If I had not met you ,it is quite likely that it might have “Gone Postal” many years back.
I wish you could see yourself through my eyes.
Please remember that there is a huge difference between men like Hinckley and Chapman on the one hand, and men like us & Schopenhauer and Cioran, on the other.
There was an ancient Indian philosopher called Chanakya. He never married and stayed with his old mum and took care of her.
One day he was walking down the street and a thorn pierced his foot.
Now, if he were like Hickley and Chapman he would have taken the thorn out with a great deal of anger crushed it and thrown it away. And that would have been the end of the incident pretty much.
But the Ancient Indian Philospjer was not like them.He knew better.
He found out the shrub on which many other throns were growing ( the throne that caused him trouble came from this very same shrub).
He went to his mum and asked her to prepare a kind of Indian buttermilk which is highly acidic.
He took the buttermilk and poured it all over the roots of the said shrub.The buttermilk destroyed the roots not only because it was acidic but also because it attracted ferocious Indian ants which chewed up the roots while consuming the buttermilk.
The Shrub was uprooted.Once and for all. Not more thorns ever on the Philospher’s way.
Schopenhauer would have liked the Indian Philosopher and not Hickley and Chapman.
Many years ago, I remember watching an interview of Woody Allen. I tried to find it but could not. Anyway, the interviewer asked him if he has any regrets. ( Please note that Woody Allen has a very dark side and I’m familiar with it, but he is talented in a certain way) . He said what I regret is that when I was a young director , my movies were rather funny albeit in a dark way.As I have thrown older, I wonder if I should I addressed the pain and suffering that the human existence entails in a more direct and straightforward manner.
For some reason, even after 15 plus years, I still remember that interview.
When Kafka read The Metamorphosis to his sister ,he himself and his sisters were laughing a great deal.
Well,okay.
But when I read The Castle many years back as I today to Don Raul, I found it full of dread and darkness.
I do have to wonder if there is a point at which the Gallows Humour fails. All that is left is pure suffering.
Your predicament gives off very strong vibes of The Castle like scenario. It was after all set in the Austrio-Hungarian Empire. The blind and almost demonic bureaucracy.
I am not saying all this to because I want to make you glum.
I am saying this ,only to humbly remind you, that there is a way out.
Only that sometimes I suspect that the way out of pain and suffering may not be by way of a bypass road made of dark humour but right through the very Heart of Darkness.
And my dear friend, I can tell you one thing for certain, if you cannot do it, then no one can.
Please take care-I think of you every single day.