he says. “And I’m not even high yet.”

“Hey, man, I’m sorry,” I say. “I’ll make you an ice bong and we can get high together.”

“I don’t have any ice cubes.”

“Don’t worry about it. I have some.”

“You brought ice cubes to a party?”

“Yes.”

This is obviously a lie, but douchebag falls for it and goes into the peace room closet to fetch a big black-and-purple bong out of his collection. He goes to fill it with water and by the time he comes back I’ve got the shards of glass pipe in my hand.

“You ready?” I ask.

Before he can answer, I press my hands against the chamber, forcing my fingertips into the glass. I see condensation forming along the sides as little chunks of ice start forming in the liquid. Douchebag’s eyes widen.

“How are you–?”

“Shut up.”

I’ve already grabbed his Zippo and I light up the bowl. With true shithead reflexes he puts his lips to the top of the bong and starts sucking with true homoerotic enthusiasm. I’m impatiently waiting for him to finish his hit. He’s one of those guys who thinks he’s cooler if he sucks it for five straight minutes.

He’s probably crap in bed.

Finally he reaches to pull out the bowl. I intercept his hand and do it myself like the nice guy I am. The downstem slides out gracefully as the little shards of glass slip down the hole from my palm. Whoops.

Douchebag throws the bong away from him when he starts choking, hacking up little bits of blood from the glass he inhaled. His throat must be in ribbons. The bong lands safely on the puzzle pieces, but I grab it and shatter it with more cold. Douchebag goes to move away from me, to get to the door, but he trips and falls on this glass as well.

I roll him over with my foot and press down into his stomach. He breathes heavily, staring up at me with bloodshot eyes. The fucker actually managed to get high. I can’t help but smile. Behind us the Ace of Base concert drones on.

So high no one can reach that high. Not I nor you get satisfied today.

I put my fingertips to his forehead and start squeezing.

January 15th, 2010

The cold doesn’t do anything to the lock. I didn’t really expect it to. Locks like these are built to resist all extreme temperatures. It was more for the rush of it, really. Whatever is behind this vault door is exactly what I’ve been looking for. I need to show it that I’m worthy. I’m different now.

Money, fame, power.

I hear a thud behind me and I turn around. Another thug has collapsed to the floor. He’d been quiet this entire time, never complaining. Taking life as it comes. I kind of liked him. But the thug who had tried to help dead-end job earlier doesn’t make a move to help this guy.

I walk over to him and pick him off the floor to look at him one last time. This is the first time I’ve ever seen him with clear eyes. But I’ve never seen him out of that faded Ace of Base shirt. He must have worn that every day for fifteen years.

Death is a dedication.

Turning back to the Arrow Revolution lock, I decide to take a different tact. I raise my hands in front of me and rub them together. This time I can feel them getting wetter as I continue. Soon little lines of water are running down my arms. My tights are getting soaked, the insignia darkening.

I let loose with 150 PSI of water on the lock.

Nothing happens, but I didn’t really expect it to.

December 15th, 1995

This is my last chance. Christmas break starts in less than a week and I need to do something. I’m the RA of this floor. I know what happens around here. I can sense trouble. I know better than you. I know when you’re in trouble.

I know Room 511′s boyfriend is a bad person. I can see it in his eyes when they come to my room.

“Hey Cameron,” 511 says. “Can we get a bracelet? He’s staying the night.”

Boyfriend looks at me and gives the I’m-getting-laid-tonight smile. I feign one in return as I write 511′s student number on a bracelet and give it to him.

“Have fun,” I say.

They leave, and an hour later they’re having sex in her room. I’m outside the door and I know he’s not right for her. He doesn’t deserve her. He’s too good and she’s too bad. I hate her.

I go back to my room. I pull out my now-it’s-definitely-a-diary stack of papers and start writing. I feel different. I’m taller. My voice is deeper. I write this over and over again until I’ve finished the last ten pages of the diary I’ve been keeping since I started this semester.

There are two little darkened spots on the pencil where I was gripping it too hard. Oh, there’s the heat. This is the final nail in my coffin. I am definitely different now. I’m better than everyone else and I deserve to be treated exactly as I am.

I’m superior and nobody gives a shit.

There’s a banging on my door. I look up from my desk. It’s her. She always knocks like that. Is boyfriend done having sex yet? Is she coming here to apologize?

“The toilet’s leaking again.”

I don’t move at first, so she walks up to my desk and waves her hand in front of my face.

“What?”

“The toilet’s leaking again.”

“Oh.”

I stand up and start to move towards the door. I pause in the frame, looking out into the hallway. Nobody’s around. Something has to be done about this. I slowly turn around and look at 511, letting my RA facade fall away. I take a step forward.

I’m so sorry for you.

Your boyfriend is a bad person. He kills people.

I lock the door behind me. She takes a step backwards.

“Wh-what are you doing?” she says.

I grab her pretty little wrists and pull her against me, bending her back so I can tower over her and look into those beautiful blue eyes of hers. Those disgusting, hateful blue eyes that I just can’t stand to see boring into me every day as I’ve been staring at her for too long and she’s oblivious to just how much loathing I have seething over her.

She’s been letting these strange men touch her and I don’t like it.

I’m better than them.

She tries to struggle away from me, but I hold her firmly. I push her back against the wall behind my desk and force her to look into my eyes. Look into my eyes like I’ve been looking into yours and maybe you’ll understand just how much I hate you. I’m so different and you’re all the same and I’m better than everyone.

Death is a desecration.

It’s just that my fingertips were so hot and she was close and I couldn’t stop thinking about boyfriend touching her and douchebag touching her and Jewfro touching her and how the only people in the world who would understand were the other observers, the other scorned. But I hate them too and I don’t know what to do anymore.

The heat is pooling in my opponens pollicis muscle and the little marionette strings are on fire and I just can’t stop myself. I’m holding 511′s arms over her head and I can smell little scorched fibres in that hoodie she’s always wearing.

“Cameron!” she screams, but I’m pressed too close to her and it comes out more like a moan.

It doesn’t matter anyway because Cameron’s not here. Cameron went away. Cameron’s gone and he’s never coming back and for all you know he never existed because there’s no proof. There’s no way to know what was defined in the past is still defined now and it’s not your place because I’m better than you and I’m different now.

The fire is spreading. I can’t keep my eyes on her. I hate her too much and hate is blind.

She burns to death in my arms.

January 15th, 2010

Fifteen years later and I can still remember fifteen years earlier. I got this costume and I made the connections that have made me who I am today. And now here’s the vault of one of my oldest enemies, holding what could be the most powerful object on Earth. I just have to get through this door.

I put my fingertips to the Arrow Revolution and shoot the little electrical arcs through it. I hear a click and the touchscreen goes dead. I slowly turn the handle and open the vault. Before I can enter, the last remaining thug puts his hand on my shoulder. I whip around, ready to rip this man’s arm off, but he fixes me with the strangest look and he shakes his head.

“I need to warn you,” he says. “My vault will give you what you need, but it can’t perform miracles.”

“I never wanted it to.”

I pause.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“You never knew my name before,” he says. “Why ask now?”

I take a step backwards. He keeps looking at me with that look of his. I’m too different. I don’t understand. I just wanted the money, the fame, the power — I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want to be different. I didn’t want to be better than everyone. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen but it just kept happening.

I turn around and enter the vault.

Inside it’s just a great big empty room with a small table in the centre. I walk towards the table, confused. This must be a trick. This must be a trap. Why would the vault give me a table? I freeze halfway across the room when I see that the table has something on it. It’s the unmistakable Febreze-dryer-sheet-cologne smell that tips me off.

I refuse to go any closer to 511′s hoodie. I hate this and everything it represents.

The man who owns the vault is still standing in the doorway, watching me with that look. I turn back to him.

“What do you see?” he asks.

“It’s your girlfriend’s hoodie,” I say.

He’s a murderer. He’s a bad person. He was too good for her and I hate her for doing this to me.

I turn back around and start walking towards the table in long strides. No point stalling. I can’t spend another second looking at this person. This person is not someone I want anywhere near me. I don’t understand what’s happening or why but I know it’s his fault and I’m going to fix it.

I pick up the hoodie.

It’s not this that I really need.

Around me I can see all the people I knew in college. Here’s Jewfro, douchebag, dead-end job, Ace of Base, the people in the coffee shop, the shitheads from the peace room, all my old floormates. All of them except for Room 511. It’s been fifteen years and they’re all dead now but she wouldn’t come. She loves me too much.

Over the past-away, there may be then no resurrection in the minds of men.

I reach into the pocket of the hoodie and find a .9mm handgun.

“Tyler!” the man calls. But I don’t turn around. I don’t need him anymore. I’m different now.

“Goodbye, Cameron,” I say. I can’t see him but I know boyfriend is cringing because I know his name now and he never told it to me.

I hate him and I hate her and I hate everything. But now I’m different. This is what I really need. I knew forever that I was looking for money, fame, power. I always knew. But now I’m different and I understand myself and that’s all I understand.

Death is a destination.

Why does it always take forever?

First off, let’s fast forward to the privacy models these websites use. Twitter is the most open of these networks. Facebook is essentially a walled garden because most people have privacy settings or have their profile completely blocked from non-friends. Non-friends, by the way, is slang for people who have not given into the smash hit service that wants to protect you from other people. Myspace is basically a site that intends to be a walled garden but nobody can figure out that fucking control panel.

Now let’s contrast this to what was going on during the 90s. AOL was trying to BE the internet by tricking n00bs into believe their interface was the “internet.” It was “online” in America. You have patriotism, tech bubble jargon, and those free coasters that everybody loves contributing to AOL’s success. For all your grandmother knew she was seeing The Matrix.

And that wraps up this ramble. I’ll try to post a little more often if I ever manage to free myself from Minecraft.

• A: Homosexuality is wrong because it’s unnatural.
• B: Not true! Homosexuality has been observed in many animal species!

Or:

• A: Homosexuality is a choice, and homosexuals can choose to go back to being normal.
• B: Not true! If it were that easy, then nobody would choose to be gay, if it meant they’d have to deal with people like you all the time. Alleged therapies for making people heterosexual are all based on scientifically dubious claims, and the ones that have been specifically studied have been shown to be ineffective.

In both cases, B is correct… yet I think that B is responding to the wrong part of A’s claim.

In the first example — the one regarding whether it is “natural” — A’s claim includes the implication that things that are unnatural are wrong. (Most likely, they don’t actually include that as an axiom in their general moral reasoning (it would rule out almost everything that most humans in industrial/technological societies do on a daily basis), but they are nevertheless happy to imply it when it allows them to argue against something they dislike for some other reason.) So B attempts to rebut A by pointing out the obvious factual error — homosexuality has indeed been observed in nature. But if homosexual behaviour had never been observed among other animal species, would homosexuality among humans therefore be wrong? Of course it wouldn’t, in the same way that it’s not wrong for us to drive cars or cook food just because that’s not the sort of thing that happens in nature. Responding to “Homosexuality is unnatural!” with “No it isn’t!” is still arguing on their terms, still implicitly accepting an inaccurate frame for the debate. The right answer is “Actually, it really isn’t, but even if it were, that wouldn’t matter, because most people don’t actually judge human actions on the basis of whether they’re natural or not, and I’m pretty sure you don’t either, now what’s your real objection?”

A similar line of thinking applies when people claim that sexual orientation is a choice. I understand the temptation to respond simply by refuting that claim — it’s so obviously wrong, as though they had said “Being black is a choice, so why can’t black people just become white like normal people instead of expecting society to change to accommodate them?”, that the immediate instinct is to refute the ridiculous factual claim (being black is a choice? What?) while failing to notice and reject the implication that it would be a bad thing if it were a choice. You know what? If being gay were a choice, it would still be fine, because just as individuals’ harmless sexual predispositions are none of society’s business, neither are individuals’ harmless sexual choices. Failing to point that out, and arguing on their terms as though being gay would be bad if it were a choice but it’s okay because it’s involuntary, sounds like you’re saying “It’s not a curable disease, it’s an incurable disease!” — like it’s some unfortunate affliction that an enlightened society will tolerate and accommodate, rather than something to be accepted, something that’s really honestly okay no matter what causes it. If the questions of whether it’s “natural” and whether it can be a choice seem relevant to LGBT-related policy debates and moral debates in the first place, then we’re doing it wrong.

For similar reasons, I don’t think LGBT rights advocates are helping their cause when they claim that people are born with their sexual orientations and gender identities. That may yet turn out to be true, but I don’t think enough is known about either one’s causal structure for us to be able to justifiably make such claims, and more importantly, that really shouldn’t be relevant either. (And allowing the debate to be framed as though it is relevant will result in ideological pressure to make scientific findings come out a certain way.) That framing carries the unfortunate implication that if it turns out that, say, sexual orientation is caused by a chaotic mixture of environmental and social factors, with little or no genetic influence, then non-heterosexual orientations will somehow be less morally acceptable than they would be if they were genetically determined. Why should that be the case?

Addendum: Here’s another situation where we should want this principle to apply: Are children of gay couples more likely to be gay? Again, regardless of the correct answer to that question, if we find ourselves asserting that the answer is no and therefore it’s okay to let gay couples raise children, then we are doing it wrong. Doing it right is emphasizing the central point that being something other than heterosexual is actually okay and it’s therefore not a bad thing if something causes there to be more such people. Besides, it’ll only be once that point is well-established that we’ll be able to investigate that perfectly good (and morally-irrelevant) empirical question without undue ideological influence. [A previous version of this paragraph also talked about transgender parents, using the same argument. I've taken that out because Bran pointed out, correctly I think, that this particular argument doesn't apply the same way to transgender parents as it does to gay parents.]

(Crossposted from my personal blog, Things I Think About.)

Jesse, however, did not have children. He lived alone and had always lived alone since the day he moved in. The bar-dwellers would say, “Isn’t he about marrying age by now?” Still Jesse lived alone, never going to the bars, and the people there had to make their own conclusions. But this was a year ago, after all. This was before that chilly Christmas morning when Jesse pulled himself out of bed, looked out his window, and saw the strangest sight he thought he would ever see:

It was a long expanse of short black hairs stretching across the whole Anders property, only stopping neatly at the borders. Jesse couldn’t believe his eyes. He left his house for the first time in almost a month, running to meet the first passer-by he could and asking, “Do you see them? Can you see my hairs?” And every person Jesse asked would conclude yes, he did have some hairs, but they were no longer than hairs normally are.

The Anders family were not quitters, however. Jesse took one look at his hairs and made the decision then: the hairs had to go. Jesse wouldn’t quit until his property was smooth again.

Jesse took his lawnmower and replaced the steely blades with oversized razors. He added a vacuum to clean out the hairs, and a hose to spread shaving cream ahead of him. Jesse called his new invention the Lawnshaver, and used it to shave the hairs that very day. When he was finished it was already suppertime. He left his smooth property behind to eat and sleep alone, leaving the Lawnshaver outside.

The next day, Jesse rose out of bed, looked out his window, and saw that all the hairs had grown back overnight – thicker and longer than the day before.

Soon Jesse Anders fell into a routine. He would wake every morning to longer and longer hairs, shave them all with his Lawnshaver, then eat supper and sleep alone. It wasn’t a month before the hairs grew so thick and strong that Jesse had to start upgrading his invention: the Lawnshaver 2000, the Lawnshaver XP, the iLawnshaver. By the half-year mark, Jesse’s Lawnshaver was as big as a monster truck, with twelve eight-foot razors and a propane tank of shaving cream.

Passers-by started stopping in the mornings to ask, “Whatever happened to the old Anders house?” The hairs were higher than the roof. The bar-dwellers didn’t want to gossip about Jesse Anders anymore; to them, Alan had no son.

Jesse grew more and more obsessed with his hairs every day. By September he stopped eating regular meals. By October he was an insomniac, lying awake to stare at his ceiling every night. By November he thought he could hear the laughter of children echoing through the halls.

This Christmas, exactly a year after the hairs started growing, Jesse Anders decided to put a stop to it. The hairs were already so long he couldn’t see the tips without a helicopter, tangled and packed so tight and thick that he couldn’t leave his house without shaving. He knew they were growing during the night whether he was sleeping or not, so Jesse decided to just stand outside and wait.

Nothing happened for a very long time as Jesse waited through suppertime, through bedtime, through midnight. He was already so skeletal that he couldn’t eat solid food, so he couldn’t see this as much of a loss. He just had to see what was causing those hairs to grow and grow.

The malnutrition must have gotten to him, though, because when the hairs did grow, they seemed to do it in an instant. He just blinked and suddenly he was surrounded on all sides by pure black hair. He couldn’t see his family’s house anymore. He found himself spinning around in a daze, searching desperately for an escape; his clouded mind unable to comprehend when the atrophied muscles in his legs gave out and he collapsed onto the ground.

This is how Jesse Anders died just one year ago. The official record will claim that he starved himself to death through insanity, but that’s only what it appears to be. In reality, it was the billions upon billions of black widows living in the tangled jungle of hairs that had been the Anders family property. They used no poison, but they murdered him nonetheless.