Biff's Story -- Rise 'n Shine

 Part 1 of 30

Self-Abuse September

I suppose all of us know there’s something inexorable about the passing of time and how it relates to our lives. We live in a huge system that itself is a singularity of which we’re also from. The sun appears to wander through its daily course, rising and shining, sinking and vanishing. The mountains are happy or sad. The cattle get a four-way mechanical rub and tug, so we have the opportunistic milk man pulling down a living at their expense. The birds desperately sing for a mate instead of just crawling in the nest and taking care of the problem themselves and getting on with their day. Life is a vast conspiracy that keeps you guessing, “What will today bring?”

Then you add up enough of those days -- at this point constituting the past -- and you and your history are the consummation, the conclusion, the happy or sad verdict of what those days and years meant. A tale told by an idiot? The arc of life skewing toward good? Or just another day, another whack at self-abuse, much more likely and a truth ever at hand. Is there a meaning to life? You wonder as you drink your coffee, maybe the coffee itself is the meaning! A few horny people in South America got together, grew some coffee (like the milkman did his thing), sold it, etc., etc. And they’d be flat broke if your own parents had self-abused you out of existence. Is there anything to learn from this?

One thing you can learn is that no matter how beautiful it is out the picture window, everyday life is at your mercy. You and millions of selfish bastards like you. Will there be workers to till the soil? Will there be farmers to raise the cattle? Will there be milkmen to gather the milk, disinfect it, put it in containers -- thus enriching the container industry -- and stores to profit by selling it? Will there even be birds and bees learning about themselves and thereby having the knowledge to do it? Giving trees the joy of life when they sit on their branches and sing a beautiful good morning song? By your example would you yourself even be here? No, of course not, but you also wouldn’t have known about it. Everyone’s potentially a sad mistake or the next self-abused emission without a trace of rugrats, no regrets.

Biff, Jr. -- this isn’t Biff but his son -- has arisen and shone. Happy to face another day. Being alone isn’t so sad. No one should feel sorry for him. He potentially could’ve put down roots and found someone to love -- it wasn’t in the cards. But no matter, as long as he lasts there’s still one way to go. Exactly what he forgot as he got up to look on this beautiful different day. It’s Self-Abuse month again, at long last. How long can he be, how long can he last? The longer the better, within reason. Every great musician respects his instrument, and this gets mussier than that.