EARTHBOUND AND THE MEANING OF LIFE an existential examination - By: PoliceN64 Preface - I have written this story out of the love I have for the Earthbound Community. I've put advice into this story that will hopefully help each and every one of us live our lives. Read carefully and be enlightened. -PoliceN64 SeanCrowder@juno.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ::A gloomy funeral procession slowly passes by Ness, playing an old gospel tune. Ness salutes the coffin as it passes by. A motorcycle rushes past and splashes a pull of mud all over Ness' suite. Men wearing leotards and twirling batons march by. Bears driving little go-karts and wearing funny hats drive around cyclically:: Narrator: Comedy: the concept of setting up a pattern and then suddenly breaking it. Laughter: a defensive stance at the absurdity of life. Life: a void that can only be filled by human warmth. Humanity: that which is bovine. ::Ness drops a rose and walks away. It begins to rain. Fade to black:: Narrator: Yes, my brothers, this is a tale of a young man who first encountered death from the passing of his grandfather; a tale that we all must endure within our lifetimes; a tale of existence; a journey to the omega point; ground zero; death. ::A spotlight flickers on in a dark room:: Ness: Hello, my name is Ness. I don't really have a last name... as a matter of fact, I don't even have a name. What is a name, anyway? A crackle in the air; a vibration to which we respond to the most. So why am I here? To communicate through metaphor, which is the most practical form of communication, if you ask me. Nobody really listens to each other. Every man is an island. For whom does the bell toll? Who cares? We're all gonna die anyway. So yeah, here's my questions: What is the meaning of life? Why do people die? What happens after death? Truthfully, and don't be afraid to use complete, upright honesty....(Pause) ...No answer? See, you don't know. Nobody knows. Perhaps, just perhaps, I'll ask God. ::Ness takes off his hat and looks up into the dark void:: Ness: Hello, God, mysterious being of the clouds, could you whisper into my ear the meaning of life when your omniscience gets around to it? (Pause) Are you even listening? (Pause) Of course not, because you're not even there. All I have is me and my shadow. ::The narrator steps in Ness' light:: Narrator: This attitude greatly upset Ness' parents. He no longer showed any interest in the future. College was just another empty concept in his Senior year of highschool. Perhaps if Ness took a brief vacation to sort out some of his answers... blah.. blah... blah... depressing stuff, depressing stuff... tear hear, tear there... okay now, let's get on with the story. ::The narrator snaps his fingers and steps aside. Two curtains open to reveal a snow covered laboratory. Inside, Jeff looks at a spherical device with two large magnifying glasses strapped onto his glasses. He blinks:: Jeff: Yes, that's it, one more tweak and everything will be perfect. (steps back and removes his glasses) ::There's a banging at the door:: Jeff: What could that be? I have no friends... (quickly waddles over to the door and opens it) Ness: (in despair) Jeff, I have some questions to ask. Jeff: One moment, one moment! (runs over to his spherical device and covers it with a dusty sheet) Don't look! Ness: (taking off his jacket and brushing off the snow) What're you hiding? Jeff: Oh, just a small thing I've been working on. Let's just say... oh, heck, I might as well tell you the good news. Here, sit down. Would you like some tea? Of course you would. Ness: What news? Jeff: ...Ness, I've found a cure for death. Pragmatic, but a cure for death. Ness: A cure for death?! Jeff: (laughing madly) A cure for death indeed. No more dying, no more sickness, no more pain, no more displeasure. (Quickly becomes serious) It's a concept that is almost meta-real. Ness: (enthusiastically) Well done, Jeff! How have you done it? Regeneration of the organs? Manipulation of the genes? Jeff: None of that! It's a giant bomb. Ness: (blinks) A giant bomb? Jeff: Yes, a bomb powerful enough to reverse the expanding process of the Big Bang sequentially causing everything to collapse upon itself into one perfect unitary dot. Ness: But what happens after that? Jeff: Phenomenologically, our individual consciousness will be eliminated and we'll all be sucked into nothingness. Ness: (severely upset) Jesus... and when do you plan on doing this? Jeff: After I finish building a remote. Sad how things require a causal dualism. Regardless, the countdown shall end at high midnight tomorrow. Ness: My God... is that even ethical? Jeff: Bah, ethics, the constipation of progress! Ness: Progress toward what?! Jeff: Contentment. Ness: All that for the price of contentment? Give me life! Jeff: (changing the subject) So what was it you came here for? Ness: You already answered my questions. (to himself) Contentment. If only I could be content with contentment. Jeff: A conundrum indeed. But never worry about that, Ness. Tonight all your worries will have vanished. Ness: Literally. (confused) Couldn't you have invented some contentment pill instead? Or perhaps a nonpragmatic cure for death! Jeff: Living forever, now that's a true despair. You think after a brush with Sisyphus mankind would have washed out the bitter taste of immortality. Ness: Perhaps you're right about that. Jeff: It's all for the best, Ness. Oh, and by the way... Dr. Strangelove will be playing at the cinema tonight, I suggest you go and watch it. Ness: I hear Dr. Strangelove II is debuting around the world tomorrow night, and this time we won't meet again. (Puts on his jacket and quickly leaves the laboratory) Jeff: (yelling) It's all for the best, Ness! All for the best... (to himself) I'm doing mankind a favor. It won't be around to thank me, but a favor indeed. Now, let's see about that remote. ::The narrator walks into the scene, looking over the giant spherical bomb:: Narrator: A cure for death; annihilation; complete nirvana. What else could a person ask for? But Ness still hadn't reached the winter of his discontent, and was not ready to make his leap of faith into the darkness. The answers he received from the materialistic Jeff were not good enough. No soul? No life after death? The meaning of life dedicated to the practices of humanism? Ironic progress unto self displacement? Yes, my friends, Ness' hours were numbered. ::The scene slowly fades away. Fade in to birds chirping in front of a spiffy urban house. Paula is swinging from a tree outside. Ness walks up, wiping the sweat off his brow with a handkerchief:: Paula: Tee-hee Ness: Paula, we've gotta talk. Paula: Why of course, of course. Come inside. I'll fix us some tea. (She drags Ness into the living room) Ness: God, what is it with people and tea? Paula: (taking his hands) Now, now, Ness... What's the matter with you today? Ness: Tomorrow. Paula: Now that's your problem! You need to stop worrying about things and live in the moment, the day after yesterday.... Today! Ness: (bluntly) Paula, what makes your life worth living? Paula: (sitting down) Well, let's see... Ice cream, I do love ice cream. Flowers, yes flowers, aren't they beautiful, Ness? Music; how I love Mozart! And last but not least, love. Ness: Love of what? Paula: Love of you, of course. Ness: But what about the bigger things? Like the meaning of life. Paula: The meaning of life, yes... let's see here. (Pause) I try not to worry about that. Like that famous saying goes, and please forgive me for misplacing who said it: "All you need is love." Ness: But can't you see... biologically, love is the trick that nature plays upon us to reproduce! Paula: How cold! It's more than that. It's completely sensual. Ness: Sensual to get us to reproduce... so what about death... what do you think happens after death? Paula: ...Well, I like to think that we all go to our own separate Valhalla's in the sky... with, ice- cream, flowers... Mozart, and you, Ness.. You... Ness: I don't like flowers. I don't like ice-cream... and God, Mozart is so overrated. If anyone would be in Valhalla, it'd be Richard Wagner. And me? Impossible. Paula: Why do you say that? Ness: Don't you see, Paula? I can't love anyone right now. Paula: You... you don't love me? Ness: (carefully) ....I don't love anyone. Paula: But how could you?! (rushes out of the room, stomps upstairs, and slams her door shut) ::Ness slumps his head between his legs. The narrator takes the lampshade off his head and begins another boring monologue:: Narrator: Boring? I'll show you boring. You and your stupid "::" and third person dialogue. That's what I call boring! Anyway... here we see our protagonist, not in shame, not in regret, but in complete apathy over Paula, our aesthete, who fills her days with food, music, art, flowers, and everything sensual to live in the moment, but on her deathbed she may regret the time she wasted, questioning herself, if she had really lived life at all. So what is the meaning of life? Doesn't matter to her, as long as she has her amusement. What happens after death? An invented fiction that will never come true. What makes her life worth living? Ice cream. ::A commercial pops on the television. Pokey Minch in a purple suite screams his message into the camera as if trying to sell a new product:: Television: Looking for the meaning of life? Ness: (looks up) What the? Televison: Wondering why bad things happen to good people? Ness: Pokey? Television: Want to know about the world to come? Ness: Why not? Television: Then come on down to 5506 Apple Lane tonight at 7:00 PM. At this meeting, I will reveal all of the esoteric knowledge contained in the Book of Cunto. So come on down to 5506 Apple Lane tonight! See you there! (The television clicks off) Ness: (to himself) What scam has Pokey cooked up now? Heh... cooked up... how fitting.. ::Later, in front of the building at 5506 Apple Lane:: Ness: (looking at a sheet of paper) Yeah, this is it. (Ness opens the double doors and examines the inside. Organ music blasts, tambourines rattle, and Pokey is preaching from a pulpit in his purple suite to four or five people scattered throughout the pews) Pokey: Yes, my brothers, praised be Cunto! Hobo: (crackled voice) Praise Cunto! Pokey: Say it again. (stomping around) Praise Cunto! Hobo: Praise Cunto! ::Pokey tosses a cookie to the Hobo, who catches it in his mouth. Pokey waddles over to the organ to strike a few chords:: Pokey: We are blessed tonight to be here, for I have a message for all to hear and see. (leans under the pulpit and pulls out a black box) In this box here I have the last remaining sacrament of Cunto. (opens the box and pulls out a brown, pudgy rock) Behold, the almighty rock! (runs over to the organ and strikes a few chords) Almighty rock! Almighty rock! Yes, almighty rock! Ness: (sits down in the back) .... Pokey: (notices Ness) Agh, yes! Another sinner come to repent in the name of Cunto. You're a sinner, you know that? If you don't except the rock of Cunto you're gonna burn in hell for eternity! Ness: Didn't you try to take over the world? Pokey: (humbling himself) Yes, I admit, I was once a lost child, but now I've repented. (kisses the rock) Cunto! Cunto! Praised be, Cunto! (holds the rock up to the Hobo) Here, sinner! Kiss this rock or burn in hell! Hobo: (kisses the rock) Smack...! Pokey: (runs to the back and holds the rock before Ness) Kiss this rock, sinner! Ness: No. Pokey: Kiss it! Kiss it! Watch how I kiss it! (smooches all over the rock) Ness: (growing suspicious) Didn't I see you in my yard a couple of weeks ago? Yes, that's right... It was around four in the morning. Pokey: (eyes grow wide) I don't know what you're talking about. Ness: You had a trash bag and a shovel. You were collecting my dog's droppings. Pokey: (looks at the brown rock) Blasphomy! It's not true. Hobo: (to himself) You mean I've been kissing... Pokey: (waddles to a little room in the back and disappears behind a curtain) Lies! Lies! Lies! Ness: That's true... lies. All lies. ::Ness pushes the double doors apart and runs out of the building:: Narrator: A leap of faith, an impossible thing for Ness to take. How could he possibly believe something that he knew had no proof behind it whatsoever? No logic to connect this theology to the material reality. So many had already submitted themselves to this mode of conditioning, receiving cookies for their obedience from the small society they had found themselves in. What is the meaning of life? Cunto. What is the meaning of Cunto? Only Cunto knows... ...So Ness, finding no answers yet, set out on a journey to the mountains of India, a journey that would lead him to his old friend, Poo. ::The narrator snaps. We see the great mountains of India with the Lawrence of Arabia theme playing in the background. Ness is climbing with a large sack on his back. At the very top of the mountain Poo is sitting in meditation:: Poo: Omm.... Omm.... Ness: (climbs to the very top, panting and sweating) Oh God...! How did you get all the way up here in the first place? Poo: (looking at Ness with one open eye) Transport. Ness: (in scorn) Transport... should have thought of that. Poo: (opens both eyes, stands, and takes Ness' hands) I know why you're here. Ness: (surprised) Really, you do? Poo: Yes, your search is in vain. Ness: (to himself) I knew it! There is no meaning to life! Poo: I didn't say that. Ness: (eyeing Poo) Then what exactly are you saying? Poo: When a person searches for meaning external to himself, he will never find that meaning. When that person realizes that meaning is purely internal, they will look for their answers internally. Ness: So you're saying.. Poo: Externally, the meaning of life is a void that only leads back to itself again. The meaning of life is life. Internally, we all may posit our own meaning through different states of mind. You see, Ness, life is a state of mind. Ness: How did you figure this out? Poo: The secret is, that there is no secret. When you stop striving for things externally, everything blooms. When you're content with nothing, you're content with everything. Ness: So, wait a minute here. What you're saying is that externally, life has no meaning, only to give us the existential freedom to choose whatever meaning we would like internally, therefore, that internal choice gives our external reality that meaning. Poo: If that's what you've learned. Ness: So Jeff, for example... his state of mind is totally materialistic, so the meaning of his life is governed by materialism. Paula, her state of mind is governed by sensuality, so the only meaning she can have is through sensuality. Pokey, his state of mind is based purely on theological concepts, therefore he can only find meaning in his life by fulfilling those concepts, such as kissing my dog's droppings. Poo: Perhaps. Ness: So, wait a minute, which state of mind is the correct state of mind? Poo: There are no correct choices, or incorrect choices, only choices. We define ourselves by the choices that we make. Ness: What state of mind have you chosen? Poo: The no state of mind. Ness: Annihilation? Poo: Everything and nothing are one and the same. Ness: What happens after we die? Poo: We go from where we came. Ness: Nothing happens? Poo: Nothing happens, and yet everything happens. Ness: What? Poo: In other words, go and live your life. Stop worrying about things that you can't change. You've been asking the wrong questions. It's not, "What is the meaning of life." The real question is, "What is the meaning of your life?" Ness: Oh, Poo! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I think...? (remembers something) Oh, no... tonight's the night the bomb is going off! Poo: Use your transport. Traveling is much quicker that way. (Ness disappears) Such vitality... Oh well... (shrugs, and goes back to meditating) Omm.... Omm... ::Back at Jeff's laboratory:: Voice: Counting down. 15 minutes. Jeff: (laughing madly) Annihilation. How wonderful! Ness: (busting through the doors) Stop! Wait! Don't implode the universe! Jeff: (grinning) Try and stop me. Ness: Okay. (walks over to the spherical bomb and unplugs it) Jeff: Blast it! I knew I should have made the power unit internal. Ness: Before you decide to do something totally rational, listen to me. Jeff: (looks at his watch) I'll give you 5 minutes. Ness: Okay, then. Jeff: (politely) Would you like some tea? Ness: What? No. Listen. (stairs at Jeff intently) Life is a state of mind.. and... (trying to remember) It's a state of mind! Meaning comes internally, not externally... and, um... a penny saved is a penny earned. Jeff: And how is that supposed to convince me to not regress the universe? Ness: I don't know. Hold on a second... (reaches into his bag and pulls out a bat) Stay back! Jeff: Now's not the time for games. Ness: You want to see a game? I'll show you a game! (runs over to the device and starts bashing dents into it) Jeff: Don't do that! Are you crazy? (changing his mind) As a matter of fact, go ahead. I'll just let him set it off. (Ness continues to whack away at the device) ::Outside of the laboratory. There's a huge explosion. Both Ness and Jeff our tossed outside, covered in black. Pieces of the device fall from the sky, one by one:: Jeff: (running around, trying to collect the falling pieces by holding out his lab coat) My doomsday device! My beautiful doomsday device! Ness: (slowly leans up, out of the snow) I'm still alive? I'm still alive! (dances around) Jeff: (to himself) I knew I should have made the power unit internal. The blast didn't have enough power to reverse the process of the expanding universe! Blast it! Blast it! It'll take me years to build another. Ness: Why, you don't have to build another. Jeff: I told you before, give me one good reason why I should not! Ness: Ice cream. Jeff: Ice cream? Ness: Ice cream. Jeff: (a tear comes to his eye, and then freezes) Ice cream... that's beautiful. (sniffles) It's settled then. I no longer want to build a device to implode the universe. (enthusiastically) My next project, an instant ice cream maker! ::Both Ness and Jeff prance off into the distance, laughing and throwing snowballs at each other:: Narrator: And so the story goes, everyone lived happily ever after. Well, not everyone. ::Pokey sits in his church office eating chicken legs and dabbing his sweaty forehead with a handkerchief:: Pokey: Yes, together you and I will take over the world. (raises the brown rock into the air to look at it intently. The rock is now sporting a pair of glasses and a smiley face.) We'll show those infidels the truth. (laughing madly to himself, he chokes on a piece of chicken) THE END?