The Story of My Life
SPOILER ALERT: I’m both dead broke and literally dead1. In fact, I’ve died by my own hands. Just to reiterate what’s in my will: I want to be cremated. I want all of my ashes scattered outside. And I don’t want any religious funeral or service. If you want to do something to remember me by, put up a purple- martin house in your backyard, or go listen to any of the music I’ve listed below.
I have not taken the decision to end my life lightly or suddenly. Rather, it is the result of 40 years of contemplation on the nature of my existence and its purpose, as well as the sum total of my life’s experiences. Below is my biography, which will also illustrate the evolution of my values, hopes, and dreams and how they have shaped my thoughts on my life and death.
Childhood 1965-1980
Sometimes it’s a hard world for little things. ~ H.I. McDunnough, Raising Arizona
I remember being told that it took me a long time to learn to walk, that I was scared of letting go of a table or chair and walking on my own without support. This was definitely a prescient start of my life: a lack of physical skills and a fear of letting go and trusting myself that would dog me all my life.
I was told that, as a toddler, my parents used to let me cry instead of picking me up. I’ll also never forget being thrown in a swimming pool around age four and being told to sink or swim. It resulted in a discomfort in water that haunts me to this day. But I wonder if some of this contributed to my later feelings of anxiety because I felt there was no one to protect me. Or maybe my later anxiety is all genetic; I don’t know. I’m not trying to finger-point, and I know my parents did the best they could.
I remember a story that Mom read to me when I was young about a little boy who went out for a walk with his family in the woods. The boy kept falling behind his family because he was too interested in studying the details of the trees, rocks, and insect life around him. That story always stuck with me because I identified with that little boy. I never had an interest in following the group or keeping up with the Joneses; I’ve always been more interested in observing the minutia around me and following my own inner voice.
That time I walked home from school the first day of grade 1 was a premonition of my entire life. I hated being at school and around other students. My solution? Leave. Just walk away and go home.
There were indications of another trait I would notice my whole life: a stubbornness to do my own thing, regardless of the social costs and loss of popularity it might entail. Whether it was a refusal to learn how to swim “freestyle,” despite years of lessons, or a refusal to play sports in PE, listening to classical music instead of pop music, playing the flute in band, or disliking the Scouts, I always insisted on following my inner voice. If things imposed on me by family or school had no value or meaning, then I wanted nothing to do with them, come what may. Thus began my life an a nonconformist.
I remember as a child watching Grandpa Nunez slaughter a pig. Another time, I remember playing around in the backyard with a BB gun and accidentally killing a male Cardinal. My disgust at these violent acts would stick with me subconsciously and only get resolved in my 20’s.
And of course, there were the first dawnings of my gay sexuality during this time, which manifested itself in my behavior and my interests, such as classical music and architecture, and my growing hatred
of sports, especially during PE, where I was taunted mercilessly for my ineptitude. The childhood bullying for being a sissy or too feminine would continue until the end of high school, which doubtlessly left some emotional scarring on me.
But when I was able to be away from the social pressures at school, friendships and fun times at home were plentiful and normal enough. The happiest times of my childhood were spent playing in the woods behind Olivia Ave. or in Aldridge Creek with my buddies Wilson Miles, Danny Steinburger, and Chip Lipsey. And the religion I was brought up in provided a meaning and purpose to my life.
Lost 1981 – 1985
It was in high school that I first started to feel personally lost and socially alienated. Since I was so scared of being bullied for my “feminine” or gay personality traits, I would have to learn to put on a mask in public and closet my true personality and feelings to protect myself. I became emotionally and socially withdrawn, which made me come across as being a cold, indifferent, even callous loner, thus only socially isolating myself even more. This trait would continue to affect my relationships throughout my adulthood.
My anxiety levels started to negatively impact my life in high school. For example, I avoided taking the more challenging or advanced classes to reduce my stress and anxiety. I also remember driving to the SAT test site my junior year of high school. I experienced my first panic attack sitting in the parking lot, and I was unable to make myself go into that site and take the test. I turned around and drove home in shame. This would be a pattern that would haunt me my entire life.
I remember all the ridiculous things I did to try to make myself straight, such as vain attempts to fix cars, launch boats, and shoot guns. I remember the personal and social trauma I experienced when I tried to date a girl, poor Rebecca Henson, thinking I could either hide my true sexuality from the world or perhaps make myself straight by dating her. When Rebecca soon figured out by my cold behavior towards her that I was really gay, I dumped her in the most selfish and hurtful way possible, leaving both of us miserable and hating each other. The closet has always left a trail of destruction in its wake.
My budding sexuality would also make me question my religious upbringing. Since the Church taught me that acting on these sexual thoughts was sinful, surely if I prayed to God, He would make me straight. When praying did no good, it was at that point that I decided that God either didn’t care, was powerless to change me, or didn’t exist. In any case, I decided at that point that religion and God were of no further use to me. I left the Church and never looked back. I’ve been an atheist ever since.2
This questioning of social assumptions, goals, motivations, moral values, and my life’s purpose would continue my entire life. Why was I here? What is the purpose of school or work? Why should money, wealth, accumulation of material goods, my continued membership in the middle class with all its subsequent requirements, motivations, and values have any attraction or meaning for me?
I decided at the age of 16 that I would have to try to find answers to these questions. If I could not find them, if life was indeed meaningless or ultimately undesirable for me, if I could find no place for myself in this world, I could always opt out by committing suicide. But for me at this point of my life, following the advise of my parents and walking in their footsteps would have to suffice for personal direction and happiness.
So, still lost and without any real insights into myself or the world, in 1983 I went off to college to become an engineer. I soon found out that math and science classes had no appeal to me; they offered me nothing I could use to understand myself nor answer any of the nagging questions that had plagued me since high school. It was also during this time in college that I experienced regular panic attacks while studying for engineering classes at UAH and Auburn. The anxiety they produced in me resulted in an emotional repulsion to that subject matter. After spending 2.5 years in college and changing majors several times, I had no idea which direction to go in. I felt like I was wasting my time and money in school, and so I dropped out at the beginning of 1986 and went to work full-time.
Hippy Phase 1986-1995
In 1985, I was lucky enough to get a job at Intergraph through a co-op program at Auburn. I was able to go full-time there in 1986 after I quit school. The seven years I worked there were some of the most rewarding, career-wise. I found a skill (printed circuit board layout using CAD/CAM software drafting tools) that I enjoyed and could even excel at. This was because I was young, so I could still learn things easily. Plus I was mentored by a couple of cool hippy types, including my co-worker, Lori Harrison.
Lori and her husband, Bill Wilson, who lived on Blevin’s Gap Road, would influence my thinking and direction deeply during this time. They had both been hippies in the ‘60s, which I always regretted I was born too late to experience. But I really miss the company and advise of Bill and Lori to this day. Unfortunately they both passed away before I returned to Huntsville; Bill died of cancer in 2013, and Lori died by her own hands in 2010.
It was during this time that I experimented with drugs such as marijuana and LSD (not with Bill and Lori; they had quit years before). The former drug was a great way to numb the personal and social anxiety I had experienced since high school. The latter drug was an easy and fantastic way to open one’s mind to mental states and planes of consciousness far beyond the ordinary, sober level of our everyday existence3. Acid really showed me that all of society’s expectations, goals, and values are arbitrary and capricious, that accepting them was just as arbitrary, and that alternatives to society’s values should and must be pursued if one is concerned with living a more meaningful, honest, and authentic life. Turn on, tune in, drop out, indeed.
It was during this time I learned about the health, environmental, and ethical reasonings for veganism.4 Related to this, I would later develop two overlapping moral guidelines: “live modestly” and “don’t be evil.” Although I quite often forgot about or failed to live up to these edicts, many decisions I made in the future would be shaped by my desire to leave as small of a footprint on this Earth as possible and to reduce the suffering my existence would cause on other sentient creatures.
However, feelings of depression and thoughts about suicide would continue throughout this time. I remember one way I could make myself feel better was by walking around Maple Hill Cemetery. Reading the tombstones of these long-deceased people made me realize that my feelings of being lost in this world were of no consequence; they would all cease to plague me the moment I was dead.
It was also during this time, watching a plane fly over Jones Valley farm, that I felt that the answers to my burning questions about my life’s purpose and direction must be out there, on the other side of the mountains, out there in the bigger world, far away from the small town of Huntsville where I grew up.
It was during this time that I finally got the guts to come out of the closet and to start dating. Finding
both sex and a long-term relationship really felt like vital keys to my existence, to my life’s purpose, and to my happiness itself. At a national UU gay and lesbian conference in 1991, I met Steven Tierney, a good friend and gay role model who convinced me to try to move to Boston one day.
It was during this time I watched the film Dead Poets Society and felt inspired to become a teacher, the kind who would help open the eyes of young people to the true, romantic nature of reality. (In truth, I was perhaps more motivated by the thought of getting to talk to guys that looked like Ethan Hawke.) Surely this would become my life’s purpose. Thus inspired, and using up all the money I had saved while working at Intergraph, I finally finished my degree in English literature in 1995 (after 12 years!).
Unfortunately, by the time I graduated, I was nearly broke and totally burned out on school, even turned off by the subject matter of my major. School had not, after all, really answered those burning questions of my youth. Instead, academic life just seemed to be an unfortunate snake-pit of political machinations and ideologies. What’s more, there was no time or money left to get that teaching license or credentials. No matter! I was very eager to move on to my new big-city queer-boy life in Boston.
When I leave I don’t know what I’m hoping to find,
And when I leave I don’t know what I’m leaving behind.” - Rush, “The Analog Kid”
Boston 1995-1999
After looking for six months, I finally landed a job in software marketing at VenturCom and, a few years later, at Bitstream. I quickly developed a loathing for the kind of work I was doing. It had no appeal to me emotionally or intellectually. The only reward for me was getting to fly around the world for trade shows. But I felt like I had to put on a mask and pretend to be someone I wasn’t at work. I remember how gladly I headed for the exit every day at quitting time; I couldn’t wait to get away from most of the people there, to whom I felt I could not relate in any significant way.
I was developing a noticeably rising level of generalized anxiety. I found that my interest and motivation in learning new things had been quickly fading ever since I finished college. I have a feeling it was connected to my rising anxiety levels, which interfered with my ability to remember things, as well as sapping me of the motivation to overcome these learning difficulties and to try new things. One example of how my anxiety was impacting my ability to work well: while I was working for Bitstream, I was in charge of putting together our trade show booth at the Boston Convention Center. I was so anxious about doing my job, I just walked home and spent a few hours there to get away from the anxiety I felt at the trade show. Of course, my boss was really pissed at me for being AWOL.
Meanwhile, besides my rising social anxiety and phobias, I felt increasingly isolated living in Boston. It was hard making friends: I was a fish out of water, being a nobody from a small town in Alabama trying to hang out with people with multiple PhDs from Harvard, etc. My thoughts of suicide would continue, sapping me of any interest in settling down, saving for the future, or buying a house. What would be the point in planning for retirement since I had no interest in living that long?
The most positive thing that happened to me during this time was meeting Greg McCain. Being another Southerner trying to make it in Yankee New England, we had much in common. I regret to this day that I didn’t stay in Boston and try to keep that relationship going. He offered the kind of maturity, wisdom, and nurturing that I really needed. He was really the only suitable guy I would ever date.
One thing I found about my sexuality was that the kinds of guys I was attracted to were not changing. When I was a teenager, I had been attracted to guys my own age. But as I got older, I was still attracted to the same, young age-group. Adolescent-looking guys were hot to me; guys my own age had no appeal. As I got older, this would lead to all kinds of problems for my dating life: not going after suitable guys like Greg, but going after guys I had no business being friends with, much less dating.
Needless to say, I quickly hit a plateau both socially and at work. I probably would have ended up getting fired at Bitstream if it hadn’t been for Naren Nachiappan, who always had a soft spot for me for some reason, and who asked me to help him open a new office for VenturCom in Berkeley in 1999.
I left Boston having made no real friends other than Greg and leaving no lasting connections behind.
San Francisco 1999 – 2002
At first, I was happy to be living in the San Francisco Bay area. Better weather, a more laid-back attitude than the icy, distant one in Boston, and loads of hot, adolescent-looking Asian guys to date, which I found very appealing. I met Jia-Hao – the first in a 20-year string of Taiwanese boyfriends – whom I visited in Taiwan in 2000, opening my eyes to a whole new world of possibilities in Asia.
Job-wise, I still had the same problem: I felt like a fake. I didn’t have any real interest in the type of work I was doing. I couldn’t wait to go home at quitting time. I noticed the difficulties and anxieties I had about learning and doing new things continued to get worse. I remember one time Naren got pissed at me because it was taking me weeks to produce some documents that should have only taken a few days. The fact was that I was feeling so much anxiety about creating these documents that I had to leave the office regularly and go walk around the Berkeley campus in order to calm down. Luckily I wasn’t under any social pressures at work because Naren and I were usually the only ones in the office. But he left me alone, and I muddled through somehow. And the job was paying my bills and allowing me to indulge in my new hobby: partying at nightclubs.
It was during this time that I discovered large, warehouse-sized, gay dance parties, like the ones held every weekend at Club Universe, and where I was introduced by friends to the drug ecstasy. Ecstasy was, far and away, the best high I had ever felt. For 24 hours, all social and personal inhibitions, phobias, anxieties, and depression would dissolve, and dancing, socializing, and sex became mind- blowing, wild, passionate, and intensely transcendent and spiritual. (I use this term strictly in the emotional sense of feeling connected to people and things outside the body, stripped of any notions of the supernatural.) I loved ecstasy so much that I began taking it most weekends for the next 15 years!!! While it was not physically addictive, it no doubt would become a psychological addiction.
Then 9/11 happened, and my whole happy world collapsed. My company went out of business in the economic aftershocks, and I was left unemployed, along with 200,000 other people at the same time in the Bay Area. Rapidly running out of money, and with no strong attachment to my career or place of residence, I decided to follow my dick... I mean, my earlier dream of becoming a teacher, and to move to Taiwan. I left San Francisco having made no real friends and leaving no lasting connections behind.
Taiwan 2002-2020
Living and working in Taiwan turned out to be a dream-come-true. Learning to teach would be easy for me, and the work itself was simple, routine, and occasionally fun. Because our school was so low-tech and had such low standards, I felt no pressure to keep up with the latest educational or technological developments. Once I mastered the basics, I never had to learn new things; I could just keep repeating
the same formula and content year after year. And I never really had to deal with parents or even other teachers, so I was able to hide my growing social phobias and increasingly severe learning disabilities.
But working at a private school really opened my eyes to the true nature of the “business” of education. I saw children with actual learning disabilities or kids who spoke no English admitted to our school and left, un-helped, in the back of the class, just so we could maximize our revenue streams. I saw us upend our entire curriculum to adapt programs whose only real benefit was to market the school to parents. I saw all the student-centered education philosophy that I had read about thrown out the window so that we could “teach to the standardized tests.” I saw so much valuable school time wasted so we could continue mindless, antiquated school traditions. And I saw so many souls of young children being systematically destroyed in the mindless pressures to cram more and more material into the curriculum and to conform to a cookie-cutter, assembly-line system of rote memorization and regurgitation. So many of the school’s requirements and stipulations for me were so mindless and unfulfilling.
But I put up with an education system I despised for so many years because it paid the bills and gave me the means to do what I was more excited about: going to Taipei’s many gay dance clubs to continue the party-life I had begun in San Francisco, but now with unlimited numbers of hot Taiwanese boys to play with! In fact, my drug use would only increase with time. As I mentioned, the ecstasy made me forget all of my social and personal anxieties and momentarily helped me overcome all the language and cultural barriers I felt with my Taiwanese friends. Once a week, I could feel a kind of passion that gave me a reason to be alive. I even found a dealer who would deliver the drugs to my door. This mind-blowing but unhealthy habit would continue unabated for years. Doubtless my incessant partying and unsafe sex with scores of guys had also become a kind of subliminal death wish. It’s only by a total miracle that I never got HIV. Luckily, antibiotics would clear up the other frequent STD infections.
Finally, on January 27, 2017, my good friend of six years, Duncan Lin – who had agreed to party with me in a hotel room in Taipei with some ecstasy and GHB – died in his sleep as he lay right next to me. For six months, I waited anxiously at home and work for the determination of the police prosecutor in the case of my dear, dead friend. Luckily for me, I was found not responsible for the death of Duncan, as it was determined by the coroner that he died naturally of a heart attack in his sleep. Even the drug test I was required to take by the police came back negative. I was free to go.
Needless to say, this was the wake-up call I needed to finally kick my ecstasy and partying habit. Quitting was easy. However, I found at this point I had lost interest in sober sex. In fact, I was noticing my sex drive was quickly disappearing altogether. Perhaps it was just a normal thing with age? Even if it had still been functioning, my sex drive up to that point had only led to pain, suffering, disease, and great personal unhappiness, not to mention an endless stream of really bad decision-making.
So here I was in my post-partying days. Most of the money I had earned in Taiwan had gone to drug use and partying during those 15 years of psychological addiction. My boyfriend of eight years, Perry, to whom I had gotten engaged in 2014, broke off our wedding plans in 2015 and finally left me for a 20- year old lifeguard in 2017. I had lost interest in both sex and dating. My social anxieties were continuing to make me feel more and more isolated. I had very few friends in Taiwan, and I was constantly reminded by both Taiwanese and other expats that I was just a low-life English teacher with very low social status. And because of the all the social anxiety I felt and the difficulty I had in remembering new things, not only had I failed to learn to speak Chinese well, but I had been unable and unwilling to integrate myself into Taiwanese society. In addition, I had a job that I loathed. Instead of opening
minds, I felt like my students were unknowable space-aliens to me. Not only could I not communicate with them in their primary language, but their hobbies and interests (playing video games on their phones), their values, their expectations and dreams, their motivations, their entire life experiences seemed completely alien to me: unknowable, unbridgeable, and undesirable.
On top of all this, there were the ongoing threats of Chinese jets or viruses and the possibilities of earthquakes, droughts, or typhoons. (Plus I had a family who, in 18 years, never once visited me in Taiwan... because “reasons”.5) So what was I doing here in Taiwan? Finally, in September 2020, I got the nerve to do what I should have done long before: I moved home. I left Taipei having made virtually no real friends and leaving few lasting connections behind.6
Home 2020-2021
When I came home in October 2020, I started the process of evaluating the 55 years I had been on this Earth. I concluded that it was time to end my life7 for reasons I will spell out below. I settled on a plan on how I would spend a final year of “retirement” here at home. My primary goal was to spend quality time with my family members and friends and try to make up for all the holidays and birthdays that I had missed over the years living overseas. Over this past year, I have gone through the motions of looking for a job, applying for dozens and being rejected by most. But my heart was never really into it for reasons I will get into below. I’ve also spent the last nine months composing this document. I even moved to Durango to spend some time with my sister, Rachel, and her family, as well as in the beautiful and awe-inspiring nature there in Colorado. But I knew ultimately I wanted to die in my hometown, surrounded by the comforts of my home, family, and connections from my past.
Final Thoughts
So here I am in the present: I have no partner or chosen-family. I have no sex drive and no motivation or even ability at this stage to find a partner now. I have almost no savings. I have no home of my own and no home furnishings, no investments, and no retirement plan. I have no job and no real career or marketable job skills. I have no interest or motivation to work because – with no partner, no home of my own, and no prospect of getting either – what is the purpose of work at this point? Plus I have no network of work colleagues to help me find a job. I have no close friends here in the States other than poor Mark and a tiny handful of old high-school friends. And I feel no real connection to most people here, as their values and life experiences are all radically different that mine.
I have a shady past that no one here will find appealing or understandable. In fact, I struggle daily with the guilt and remorse over the death in Taiwan of my friend, Duncan, and the emptiness of all those wasted years partying. The only deep connection I’ve made in the last few years – my two dogs – are on the other side of the planet from me. I have no accomplishments to have given my past a shape, meaning, or direction. For 40 years, I’ve just floated from one experience to the next, one place to the next, leaving no trace. All efforts to build something lasting for the future have come to naught. All of my life’s strivings and struggles have only led to this state of entropy.
In fact, I have moved and tried to create a new life for myself on nine different occasions. Each time, I unloaded and threw away stuff from my past. So many times, I pumped up the stock price of Ikea by buying a whole new set of home furnishings. But I am sick to death of moving. I am sick to death of refurbishing my home and then throwing most of it away. I’ve lost the piss and vinegar required to go through all the rigmarole to set up a new home for myself again. No more!
Yeah, well...if you got nothin’, you don't need nothin’. ~ Ennis Del Mar, Brokeback Mountain
With all my social anxieties, I’ve lost the motivation to make new friends or be around people I don’t already know. I loathe the possibility of having to interact with people at work or in other social settings as I just feel so alienated from most people, with whom I don’t share any common experiences or values. And I feel abandoned by many of the old friends from my past because I don’t measure up to their expectations or accomplishments or lack their social status and cachet. I guess human lives are like tortilla chips: the more broken you are, the closer to the bottom of the bag you drop.
I have no real career to fall back on. I loathe the thought of being a teacher again or even being around students as I feel the age gap between me and the students is too unbridgeable now. As I mentioned before, young people now seem to me like unknowable space-aliens, with their bizarre technological interests, hobbies, and ways of communicating. Even after 18 years, I have no idea how students learn, why they learn, or what they’re supposed to learn. (Besides, anything students learn now will be completely obsolete by the time they begin working.) I suspect the actual purpose of education in most schools is to create compliant consumers for corporations and obedient worker bees for the factories and the bureaucracies. The last thing these entities want are people who ask pesky questions or won’t conform to the current system. Nothing like Dead Poets Society, education has lost its appeal to me.
I never had any great interest or skill in technical writing, marketing, or admin. I fall asleep just reading the online descriptions for most of these kinds of job openings; it takes all of my strength just to apply for them. I feel no motivation or interest in learning new skills simply because “The Market”8 has decided they have value. I also lack the stable mental health, money, and motivation to return to school. Besides, the money it would take me to get another degree or job skill would be greater than the extra earning potential that I could realize in the few remaining years of my working life. Perhaps if I had found the right kind of mentor – like Lori Harrison was to me at Intergraph – or a set of work colleagues that I could have related to and who were doing something worthwhile, I could have also found some kind of passion and skills for a career that would have lasted me a lifetime. But alas, my growing social anxieties have prevented me from developing such connections and help.
On top of all of this, the pandemic – which is still raging and causing long-term disease and death, even to the vaccinated – is causing me to fear re-entering the workplace. Perhaps this fear is misguided, but I had another panic attack when I got that job offer in Durango when thinking about being around those unvaccinated sixth-graders and possibly infectious students. The same applies to being amongst the public at work, masked or unmasked, vaccinated or unvaccinated. The fear this pandemic has instilled in me is very real. I’m not prepared to simply wait around a few more years for this thing to disappear.
There is nothing left for me to expect job-wise now but the dull drudgery of working at some mindless, menial job I hate, of being some tiny cog in an inhuman corporate machine for the next few years, until the feebleness of my aging body and brain make me totally unable to work. On top of that, there’s the crushing blow to my ego and self-esteem when realizing that the past 40 years of education and work experience have amounted to nothing. Additionally, there’s the violation of my privacy and the indignity of being forced to take a drug test just to get one of these entry-level, “essential worker” jobs (like at Publix). As someone who wouldn’t be able to sleep or function without the THC in pot – a miraculous and sacred plant that’s now legal in half this country – I stand by my right to partake in cannabis, and I refuse to submit to this degrading, Nancy Reagan-era bullshit9.
There is nothing left for me to do now except to go through the same meaningless and empty motions of my life, the same mindless daily, weekly, and yearly rituals, the same meaningless holidays that I secretly despise10, keeping the masks on that I’ve developed over the past decades, pretending that everything inside is fine, while being entrapped in social systems that violate my core principles and values. In my post-party life, I’m left with a mostly sober but passionless existence11 in which my soul is withering. Go watch the movie Equus (on my USB drive) to know how important having a passion is. Albert Camus said in The Plague that what makes us human is our capacity for hopelessness, and I certainly have dealt with great depths of that feeling most of my life, especially now I’ve lost my career, my social status, and, slowly, my mental health. But for me, a life without passion is a life without a purpose or value. And my life now is both so very hopeless and so very passionless.
Let me say a few more words about my sexuality. As I mentioned before, the drive or motivation for either sex or dating has all but disappeared in me; now they’re just a faint echo, a stain of what they used to be. But the basic attraction is still there and hasn’t changed since I was 13. I’m still only attracted to adolescent-looking young guys. That’s why I dated Taiwanese dudes for 20 years: because at least the young adult men I dated still retained that hairless, skinny, adolescent body. Although I’m only attracted to adolescent guys, I’ve luckily had control of myself around teenagers. I can say with all certainty and honesty that I never spoke or acted inappropriately around students the whole time I was teacher. But this was yet another source of anxiety for me: to know that acting on my attraction would land me in jail or worse. The truth about my sexuality was something that I’ve had to constantly hide and suppress my entire adult life, even around other gay friends. That is yet another reason I turned down that job working at a school in Durango; I didn’t want that annoying distraction any more of being around adolescent males. No thanks to that! Anyway, I didn’t choose to be this way, just as other gay men didn’t choose to be into bears, otters, daddies, or any other body type. It’s a cross I’ve had to bear my whole life. Besides, with no material accomplishments and no career and zero social status, who would ever want to take me on as a partner? I’m a sugar daddy with absolutely no sugar to give.
There is nothing left for me to look forward to now but watching every person I know slowly die off one by one and watching as my body and mind slowly rot from within. I see once-vital people I’ve known for years now slowly rotting away in hospitals or nursing homes, totally dependent on others to exist. I refuse this future for myself, as I loathe being weak, helpless, or dependent on others. Besides, with no partner, no home of my own, and no long-term financial support system, I lack the stability, strength, and resources to even face the enormous challenges of aging in the years ahead. I look at my poor cousin, Sharae, and the suffering she and her family just went through as her health slowly deteriorated, and I fear that same future for myself. With all the HPV I’ve exposed myself to over the last few decades, there’s a very substantial chance that I, too, could develop cancers in various parts of my body as I get older. I can’t bear the thought of enduring such suffering. On top of that is the very real loss of mental acumen I’ve noticed in myself these past few years: the rising social anxiety and depression, the worsening learning disabilities that have resulted from that anxiety, the mental anguish as I notice my mind slowly slipping away, etc. I refuse to become a financial burden on my family or friends as I get older and become unable to support myself because of my declining mental and physical health. I will not force my family to endure this fate.
As I go on my daily walks, I am amazed at the endless number of suburban homes I pass with hardly a blade of grass or fallen leaf out of place in their chem-lawned yard. I feel so alienated walking around suburbia, with its endless miles of cookie-cutter homes, manicured lawns, trimmed shrubbery, edged curbs, and hideous strip malls surrounded by moats of parking lots. This horrendous city design – the
result not of spread-out geography but of deliberate policy choices – is bland, sterile, predictable, and soul-crushing. All I see are millions of people smug in their tiny empires of dirt, atomized from their neighbors and insulated from raw nature and the outside world by the tiny, illusory world they inhabit.
I am flabbergasted at the amount of wholesale conformity and complicity I witness in suburbia to the inhuman corporate systems required to maintain this bourgeois lifestyle: the millions of decisions to conform to financial and working requirements over decades to pay off those mortgages. And the other heavy cost of living in suburbia is the slavery of car-ownership: the discipline and conformity it takes to keep and maintain those ever-more-expensive cars, the payments to the car insurance companies, the banking companies, the oil companies, and the maintenance and repair companies. (And don’t get me started on how the car has destroyed the livability and walkability of urban centers, poisoned our air, killed millions in accidents, and forced us to pave over millions of square miles of the landscape.) But when I walk around suburbia, all I see is the conformity and oppressiveness of American middle-class life. By dint of my own mind and my own nature, I am simply unable and unwilling to conform to these millions of rules, requirements, and unspoken obligations. Middle-class life just seems to me another form of slavery to an economic system12 and to corporate masters to whom I refuse to submit.
Technology seems to me to be another form of slavery and control that I rebel against. In my own lifetime, I have seen how the Internet and social media have upended the way human beings see themselves, how we relate to each other, how we construct and know our reality, and even how we know the truth and what we accept as facts, leading to extreme political polarization. Without epistemological gatekeepers and without a political center with a shared set of values and facts, how are things like education, much less our democracy, supposed to be possible? I also fear the loss of privacy, human autonomy, and freewill in the face of the rise of surveillance capitalism, artificial intelligence (AI), and the upcoming singularity. In the future, more and more jobs will be replaced with robots and AI, exacerbating income equality and unemployment, leading to the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a tiny few, and perhaps creating a kind of neo-feudalism.13 Human lives, thoughts, and actions will be shaped and controlled by corporate- and AI-designed algorithms. I don’t even believe people are smart enough to control or adapt to the technological changes they’ve unleashed on themselves. And what’s the deal with crypto-currency – a convenient tool for the lawless – with its exponentially growing energy requirements to “mine” this sham pyramid-scheme of a currency? And nobody even knows what the hell an NFT is, but people are forking over millions for them. How about surviving the next crippling cyber- or ransomware-attack on both individuals and vital financial and infrastructure systems? How about trying to keep one step ahead of hackers and malware? How about the dangers of bioterrorism or runaway, self-replicating nanotechnology? Geoengineering? Nuclear war? How is this a future I’m supposed to want to keep living for?
As if these future nightmares aren’t bad enough, I see how the pace of technological change has made me obsolete in the workplace. My skill set I acquired during the past 40 years, however modest, is now completely out-of-date. And with the increasingly difficult time I have in learning new things, I have almost no ability anymore to keep up with or adapt to these constant changes. I have no interest in “branding” myself or selling myself online, a main source of income for so many young people. But at no time in history have humans had to adapt to this exponential rate of technological or cultural change. I can’t keep up; I never voted or asked to be a part of this. It’s a nightmare ride I demand to get off.
As a vegan, I have the constant knowledge and awareness of all the suffering around me: of 77 billion land animals and hundreds of billions of ocean creatures being needlessly encaged, mutilated, and
murdered every single year, all to satisfy the mindless, barbaric, outdated habits and selfishness of people and their quickly forgotten palate pleasure. And there’s not a damn thing I can do about convincing anyone to change their eating habits14 to reduce, much less stop, this needless animal holocaust. We could be as benevolent gods to the sentient creatures of this planet if we just dared to use our moral reasoning skills and natural capacity for empathy and compassion. But alas, humanity is too enslaved to the barbaric habits of its past, too unable and unwilling to envision a better way of relating to the sentient creatures we share this planet with. Perhaps one day in the future, we’ll evolve ethically and stop killing animals for food. But it’s not going to happen in my lifetime, and I’m not prepared emotionally or spiritually to continue bearing silent witness to this all of this unnecessary suffering.
And even if I can somehow forget all this needless, human-caused suffering, all I have to do is take a walk in nature and become aware of all the suffering caused by disease, predation, and old age. Nature is just an awful fascist bitch, by which I mean that nature always rewards the young, the healthy, and the sexy and punishes the old and the weak. And there is absolutely nothing I can do to end any of this suffering. Nor do I have the mental crutches of rationalizations, projections, mental-blocks, or facile superstitions to paper over this awareness I have of all the suffering around me.
And what about all the health, political, economic, and environmental disasters I fear are looming in the future? It’s just a matter of time before the next zoonotic pandemic or the rise of antibiotic-resistant superbugs, thanks to the abomination of animal agriculture15. Hegemonic wars in the western Pacific with China are coming, meaning I know that wonderful world I left behind in Taiwan is doomed and my friends’ lives there are all endangered. Economic crises seem to be on our doorstep, thanks to the incompetent mismanagement by our so-called leaders. Meanwhile, environmental degradation, loss of biomass and biodiversity, and anthropogenic climate change continue nearly unabated, driven by 1) an economic system based on greed and the fantasy of infinite growth on a finite planet, which is both unsustainable and insane, and 2) disinformation about climate change from rich and powerful polluters, and 3) flawed and gullible human intelligence, which, thanks to short-term thinking, the shifting baseline syndrome, and motivated reasoning shaped by their financial investments, too many people disbelieve the science about climate change and are scared into not making substantial changes. Why would I want to stay alive to experience any part of this unnecessary madness?
After living in Taiwan for 20 years, there are so many things about this country that I find loathsome: the unaffordable, labyrinthine, for-profit health-care system that considers health care a privilege for the rich instead of a basic human right. Basic medication that costs ten times more than in Canada. Insufferable suburban sprawl and car-dependency. The homogeneity and monopolization of retail businesses. Antiquated or non-existent mass-transportation systems. The lack of maternal or paternal leave, paid sick-leave, or viable retirement options for poor people. Unaffordable housing. Declining life expectancy. Declining class mobility. The endless social problems, crime, and gun violence that have resulted in the world’s highest incarceration rate. The racial divisions and the lingering scars of hundreds of years of genocide, slavery, and discrimination. Human-caused climate change. The list of urgent and expensive issues we need addressed in this country are endless!
I used to believe that democracy in this country offered solutions to most of the problems above. But the last 30+ years have really opened my eyes to the frailties of democracy and how easily it can be corrupted by demagogues and autocrats, human greed, stupidity, superstition, tribalism, systemic racism, polarization and the loss of a political center, and extreme income inequality16. Plus there are the undemocratic features of both our federal republic17 form of government and our Presidential system18, which has led frequently to divided governments in which passing legislation is impossible, as well as to our current imperial presidency19. All of these undemocratic features were deliberately designed to make our government easily corruptible by corporate interests, divided, weak, ineffective, and even paralyzed20. We’ll never be able to fix the dysfunctional and undemocratic features of our government without passing a huge bevy of constitutional amendments21. In other words, nothing’s ever going to change in this country, short of a Constitutional Convention, which would probably require a revolution or lead to another civil war22. On top of these undemocratic structural problems we’ve inherited, there is the deep political divide between the Red States and the Blue States that goes back centuries23 and the ongoing, exhausting culture wars that rage between the two sides. Thanks to our country’s increasing polarization24, Americans can’t even agree on truth, facts, and reality anymore, much less the nature and purpose of our government. It’s too bad we’re stuck with this antiquated Constitution with no provisions for peaceably leaving the Union25, and that many Americans consider the Constitution to be holy writ that can’t be seriously altered or replaced. But with so many large and pressing problems going unaddressed because of our dysfunctional government26 and the polarization that amplifies the greed and tribalism of so many Americans, is it any wonder I’m so disillusioned with democracy? But these are the many reasons why – in the richest, most powerful country of the world – we can’t have nice things or address any of our problems. How are decades more of division, paralysis, and possibly civil conflict supposed to be a future I’ll look forward to?
In the meantime, there was the January 6 insurrection – which tried to overthrow the legitimate outcome of the 2020 election and prevent the peaceful transfer of power – the widespread support the coup’s instigator still has in this country, and the willingness of his supporters to promulgate voter suppression laws and undermine democratic institutions based on his Big Lie. Now one in three Americans believe in the Big Lie, thanks to complicit propaganda outlets. The Eastman memo provides the blueprint on how to overturn the legitimate results of presidential elections. The insurrection of January 6 was just a dress rehearsal for how the neo-fascist wing27 of a certain political party plans to overturn future elections, mark my word. But the decay of democratic institutions and norms will continue in this country28 and around the world as long as so many people are beholden to anti-science conspiracy theories, lies posed as alternative “facts,” zero-sum logic, voter suppression, fear of change, resentment of minorities asking for justice and equality, and lying, nihilistic strongmen who break democratic norms and encourage violence to overturn elections. After witnessing all this, I fear this country is heading in the same direction as failed or failing democracies such as Russia, Hungary, Poland, Turkey, India, Philippines, Thailand, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Brazil.29 I just can’t stand the thought of having to witness the dark future I fear for this country and for democracy around the world.
On top of all this is the disillusionment in this country that I’ve experienced ever since 91130. 911 was a horrific crime (I even lost a high school friend on one of the planes), but 911 made us lose our collective mind and our collective principles. Ever since 911, I’ve witnessed – by leaders of both parties – how the values this country once supposedly supported and promulgated have been quickly and hypocritically jettisoned by raw fear and the raw power of our ruling elites. I just find it amazing that in America – the country that supposedly believes in the rule of law – that a sitting president can break federal law and US treaty obligations by authorizing the CIA to use torture at Abu Ghraib, GITMO, and CIA black sites, the same torture techniques that we once executed Nazis for! I find it amazing that in America – the country that supposedly believes in due process and international law – that we launched a SECOND Vietnam War in Afghanistan (having learned absolutely nothing from the first one) and a SECOND war in Iraq based on complete lies, not to mention thousands of drone strikes each year since 911. These wars have wasted many trillions of dollars31 and have killed or wounded over a million people that had
no connection what-so-ever to 911. However, we did manage to create many times more new terrorists than we ever killed. In addition, we’ve created a law-free zone in Guantanamo Bay where 39 people – some of whom have been found to have no connection to terrorism and many of whom were tortured repeatedly by the CIA – have sat in prison for 20 years without trial. The CIA has decided that some of these folks will remain there, incommunicado, for the rest of their lives, all to cover up the incompetence and the many crimes of torture committed by our government! And I find it amazing that in America – the country that supposedly believes in personal responsibility and in the idea that no man is above the law – that no president or high government official has ever had to face any real consequences for their crimes, lies, incompetence, or immoral decisions32. Anyway, I don’t recognize this country anymore nor the values or world-view of the Americans who think any of this shit is OK. And I see no meaningful way I can change this situation, nor do I wish to witness my country’s further decline into moral bankruptcy and irrelevancy.
In fact, I’ve developed a real misanthropy in my old age. What a contradiction humanity is! On the one hand, our intelligence, which may be an inevitable part of evolution, has allowed us to devise many ways to combat and escape the fascist claws of nature. But look at all the horrors of wars, domination, nationalism, slavery, genocide, and religious stupidity like human and animal sacrifice this human intelligence has wrought over the millennia. At the same time, I feel most people are just too tribal, too stuck-in-their-ways, too short-sighted, too prone to various cognitive distortions and thinking errors, and too motivated by greed, lust for status, and their fear of death33 to successfully adapt to the changes that the “great” engine of human progress has unleashed. Between that and all the deep environmental destruction and mass species-extinctions that people have caused over the past 40,000+ years34, I feel humanity is a real and dangerous cancer on this planet. I think overall the world would be better off without an intelligent, yet mentally flawed, violent, and destructive primate species.
Another contradiction is one I find about myself. I loathe being around people, and I dislike most of their values, their thinking habits, their interests, their pursuits, and their noisy, incessant, narcissistic chattering about pointless ephemera. I really detest how unthinkingly people participate in all the violence that permeates our culture35, from wars to the food on their plates to their entertainment choices, such as movies, video games, and sports36. And yet I know I lack the brains, traits, and will- power to ever divorce my reliance on these same awful people and their social systems for my very survival. For example, there’s no way I could ever be smart or strong enough to live by myself off-grid and provide my own food and shelter that was free from the taint of these bothersome people or from an economic system based on exploitation and environmental destruction. I feel trapped inside a social system I abhor, yet I acknowledge I’m only alive because of the food and medicine that system has provided me. I can never find a way to break my dependence on this very system for my own survival or to escape the contradiction I feel of living inside this system. I guess it’s similar to what Christopher Hitchens said about living in North Korea: the only way you can escape living in such a system is by dying.
A third contradiction in my thinking I can’t escape: I abhor violence and killing that causes suffering to others, yet I have decided to violently take my own life. My only response is that when a pet’s life has devolved to a state of perpetual suffering, we humanely euthanize it. (The only time we treat animals better than human beings.) Yet this option is not available to me, so unfortunately I must use violence against myself as a last, desperate resort. It’s a mercy killing, plain and simple. I would have much preferred to have died peaceably and painlessly in my own bed, but society has not yet evolved to the point of offering euthanasia to help people deal with their chronic mental and, quite often, physical
suffering. Maybe one day. I also want to acknowledge the contradiction that exists between my belief as a vegan not to cause suffering to others and the suffering my death will cause to my family and friends. I can’t explain that contradiction away. All I can do is apologize. At least you have the comfort that comes from your own stable lives, your accomplishments, your network of friends, your beliefs and faith, your ability to rationally understand how my suffering has now stopped, at last, as well as how your own mental suffering, however bad it is now, will fade with time and understanding. Anyway, I am haunted by all these contradictions I find in myself, in my actions, and in the world.
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; (I am large. I contain multitudes) ~ Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”
I can hear someone saying, “Oh, you’re just depressed. Just take a magic pill or talk it out with a psychologist, and you’ll feel more positive about life and all its struggles.” To which I can only say this is like putting a band-aid on a major flesh wound. Whatever the root cause, I’ve made millions of decisions over the course of a lifetime based on both rational and emotional responses to this existence that have resulted in the current shabby and empty-handed state of my life. Do you think a pill is going to make up for not having a career at age 56 and going to magically give me the job skills that I missed out on developing over the past four decades because of my learning disabilities? Do you think a pill is going to magically give me a retirement plan and savings with my own house? Do you think a pill is going to magically find me a partner who will overlook the fact that I have nothing materially or sexually to offer anyone? Do you think a pill is going to magically give me the social skills and rich set of social connections that I have never developed because of my lifetime of social phobias and fears?
Finally, there is just nothing left for me to experience now but the daily, dull mental pain caused by this curse of being conscious, of being aware of all the suffering around me, of the hopelessness of being entrapped within human-made systems of consumerism and exploitation. I am defeated by social and natural forces beyond my control, my failing mental health and mental abilities, my failed sexuality, and my soon-to-be failing physical health. I have nothing to look forward to in my life but more mental pain and suffering37. I see no hope in the future of humanity or of this country on its present trajectory, and all the stories, bourgeois values, religion, and goals I was taught to believe in have turned out, upon closer inspection38, to be empty, vane, or unreachable39. There is nothing left for me to live for, to see, or to experience. I have done all I could in this life the best that I could. And all those questions I had when I was 16 – Why am I here? What is the purpose to all this suffering? – are still left unanswered.
Thus, I have decided to complete my life in the time and manner of my own choosing, as I foresaw all those years ago in high school. I claim this right to end my life as my ultimate human freedom. Otherwise, I will remain just a slave to my circumstances, to my frail body and failing mind, and to causes of suffering beyond my control. I know you will feel incredible shock and anger at my decision to end my life, and it might take you a long time to come to grips with it. But please know that this is a decision I have reached calmly, slowly, and deliberately over the course of 40 years and with peace of mind. I have no more fear of dying: death is just a door that opens, and you walk through it.
What has helped me come to grips with my own upcoming demise is my hikes in nature. In fact, my walks alone in the mountains this past year have been the main thing that have kept me both sane and spiritually happy40. When walking in the woods, you will see thousands of trees competing for sunlight. Only a lucky few will make it to full maturity and be able to spread their leaves at the top of the canopy. Most trees are short, scrawny, and unhealthy; deprived of sunlight, they will die much sooner than their
full-sized brothers. Even the luckiest and mightiest trees who have reached their full potential are easily blown down in windstorms, their giant trunks shattered by unpredictable weather. But no matter if they are big or small, successful or not, all trees are doomed to die; their many fallen leaves and bodies continuously litter the forest floor. It gives me comfort to see these dead trees in the woods, slowly decaying and returning their life-giving nutrients to the forest. That is how I see my life now, and I know that this is how it was meant to be for me.
Another reason why I have loved walking in nature is that it puts you in touch with the enormity of time. The limestone rocks that I see up in the mountains were formed at the bottom of an ancient sea over 500 million years ago, uplifted into mountains over tens of millions of years, and have been relentlessly ground down into rubble and sand by weathering ever since. Then there is the unimaginable vastness of evolutionary timescales: the uncountable multitude of individuals who were born, who struggled, who suffered, and who died and were swallowed back into oblivion. There are the millions of species who evolved, who had their day in the Sun, and who then went extinct. Thinking of the incredible vastness of geological and evolutionary time also reminds me of the immensity of cosmological time: the immeasurable scope of the universe and the birth and death of trillions of stars over billions of years. Who am I against the backdrop of such endless time and space, of the crushing and relentless forces of nature? Who am I with my insignificant wants and needs? What difference does my minuscule life or death mean against the backdrop of this vast universe? I am ready to close my eyes and gladly return these atoms to the cosmic churn.
But getting this topic back to the human scale, there’s a movie I want you to watch called The Hours. When I first saw this movie 18 years ago in Taiwan, it was like seeing my own life and ideas played out on the big screen. The DVD of this movie is in on the desk in my room. It will help you to understand my thoughts and feelings about this grave decision I have undertaken. As the movie states:
To look life in the face, always. To look life in the face and to know it for what it is.
At last to know it, to love it for what it is. And then, to put it away. ~ Virginia Woolf, The Hours
But if one person’s life has to end, then, as Virginia Woolf states in the movie, it should be to help the people remaining to love and cherish their lives more. That’s my final wish for you all.
And so I must beg forgiveness from everyone for my last act of selfishness. I’m sorry that ending my own mental pain must now cause you so much mental pain. I hope that with time and contemplation, you can come to the same place of peace and acceptance that I am at now41. I hope the year since I moved home from Taiwan has given my family and friends some fond memories of me to hold on to. Please know that I do treasure the good fortune of having lived in the time and place that I did42, my walks alone in nature, the good memories of times past, those fleeting moments of transcendence and connection43, and the million acts of kindness that you have shown towards me, especially this past year. With great love and appreciation,
Eric Pickett
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die. ~ Roy Batty, Blade Runner
To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die. ~ Ecclesiastes 3:1–2
Here are some personal messages I wish to leave behind:
Dad
I know it was never easy for you – as a confident, manly man – to have a dysfunctional, sissy gay boy as a son. And it was never easy for me having a father to whom I could not really relate or get close. But I’ve always admired your many accomplishments, and although there’s not much we could ever see eye- to-eye on, I know you did your best to love me. Thanks for letting me mooch off you this past year and allowing me to spend my one year of “retirement” at your home. Thanks for everything you did to raise me and for all the thousand acts of generosity you showed me. (I’ll never forget the time you drove all my stuff to Boston: that was almost super-human!) I wish you the best of luck!
Mom
I know this news will affect you the hardest. Please know that I did enjoy the good parts of being alive: the good meals, the music, and the art. So for all those many simple pleasures I experienced as a child, and for all the thousands of times you drove me to swimming and piano lessons, the millions of times you went grocery shopping and made me a wonderful meal, I just want to thank you so deeply. You were a great mom. You have a huge heart, and you gave me the courage to follow mine. I love you so much! I’m really sorry to be putting you through more grief right after Sharae’s passing. But everything has a time to live and a time to die. And now I’ve decided it’s my time.
Joy and Glenn
This news will hit you very hard, and I know it will take everything you have to cope. But you have each other, you have a successful child and a lovely home, and you have your faith. Joy, I know of all the siblings, your life has been the toughest. But I know you can keep going by holding on to those things you still have. You’ll make it through. Just focus now on the things you need to do to take care of your health. I’m really sorry that I’ve probably just doubled the suffering you are going through now.
Duane and Kathy
Thanks so much for letting me stay with you for two weeks and for helping me land on my feet when I moved home last year. Thanks so much for the phone. I’m sorry I didn’t get to use it that long. Maybe you can resell it. I hope you guys can get out and explore the bigger world one day. I think it would do you both good. You two have your faith to make it through the hard times. I know you’ll both be fine.
Rachel and Brian
Thank you so much for letting me live out some of my final days with you in the glorious beauty which is Colorado. Although I had been planning my end ever since my return from Taiwan, I moved to Durango because I wanted to spend some quality time with you guys before I died. I also thought maybe I could find a purpose or reason to keep living in Colorado. Although I really enjoyed communing with the beautiful nature out there, it was very obvious to me within a few weeks that all my mental pathologies and my disgust with having to function in this society had not changed. And I know I wouldn’t have been happy living in Colorado; it’s a rich man’s paradise and a poor man’s prison. I’d never survive living there financially working those minimum-wage jobs. Plus I really do hate snow and have no interest in skiing. But I wish you all the best. I deeply admire your family and the life you’ve carved out for yourselves in the West. My soul will always be out there in the Rockies! Rachel, I have made you the legacy contact of my Facebook account in the case of my death once the account is memorialized. Please contact Facebook to find out what to do next. Also, please post an announcement on my Facebook page about what’s happened.
Vince and Jailyn
I am sorry we never got to know each other well because I was living overseas for so many years. Please know that you both are smart and young and have many things ahead in your lives to learn and many experiences to enjoy. Please don’t take my life as an example for your own lives. I was just a very unfortunate person who lacked the coping skills required to survive in this society. You have all your life ahead of you with many options still open for you.
The world was all before them/ Where to choose their place of rest... ~ Milton, Paradise Lost
Mark Brady and Brett Riddle
Thank you so much for letting me use your car, Brett, and for giving me your monitor, Mark! That was so incredibly kind of you both. I appreciate all the times we got to hang out and chat. You guys were really the best friends I could have ever wanted to have! Mark, you alone have always stood by me, and you understand my past 30 years better than anyone. I will always cherish our friendship, and I wish you all the best. Hang on to all those good times in the past to give you the strength to carry on!
Chris Homsley
You were one of the few high school friends who stuck with me through all these years. I always appreciated your friendship, your kindness, your talents, and your general coolness. Thanks for the lovely times we spent recently and the deep and meaningful conversations about life, work, and music. I wish you all the best in your career. Keep being awesome!
Alyn Wambeke
I don’t know how you endured all the pain you’ve suffered these past years. Fate has been so unfair and unkind to you. I’m sorry I don’t share your strength to carry on. Thanks for being a soul mate!
Greg McCain
Those few years we lived together in Boston were the best years of my life. I’ll never forget those amazing meals we had at Boston’s finest restaurants. I regret I ever left our wonderful life together. Thanks for being such a kind and compassionate person to me!
Ming-Ching (Eric) Ko
I know we had talked about meeting again one day in the future. I’m sorry I didn’t have the strength or mental health to survive that long. Besides, with no job, money, or home, I really had no future to offer you. Please forgive me for not holding out any longer. I have kept the affection you offered me deep in my heart this past year, giving me much solace.
Stanley Wang, Stiev Huang, Perry Hsiao, & Qihong (Charlie) Lee
You always did so much for me when I was living in Taiwan. You helped me navigate the culture and the language in Taiwan and helped me when I was sick or down. I am sorry that I was always such a selfish and fucked-up boyfriend to you. Thank you again for everything you did for me!
Deciduous by Linda Gregerson
Speak plainly, said November to the maples, say
what you mean now, now
that summer’s lush declensions lie like the lies
they were at your feet. Haven’t
we praised you? Haven’t we summer after summer
put our faith in augmentation.
But look at these leaving of not-enough-light:
It’s time for sterner counsel now.
It’s time, we know you’re good at this, we’ve
seen the way your branched
articulations keep faith with the whole, it’s time
to call us back to order before
we altogether lose our way. Speak
brightly, said the cold months, speak
with a mouth of snow. The scaffolding is
clear now, we thank you, the moon
can measure its course by you. Instruct us,
while the divisions of light
are starkest, before the murmurs of con-
solation resume, instruct us in
the harder course of mindfulness.
Speak truly, said April. Not just
what you think we’re hoping to hear, speak
so we believe you.
The child who learned perspective from the
stand of you, near and nearer,
knowing you were permanent, is counting
the years to extinction now. Teach her
to teach us the disciplines of do-less-harm. We’re
capable of learning. We’ve glimpsed
the bright intelligence that courses through the body
that contains us. De +
cidere, say the maples, has another face.
It also means decide.
To me, musicians are my true heroes. They combine the dedication of years of endless practice with ungodly physical dexterity, unworldly mental brilliance, and their own natural talents to open my ears and “eyes” to realms far beyond the everyday. Their music transcends the limits of my mortal body and connect me, along with the other listeners, to some higher, communal spiritual existence. Music to me is a transcendent high without the need for religion or drugs. If you want to do something to remember me by, please go listen to the music of Bjork, Tori Amos, Yes, Allan Holdsworth, Bill Bruford, or Beethoven. Whenever you listen to their music, know that they represented something great and profound to me at various points in my life. Here are some of my favorite tracks from these artists.44
Bjork Tori Amos | Moon Horses | Yes B. Bruford A. Holdsworth Beethoven | Close the Edge (full album) Relayer (full album) especially “Awaken” Candles Still Flicker in Romania’s Darkness All Heaven Broke Loose Pilgrims’ Way Adios A La Pasada Palewell Park Forever Until Sunday Travels with Myself Nuages (KC) Funnels All of the late string quartets The Ninth Symphony |