A Sort of Morbidity

So this is the way my mind works.

There is consistently a pretty bizarre stream of ideas that pop into my head, for no good reason that I have never been able to figure out. Quite honestly, I think blogging hasn't helped this situation...

But one idea I had recently was this:

If I could somehow know exactly when and where I was going to die -- and if it wasn't going to be something sudden and tragic like a rare allergic reaction to Jello brand pudding, or a freak accident with a Lite-Brite -- but instead was maybe, say, dying in bed at the age of a hundred and sixty six (I don't plan on dying for a while, yet) then I think what I'd do, see, is to buy a really expensive package of vellum, something that would age really well and look really important, and then I'd learn calligraphy from a professional calligrapher for like three years, and then to give the end of my life even more purpose than I already think it has -- and to perhaps create some sort of legacy for the whole world to remember me by -- I'd copy a bunch of diagrams out of DaVinci's works, and maybe throw in some stuff from Einstein, too. And then, on the last page left in the package, I'd write out the paragraphs below, and scatter all the pages around the room for everyone to find:


"To anyone who finds this journal, I now know the antidote has failed. There is no hope for me to escape this thing that I have become. In hindsight, it is clear to me that my greed has been my downfall...just as my assistant tried to warn me it would be.

He is now gone, all my friends are gone, victims of the monster my ego has turned me into, destroyed by this thing living inside me... I was a fool to think I could harness lightning in a bottle, though I suppose I am not the only one who has given in to the temptation of attaining something so wondrous...

I only pray that in reading this, others in the future will be warned away from the path that I so foolishly chose. Or perhaps another might learn the true secret of my demise, might understand how I have become what I have, and in the future find some way to master what I could not control...

But no. On final thought, turn back now. Burn these papers. Let no one else undertake such a ghastly endeavor. Though the rewards for success are immense, the risks involved are simply too great, the burden too heavy, the knowledge too much.

It is a power that no human should be allowed to hold...


Me transmitte sursum, caledoni!