The Stuff We're Really Made Of

Those eternal questions… Not stuff like, “What came first – the chicken or the egg?” I already answered that and it’s not interesting anyway. Who cares? I enjoy eating eggs or chicken alike, with the chicken getting the edge, and I couldn’t give a shadow of a fuck which gets on my sandwich first. Forget about the damn chicken and the damn egg already.

No, the real eternal questions… Those questions asked in jest, seemingly without any deeper meaning, just casually thrown into the wind and just happening to blow into your lap in passing. Questions like “Would you take a bullet for (insert person here)?” Those hardcore questions that define who we are and what the people around us really mean to us. Those questions that drive a stake through the hearts of hypocrisy and/or perhaps shed a softer light on callous minds.

Remember a dozen or so years ago when that social question card game came out, posing moral dilemmas and profound inquires for half drunk wine testing serious adults to sit in a circle on the floor and philosophize over? It was like a yuppie Ouija board. You got to sit around asking each other stupid shit like “Would you be willing to suffer horrible nightmares every night for a year if you received a million bucks on the last day?”, and then you would cock an eyebrow and assume a thinking position and come back with some profound shit, like it mattered. Like we have a friggin clue what it’s like to suffer horrible nightmares every fucking night. “How horrible are they?” – “Uh, well, average horrible, I guess.” – “Oh, OK… Then, yeah, I’d do it.” Please. In these candy ass times most people run screaming to the shrink if people look at them funny, and they are going to cope with nightmares for nights on end?

Then you had the obligatory moral dilemmas. “Would you hit a friend on the mouth for $500 without ever explaining yourself to him/her afterwards?” (I would hit most of my friends for free.) – “Would you, for $1,000,000, pull a lever and have a random person somewhere in the world die a gruesome death?” (Yes, do I get $10,000,000 if I do it ten times?)

Anyway… No matter what you answered to this shit, some St. Self-Righteous would always sit there and judge from up above, saying shit like “I would NEVER do that” or “I would INDEED return that wallet to its rightful owner”. Shut the fuck up. Look, we all have a price. There is nothing none of us wouldn’t do for the right fucking price. We’re all for sale – some cheaper than others. Our souls are up for grabs on eBay, some waiting for the highest bid, some with a set “buy now” price.

At least I know my price… and I know yours too. At least how much you are worth to me.

I learned this by asking those stupid questions, actually.

The “what-if”s and “would-you”s. The stuff we’re really made of. The shit that makes us tick. The boiled spaghetti that sticks to the wall. If we answer them honestly, that is.

One classic favorite that always comes back to haunt us at inopportune moments is “Who would you take a bullet for?" We usually shuffle our feet and list any number of distant family members, dogs and friends that we deem worthy of saving from such an unjust fate. Hey, it’s easy to be generous when it doesn’t really matter, right? Throw the mail man and that chick at the bank in there too, while you’re at it.

Yeah, OK… But what if it was an actual choice? If the situation, in all its absurdity, really called for it?

Who would you give your life for?

Think about it.

I am not going to answer for you, but let me reason out my own reasons, just for the fuck of it. There are a number of people I would take a bullet for, in theory. Some because I love them, some because I think they are more important than I am, and some because some stupid honor requires it. But in reality, I would only take a bullet for two people: my wife and my kid.

When I told my wife about this she almost had a heart attack. “You wouldn’t take a bullet for your brother?” she screamed. No, I wouldn’t. I love him to death, and if we were both in the same life situation, stranded on a desolate island and the survival of one depended upon the other’s death – then, yeah, I would take a bullet for his stupid ass. But since he, in reality, is a single guy without any larger responsibilities in life, and since I have a family to care for, my needs win over his and my life is thus more important than his is. I would still expect him to take a bullet for me, of course, but not the other way around. It would be his duty, out of love and necessity. More people are directly affected negatively by my death than by his death, fucking sad as they both would be. Doesn’t mean I don’t love him, I am just being a realist here. If he would have been the one who was married with kids, and I was the bachelor, the roles would have been reversed in the Russian Roulette as well.

Same thing with my mother, for instance. Sure, she is in a committed relationship, and she obviously has kids, but she is older and has lived a full life already. Her kids are grown and have flown out of the nest. Her life is not as important as mine is when you weigh in circumstantial factors. Harsh, but true. I would not take a bullet for her, but would expect her to take one for me, to assure continued care and support for my wife and kid.

Ultimately, of course, it is a selfish choice. If I knew that taking a bullet for a certain politician or some gay ass Champion for Peace would save the lives of billions I would still not do it, unless I knew for sure my wife or my kid were included in that number somewhere. If not, then the poor fuck can bleed all over my shoes for all I care. Nothing comes before me and my immediate family. Nothing. Not you, and not your thousands of millions of brothers and sisters either.

If sacrificing myself, my wife or my kid would grant humanity the cure for cancer and an end to war and world hunger, you would still all be shit out of luck.

Some people I know wouldn’t even take a fat lip for their family, so I think I am doing pretty good here, all things considered.

You could take this further then. Where do you draw the line for where you wouldn’t even put yourself in harm’s way to save some stupid ass in danger?

Let’s say you are out driving and come across a burning wreck in the ditch. You get out and realize somebody is stuck inside the car, and from the looks of it the whole scene could any second now be a burning inferno with your name on it. You could:

A)don a cape and sprout superpowers, rescuing the poor klutz with your immense strength and indestructible body, or

B)at the risk of fragile life and limb dive into the burning wreck and try to pull the poor sod loose, knowing that your own precious life could end at any time, as soon as that flame reaches that gas tank, or

C)get into your car, pretend you didn’t see shit and drive off into the sunset, turning the stereo up real loud so Van Halen blocks out the blast as the dude is blown into smithereens behind you. If you drive a stick you can clutch and ride the shockwave a couple of yards and save some gas.

The point is that why would you risk your life for this idiot? It could be a real asshole stuck in that car, some drunk driver, and your kid won’t exactly take great comfort in the fact that you made her fatherless trying to save some dick from his well deserved fate. Your heroic death isn’t putting food on your widow’s table.

Let’s face it… 99.9999 % of all people out there are fucking idiots, not worth saving at all, and the rest of them are annoying as hell. The few of you bleedin’ saps who would take a bullet for Gandhi or the Pope (in addition to your whole extended family, of course) would still be facing slim odds that the burning wreck would be occupied by either of those persons. Then why stick your own stupid head in that mess? To save some dead beat stranger you couldn’t care less about if you saw his death on the news instead? Fuck that. Just dial 911 and thank whatever powers that be that it wasn’t you in that damn car.

I know… I am a heartless cynical bastard with a heart of stone, but you know I am right. It is so very easy to say that you would do this, and you would do that, but unless you’re a fucking fireman with a death wish you are not doing anybody any favors by taking any bullets for anybody but the ones that are absolutely closest to your heart. The fact that you sit there and even consider taking a bullet for anybody but your very closest family members is an insult to your loved ones. The fact that you even think that you would stop by the side of that road and try to pull that guy out of the burning wreck is both hypocritical and demeaning to your family who needs you alive, rather than dead.

It’s when we ponder these questions that we realize that we really only do care about ourselves, and a few select others, and that pretty much everybody else can go fuck themselves. It’s at these times we can shed that hypocrisy we have been clothing ourselves in and fully become who we really are: a bunch of selfish self-serving egoistical bastards, with very little to spare for the idiots that happen to breathe the same air we do. We don’t have to pretend to ourselves to care about world hunger or the people in Iraq and their right to vote. All those people out there are not any better than you are. Actually, all of them combined don’t measure up to you, so just sit back, have a nice cup of Earl Grey, and revel in the knowledge that you really are the Master of the Universe -  the only universe that matters: yours.

For everything else there is Master Card.

Your turn, dear sappy reader: What is your “price”? And the price of those around you? Think about it. How much would you sell your aunt for on eBay? That man in the wreck? Less than you? More than you? What does that mean? Where do you draw the line? You will probably be surprised and maybe even learn some dark secrets about yourself in the process. Maybe even look at some needy “friends” a little differently. Self-sacrifice is a very poor career choice. (Thank me later.)



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