Not Doing Okay

It has always seemed strange to me how few people ever consider just how strange life really is. Different chemical reactions have taken place time and again in a very specific way to form out bodies. Molecules have built on one another in such a specific pattern that they have created moving beings. Because that's all life really is- movement. We are alive because we can move on our own. We can make the choice to move in very specific ways. But can we really? Those decisions only exist because of chemical reaction in our brains, which are nothing more than organic tissue that exists in such a way as to allow each of us to produce something an abstract as a thought.

But what are our thoughts? They seem to just be electrical signals firing around inside our organic brains, invoking chemical reactions at every step which co-exist to form reality as we know it. But what exactly is reality? It is nothing more than the way that the chemicals in our organic brain perceive the chemicals in the rest of life through the magic of sight.

Some would say that all of these complicated chemical reactions are a miracle in themselves. However, I have always defined miracles as that which there is no rational explanation for. And, as I have just explained, there are very rational explanations for all the chemical reactions I have described. So I do not believe human life to be the miracle that many think it is. We are not the products of miracles, we are simply fortunate enough that the right chemicals have gotten together and reacted in exactly the right way to give us the ability to choose to move and present us with the reality that we all see.

Anyway, that is how I see life. Some will call it cynical, some will call it cold, some will be impressed by the intellectual complexity of it. Call it a philosophy, call it dogma, call it what you wish. But it is all very strange nonetheless.

So few people really put this much thought into the nature of their existence. They go about their lives, taking everything for granted. Oh, some attribute what I have described to a heavenly creator being, but those are just people who refuse to face reality. They can not understand the complex chemical reactions, so they attribute everything to a divine "miracle," unable to comprehend that this would be an even more absurd explanation.

Now then, that brings us to the real subject at hand here- morality. What is morality but a series of rules that the weak-minded have invented to make the strong feel guilty for enjoying themselves? What makes an action moral or immoral? There might be a credible answer if there truly was a divine god, but with life nothing more than chemical reactions there appears to be no truly correct action other than that which we want to commit. And why do we want to commit certain actions? Because of the chemical reactions in our brains.

Many have told me that an action is immoral if it harms another human being. But what is a human being but just a grouping of chemicals, and what is harm but the simple destruction and degradation of said chemicals? Why should harming a human being be any different morally than harming a piece of paper? Just because the human contains chemicals which allow for those abstract "thoughts" to occur? I was never satisfied with this explanation. In short, morality exists purely because people are too intellectually vacuous to decide for themselves which actions are correct so they need to follow an established dogma.

So when you ask me how I can live with what I have done, this is exactly how. I sleep very well at night in the confines of this cell. I know, technically, it is a hospital bed. But that is merely a euphemism. This is a cell, for I am confined here against my will.

I am fifty four years old and I have been confined in places like this since the age of twelve. That was the age at which the chemicals in my brain reacted in a way that allowed me to alter the chemicals in another human beings body in such a way that they died. Or, as I'm sure most of the newspapers have reported it, the day that a twelve-year-old boy killed his mother.

I believe at this point that I have convinced you all that morality did not play a role in that decision. So why did I kill her you may ask? The answer is simple: I did not want her to continue to live. It's actually silly that this question even needs to be asked for the answer is so simple. But why did I not want her to live? Again a silly question. I did not want her to live because I did not like her being alive.

I never knew my father. He left home before I was born. My mother raised me herself. She frequently remarked how, from a young age, I showed very little emotion. She was convinced that I was possessed by the devil. We lived in a rural part of the American south- North Carolina, to be specific. She was religious like so many others in that area. I was not, but I did not dare to tell her or anyone else. I simply kept to myself, not speaking any more than what was necessary to communicate with the other human beings.

My mother, like most individuals, was intellectually inferior. She was incapable of understanding the absurd subjectivity of the world we lived in or how the morality she had been taught had to basis in objective reality. Did this make her a bad person? No, I do not believe that because I believe it is entirely subjective to decide that someone is "good" or "bad." We just exist, "good" and "bad" are just subjective labels that have been created to subdue the intellectually inferior.

Nonetheless, I found my mother's intellectual inferiority to be irritating and exhausting (and she said that I had no emotions). At the age of twelve, I reached a point of maturity where I had realized that I did not need to subject myself to her stupidity if I did not want to. Of course, I knew there would be consequences to picking up that knife and stabbing her in the chest. But sometimes the absurdity of life can be a bit more entertaining if you add a little chaos. Once it was discovered she was dead, I had no idea what was going to happen to me, and the uncertainty was truly exciting. In fact, I miss that uncertainty as my entire life now is scripted for me, with very little variation.

What I will admit was stupid at the time, I will chalk up to simple immaturity. I did not have a plan for how I would live once she had died. Despite being an incredibly stupid woman, she was kind enough to cook my meals and keep the house well-stocked with food. It did not take long to consume what was in the house after she had died. I contemplated eating her body, but it turned out that I was not left alone for long enough to get to that point.

You see, this event happened in October. If it had taken place in the Summer, I might have ended up with more time alone with her corpse. However, in the fall when I was absent from school without reason and with my mother incapable of being contacted, it did not take long for the police to do what they call a "wellness check." Two police officers showed up at the house and discovered me with my mother's dead body and I very calmly told them what had happened.

I'm sure you know the rest at this point. I was examined by a psychiatrist and court-ordered into treatment where I have been every since. My official diagnosis is "mixed personality disorder with antisocial, schizotypal, and schizoid traits." That is a longer diagnosis than I'm sure most people here end up with, so I suppose that could be a point of pride.

At one point, I was court-ordered to take medication. I, of course, complied as I had no choice. But it was discovered that the medication (something called "chlorpromazine") did nothing to soften my homicidal tendencies so, even on medication, I have remained involuntarily committed to the Brynn Marr psychiatric hospital in Richlands, North Carolina, where I will stay until I die.

With nothing else to do with my time, I write all of this down with the hope that someone will find it interesting enough to read. Perhaps if enough people read it, I can convince someone that my "philosophy of life" is perfectly logical and that it is not logically consistent to keep me contained. However, what little bit I follow the news has not convinced me that mankind is capable of reaching this revelation. So until then I sit here at Brynn Marr hospital with a pen in my hand. Maybe I will show this writing to my psychiatrist, or the judge who sentenced me. At the very least, they might find it "interesting."