There. That’s my last lament, now time for one final call to pack. And don’t worry, it’s still chock full of lament. As if. Overall, I feel that I did an A for Adequate job on answering the question “wtf went so terribly wrong (with me)?”, and I hope that my lament/analysis made its way to some people who needed to hear it, so they know they aren’t alone. Not alone, just lonely – and that’s bad enough. Hence the call to pack. So “wtf went wrong” answered good enoughly, and if I’m reading the room correctly you’re all like “wtf, doomer guy, you ramble enough for a dozen tambles and you ain’t got nothin to say about what the hell we’re supposed to do about it? Bullshit.”

Okay, bullshit called. Fair enough. I do have something, but it ain’t much. But at least it’s something, and it’s not too far off from where your heart truly lies, anyway. I’m talking about lost causes, of course. “Hey, but Nat, earlier you said you can’t believe in lost causes anymore. Wtf – don’t play with our emotions, Smokey.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m talking about a very specific kind of lost cause with a slightly different orientation to it. And since my big problem at least is the loss of that horizon by which I completely and totally oriented my entire personality. Orientation is what we need. Something to move towards. Direction in a sense.

“Orientation, sure, direction, yeah, ok, who couldn’t use some of that, these days? But that ‘horizon’ that was so freakin important for you? for us? That was Hope, my dude, capital H and everything. And you yourself said that there is no substitute for Hope. So what gives, buster?”

Sorry, not the best solace to give, but my answer is to borrow some hope from someone else and orient yourselves towards it. Work at diverting your eyes back to it whenever you start cascading toward the Big Picture’s GAME OVER screen. Pascal’s wager for basic sanity. Basically just fake it til you make it, but instead of making it you just try not think about the fact that faking it is all you got left. Just enough anyway so that you are able to live out the rest of your life without the constant fraying. Hopefully anyway, lol.

Anyway, my suggestion is that we all start betting on losing dogs. Where we do already know (if in nowhere else then at least deep down in that secret asshole part of our minds that would rather drink the hemlock than be exiled from the truth) that they are in fact losing. That all the time they have left will be filled with pity-cringes from the crowd and final countdowns. Accept that they’ve already lost and that nothing you can or will do can change that outcome in any way. Fuck it, seriously, we’ve all paid for our place by their sides a hundred times over – so fuck yeah, go lose by their sides. And do it with such grace and fury that the angel of history finally gets to have a smile crack their face, even if it’s only in the moment of their final crashing. Lose gloriously with beautiful people doing amazing things to better the world that they love as well. It’s not the worst way to go out, honestly, it’s just a bummer that there really is no deus ex machina this time – we could’ve used it for real. Well, losing dogs then – there’s enough of them out there, these days, that finding some deserving of your time and attention shouldn’t be too difficult.

That’s it. That’s all I got. I hope to hell that it’s good enough. At least to start. I hope that if all this applies to you and if you’ve been hurtin, then maybe all you needed was to hear someone else say some of it – to start the call. I hope that hearing your lament in someone else’s words is enough to get you to answer the call to pack in your own way and add your voice to mine. And if this all doesn’t apply to you, but you’re still hurtin in your own ways, then I hope this helped you in some ways as well. I truly do.