Chapter 19
THE ITCH
Q: I still think there is a value to some spiritual teachings. After all I learn also from reading your writings even though you don't call them 'teachings'.
A: Well, I would take that as a compliment if I actually believed in the importance of my own bullshit. If you're listening to me then that's not something I'd congratulate you for. Even I don't read my writings other than from an editing perspective. Yes, my words can be impactful sometimes, but they are a shitty substitute for the real deal. Every moment you spend reading or listening to someone else's crap is a moment of your own life you've lost. You are living vicariously through the minds of others instead of diving into whatever reality is for you.
If you could grasp for even a moment the absolute absurdity of your own existence, it would render every spiritual teaching utterly irrelevant. If you could sense, if even for a second, just how outrageous it is that anything exists at all-it would reduce even the greatest scientific discoveries to a bunch of arbitrary facts. It doesn't matter what you have learned. All knowledge of the spiritual or material kind is reduced to rubble when the bizarreness of what all of it is predicated upon hits you in the face.
Existence is absolutely preposterous.
When this absurdity truly lands it is electrifying. A jolt of 10,000 volts to the system. Strong enough to fry all the circuitry in that motherboard you call a 'brain'.
We human beings are like children in a sandbox. Engrossed in intricate games of make-believe. Busily digging and exploring the sandbox in the hopes of discovering some cool new trinket of wisdom or knowledge. With no concept whatsoever of what we are even doing in the sandbox, how we got here or what this sandbox even is.
We are faced with an overwhelmingly unknown existence and yet we are driven by an insatiable need to know it! Just think about how ironic this is. How deliciously twisted and hilariously cruel. If I could sum up the experience of being human in just one statement it would simply be:
An itch that can't be scratched.
If you really look at what has driven all our human endeavours-material and spiritual-since the dawn of time, there is this existential itch we simply cannot explain. The desire to scratch it has driven every form of progress and exploration known to humankind. Each time we feel we are getting closer to its source, the itch intensifies, driving us to strive even harder. It is a relentless urge within us with absolutely no resolution.
And so we develop strategies for dealing with the itch. Some will opt for a world of distraction to forget, even if temporarily, that the itch is present. This is the approach of consumerism that attempts to swamp us with trillions of trivial choices so that we have very little time actually to sit and grasp how ludicrous it all is.
Some will try to numb themselves to the effects of that itch by dissociating themselves from it. This is the spiritual approach that seeks to remove our awareness from its participatory role and relegate it to that of being a mere spectator of life.
Regardless of what strategy we employ the itch remains And it eventually re-emerges in a way that cannot be ignored, the unconscious need to scratch that itch. And that includes Therything you are compelled today that cannes driven by reading spiritual teachings or meditating or praying or whatever else you believe is going to bring you some existential respite.
Every act is an act of avoidance of the one thing that is required in any given moment: to feel that fucking itch. To let the frustration invade you like an army of soldier ants. And when the itching gets unbearable and you see an entire marketplace of soothing spiritual salves that promise to cool and relieve your inflamed being-to turn away masochistically and allow that itch to relentlessly ravage your nervous system.
That's when the absurdity hits. Like a Japanese bullet train on steroids. Even as you stand there scratching yourself like a meth fiend, you can't help but burst into uproarious laughter. And even though you may look like a lunatic to anyone who may happen to see you, you will never experience a greater moment of sanity in your life.
Such a release won't make the itch go away. But it will relieve you of the hope of ever finding a solution to it. The wisdom and promises of others will sound like empty rattling cans to your ears. The purposeful progress of society will look like a horde of blind rats navigating the sewers.
You lose the ability to take any of this seriously. Least of all yourself.
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