Discover Top Posts Tagged with #the beforelife

The Beforelife

It's impossible to know for sure if there's an afterlife, but it certainly seems to be something people have thought a lot about. Or at least something that both Dante and Albert Brooks, writer/director/star of DEFENDING YOUR LIFE, have thought about. There's so much debate and speculation about what happens after we die! My question is: why is there not an equal amount of debate and speculation about what happened before we were born? Why doesn't anybody care about the beforelife?

If I had to make a guess, like if somebody was going to viciously disconnect my home internet and cable access unless I shared my views on that metaphysical space that we may (or may not) occupy before birth, I would say that it is probably like the free physicals that were offered to all the middle- and high- school kids once a year when I was growing up. Which is to say that I think it is probably a pretty boring and poorly-organized place, because think about it: if the beforelife wasn't kind of sucky, why would you bother to leave?

So the beforelife's most Earthly equivalent is probably the Bureacratically-Organized Mass Health Exam. As I recall, on the designated day, all the kids who had signed up were herded into the gym and forced to arrange themselves in alphabetical order by last name. This was no small feat because I grew up in a place where not everybody knows the alphabet. Once that had been accomplished, we were angrily told to stay in order no matter what, but because we were teenagers and had many rumors to spread, that was impossible. Every time somebody at the end of the line stepped out of place in order to gossip with someone in the middle of the line, the chaperones would yell angrily but powerlessly because corporal punishment is no longer an acceptable part of public education. Much noise pollution was made and many hernias were exacerbated as a result of all the shouting.

The chaperones then proceeded to guide us into school buses, at which point we were carted caravan-style to the hospital. It is in poor taste to say that this felt like the modern equivalent of being forced into trains that were headed to concentration camps back in WWII, so I won't say that. I will say that traveling via school bus does not add any positive anticipatory emotions to the experience of going to the hospital.

Once we got there, we were directed through a series of stations designed to assess certain aspects of our physical existences such as our height, weight, blood pressure, eyesight, hearing, predisposition for scoliosis, etc. In other words, it was a sequence of opportunities to be told what was wrong with us in quick succession. For my part, I always felt relatively confident about my height and my hearing, but everything else was a crap shoot. Especially the scoliosis check, after which I was usually advised to seek further medical attention for my poor posture. I never did because I had read DEENIE by Judy Blume and was petrified by the idea of having to wear a back brace. To this day, I wonder about the shape of my spine. It could very well be an "S," but some questions are better left unanswered, like why can't I sit up straight? and what was the expiration date of that sausage I just ate?

After the scoliosis test, many of us were finished with the health exam, but the unluckiest amongst us got the added bonus of a tetanus shot, if our medical records indicated we were due. I have very strong feelings about Things That Should Go Inside My Body and Things That Should Stay Outside My Body and all needles fall solidly in the second category, so the year that I was forced to get my inoculation just added the injury of a puncture wound to the insult of being told my back seemed kind of curly. Screw you, too, Nurse!

And I haven't even mentioned the worst part of the medical exam, which was that the later in the alphabet your last name, the longer this whole ordeal lasted. My last name starts with a V, so this was an all-day commitment for me, like a marathon of either a) running or b) watching MILLIONAIRE MATCHMAKER.

Anyways, my point is that this is the kind of situation that we're all in for that nebulous period of time that begins with the creation of our souls and ends with our parents' careless fornication after a day of SIDEWAYS-style winetasting. The beforelife is just a confusing and seemingly neverending series of stations that we mill through en route to the metaphorical school bus waiting tiredly by the metaphorical hospital exit at the end of the metaphorical day, destination: Life On Earth.

Or maybe it's not, but nobody's presented any evidence to the contrary.

Albert Brooks, over to you.

NEXT/PREVIOUS

#Dante #Albert Brooks #DEFENDING YOUR LIFE #the beforelife #physicals #scoliosis #DEENIE #hernias #WWII #sausage #tetanus #MILLIONAIRE MATCHMAKER

The Poem Said The poem said never love anything Not even you? I asked and it answered especially me If you must, love not living with hope or not living taste this and remember not yet being-- Especially me I am just you If you must, like and coldly admire my cold stars shit for brains love what I stand for not me the leopard the beautiful death who puts on his spotted robe when he goes to his chosen, the what was the not now the what will be Like suddenly using a dead friend's expression Make yourself useful while there is time while there is still light and time

Franz Wright, "The Poem Said"

#poetry #lit #franz wright #the beforelife #poems #writing about writing