Everything Is F*cked

How to Make All Your Dreams Come True
Imagine  this:  it’s  2:00  a.m.  and  you’re  still  awake  on  the  couch,  staring
bleary-eyed  and  foggy-brained  at  the  television.  Why?  You  don’t  know.
Inertia  simply  makes  it  easier  to  sit  there  and  keep  watching  than  to  get  up
and go to bed. So, you watch.
Perfect. This is how I get you: when you’re feeling apathetic and lost and
completely passive in the face of your fate. Nobody sits up staring at a TV at
2:00  a.m.  if  they  have  important  shit  to  do  the  next  day.  Nobody  struggles
with the will to move their ass off the couch for hours on end unless they’re
having some sort of inner crisis of hope. And it’s exactly this crisis that I want
to speak to.
I  appear  on  your  TV  screen.  I’m  a  whirlwind  of  energy.  There  are  loud,
obnoxious  colors,  cheesy  sound  effects.  I’m  practically  shouting.  Yet,
somehow,  my  smile  is  easy  and  relaxed.  I’m  comforting.  It’s  as  though  I’m
making eye contact with you and only you:
“What if I told you that I could solve all your problems?” I say.
Pfft, puh-lease, you think. You don’t know the half of my problems, buddy.
“What if I told you I know how to make all your dreams come true?”
Riiiiight, and I’m the fucking tooth fairy.
“Look, I know how you feel,” I say.
Nobody knows how I feel,  you  reflexively  tell  yourself,  surprised  at  how
automatic the response is.
“I, too, once felt lost,” I say. “I felt alone, isolated, hopeless. I, too, used to
lie awake at night for no particular reason, wondering if there was something
wrong  with  me,  wondering  what  was  this  invisible  force  standing  between
myself  and  my  dreams.  And  I  know  that’s  what  you’re  feeling,  too.  That
you’ve somehow lost something. You just don’t know what.”
In  truth,  I  say  these  things  because  they  are  experienced  by  everybody.
They are a fact of the human condition. We all feel powerless to equalize with

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the  inherent  guilt  that  comes  with  our  existence.  We  all  suffer  and  are
victimized  to  varying  degrees,  especially  when  we’re  young.  And  we  all
spend a lifetime trying to compensate for that suffering.
And in moments of our life when things aren’t going so well, this makes
us despair.
But  like  most  people  struggling,  you’ve  enveloped  yourself  so  much  in
your  pain  that  you’ve  forgotten  that  pain  is  common,  and  that  your  strife  is
not  uniquely  yours—on  the  contrary,  it’s  universal.  And  because  you’ve
forgotten  this,  you  feel  as  if  I’m  speaking  directly  to  you;  as  if,  by  some
magical  power,  I’m  peering  into  your  soul  and  reading  back  to  you  the
contents of your heart. For this, you sit up and at attention.
“Because,” I repeat, “I have the solution to all your problems. I can make
all your dreams come true.” Now I’m pointing, and my finger looks gigantic
on  your  TV  screen.  “I  have  all  the  answers.  I  have  the  secret  of  everlasting
happiness and eternal life, and it’s this . . .”
What I go on to say is so outlandish, so ridiculous, so absolutely perverse
and cynical that you actually think it might be true. The problem is, you want
to believe me. You need to believe me. I represent the hope and salvation your
Feeling  Brain  desperately  craves,  that  it  needs.  So,  slowly,  your  Thinking
Brain  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  my  idea  is  so  batshit  crazy  that  it  just
might work.
As  the  infomercial  drags  on,  that  existential  need  to  find  meaning
somewhere,  anywhere,  beats  down  your  psychological  defenses  and  lets  me
in.  After  all,  I  have  demonstrated  an  uncanny  knowledge  of  your  pain,  a
backdoor  entrance  to  your  secret  truth,  a  deep  vein  traveling  through  your
heart.  You  then  realize  that  in  between  all  my  big  white  teeth  and  shouty
words, I’ve spoken to you: I was once just as fucked as you . . . and I found
my way out. Come with me.
I  keep  going.  I’m  on  a  roll  now.  The  camera  angles  are  switching  back
and  forth,  grabbing  me  now  from  the  side,  now  from  the  front.  Suddenly,
there’s a studio audience in front of me. They’re wrapped up in every word I
say. A woman is crying. A man’s jaw drops. And yours drops with it. I’m all
up  in  your  shit  now.  I  will  give  you  permanent  fulfillment,  motherfucker.  I
will  fill  any  gap,  plug  any  hole.  Just  sign  up  for  one  low  price.  What  is
happiness worth to you? What is hope worth to you? Act now, fucker.
Sign up. Today.
With  that,  you  grab  your  phone.  You  go  to  the  website.  You  put  in  the
digits.

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Truth and salvation and everlasting happiness. It’s all yours. It’s coming to
you. Are you ready?

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