Good guys finish last because the bad guys have stolen carpe diem.

The best thing general intelligence put into humans is our humor and sense of fucking up. We know when we blunder the hell out of things and we find it amusing. The saddest people are those who don’t allow themselves the good laugh at the expense of their screwups. It is quite funny how we managed to survive in this world so far.

I swear sometimes I get the feeling that our whole big impressive history as a species is a series of serendipity connected stumbles and blunders and fuckups.

One reason we’re so careful not to admit our screwups and fuckups is that we’re so confused on two parameters our brains handle non stop: honesty and sincerity.

Honesty means being open about your intentions. Sincerity means being open about your motivations.

Hell yea, that makes a big pile of a difference. Sincerity is a scalpel, you need to know what you do with it, honesty is your handy tool, friend. You need to be honest to yourself, honest to people, honest to society etc. When you have to be sincere is a matter of exclusive personal choice because sincerity is always, always, always a sacrifice. I hate sacrifices.

We are so prone to stumbles and blunders and fuckups that, I think, aliens find us annoying, but they’re too far ahead as a civilization to destroy us. They simply ignore our crazy way of screaming into the void for friends. Did you ever have a cricket inside your bedroom?

But what all this fumbling around has done for the entire history of civilization is to keep us busy. We’re always fully scheduled to do either cleanups or more blunders, sparsely committing some sound, rational action into the world. That led to what I call the bad guy carpe diem: fuck the system, cause damage, be reckless, screw patience, be more like Jim Morrison. You know what this all is? Owning up to your stumbles and blunders and fuckups.

I don’t want to take the credit away from this path, I only want to introduce:

The good guy carpe diem

I don’t want to be sugary, or aspartamy for those on a diet, or corn sirupy for my american readers, but here are the facts:

• being home for dinner is carpe diem. Sounds boring? Try making the dinner. Most of travel is about eating weird local shit and calling it “experience the traditional cuisine”, yet souping up and bringing to a happy ending a creative self made dinner is an adventure beating the best Litti Chokha.
• organizing a surprise for your loved one is carpe diem, what can be more carpe diem than that? It is better than any sandy beaches because you are the sun, the sun that warmed them with attention.
• going to your kids little league events, or whatever they’re called in your society, is carpe diem, these things are going away fast. Everything about your children is just the same as any once in a life time event: it is once in their lifetimes. If I’d give you a free all inclusive vacation in the resort of your choice would you take it?
• helping a friend is carpe diem, most of the time people don’t need your help, and the experience of helping is so not that different from an adventure in the Amazon. Always help only people who help themselves, otherwise it is a waste of time.
• lounging on the couch, hydrating with tasty beverage and caressing a body you cherish is carpe diem. Carpe diem is not tied to action, it is also the rare opportunities for non action.
• teaching a child something and noticing that glitter of grasping in their eyes is carpe diem, and it does not have to be your child at all! You can’t get any more carpe diem than that, as you are really making a mark, a mark in another human’s self.
• celebrating your imaginary anniversaries is carpe diem, and yes, you have to remember them first, in order to be celebrating them. Carpe diem needs no providence, you can bring it on and bring your own.
• fighting with your loved one because you want to make it work is carpe diem, fighting because it doesn’t work is wasted time though. Bungee jumping makes you sick in the gut, amusement parks are freak shows we enjoy while inside and are bedazzled while we see them from the outside.
• doing good, lasting, exemplary work is carpe diem, it’s not that you shouldn’t aim for that CEO money and fame, but the opportunity to do good work is rare.

It is not a literal list, it is a list of pointers to how simplicity in life has nothing to do with blandness of existence. We’re educated to not let go. We’re clutching to minutes, keeping them from time. Were strangling life while it carries us on its back. That makes for a pretty bad attitude, mainly because we’re keeping track of all our stumbles and blunders and fuckups. We want to fix them and we make more stumbles and blunders and fuckups. And we forget to laugh.

Just, you know, be cool! You can carpe the shit out of this diem and fix the stumbles and blunders and fuckups later after you had the best laugh of your life about how llittle we know of anything.