am I programmed to kill myself?

Somewhere along the line from egocentric prepubescent self to my current fading manifestation of manhood I became keenly acquainted with my negation. Everything I touched challenged my existence. Voices shook me from numerous slumbers from which I dreamed of a me who was free. A game of accumulation is what I call capitalism. From the fractionated aura of the thing itself we're sold it's slowly fading embers in the form of numerous sugar coated, machine pressed, polymer extruded, disinfected, carefully-labeled and tracked stuff. This stuff is never enough.

We live in a world saturated with suggestions. They seep through anywhere there's a gap in meaning. I've dammed the flow of suggestions. I got rid of television. Now I am beginning to see through the cracks. Many strange creatures dwell in these cracks.

It started with a moment from my childhood at my grandparents' house during an afternoon lunch. Everything was routine, and everyone was enjoying their dinner. I pulled myself back from the plate of food and the ritual of eating to witness everyone at the table, completely oblivious to me, eating. My grandfather in particular was oblivious to the rest of the table as he ate. He would cover his forehead with his free hand and use the other to shovel food into a mouth situated hovering lips-down over the plate. My grandmother, stricken by blindness since she was a child, only looks ahead and off to the side. Her gaze is peculiar. The turrets are unmanned so to speak. She looks ahead and carefully uses her fork to position food close to a piece of toast that's in the other hand. As she gets the two near, her head, still looking forward, leans down with her mouth open. Her countenance is much more of a crane's shovel being guided from numerous sources, numerous viewpoints. The hands bark orders, the inner ear barks another, and my grandmother moves her head into position. Her lips feel out in front of her. Bingo.

Then there's my brother. This is the scene that marvels me the most. He's eating, not paying attention to anyone, and he's out of character. Instead of being yelled at, continuously throughout the day, he's eating quietly. He's minding his manners, and he's eating everything on his plate. We all are. I paused briefly to take note of this ritual, and I am forever destined to test this view out again and again. I do it at least two more times at the same afternoon lunch and receive the same results. It was a strange ripping of oneself from the context, but it was hard after that to put me back. I was outside of context.

Being in this hinterland between role and reason, I found a self that was attuned to this environment. I enjoyed being the non-entity, the eyes without a body. I took perverse enjoyment in watching but hardly in being watched. The names given me and my body had alien meaning. Either I didn't fulfill the meaning or it didn't speak to me at all. Gaps appeared between symbol and matter. For a boy raised to address himself through symbol this was a tough place to be. A no man's land, an interstitial space between things. I should have played sports.

With nothing holding me up I'm a raw entity. Small signs spark me to life: a kind smile or compliment swell me up instantly. In the absence of meaning for myself, these events spark like wildfire inside me. I come to life, effervescent with with a joy I rarely feel. But I'm still driven by the alienation. I desire to put the signifier in my mouth, to encompass it and become it.

I sit and I ponder this and I wonder if, perhaps, my life is one programmed out of the incidental features of our common language. That a person would systematically glom onto some words and meanings and not others suggests that an agency is at work. Yet the closer one approaches contexts where words and meaning are batted about, the words and meanings reveal their patina of usage. It structures our activities and provides us with subjectivities, some that make us more comfortable than others. I desire to be known, to be seen, to reappear every so often, but I can't dignify myself to do it for me. I don't trust my opinion on the matter. I need advice from the outside.

I am raw and meaningless, but I seek out meaning for me in others' kind voices. I retreat when those same voices turn viscious and hurtful. I just want the message. I am growing weary of the continual vacillation of life-meaning. Someone give me the sign. Put me in coach. I'm your tool. Steer me toward your glory or my destruction. I'm ready to make real meaning, the meaning that only a lifeless body could prove. I just don't have a reason at the moment.

I suppose there are others out there like me. The young adult whose life lacks purpose, whose life has no meaning, who awaits a sign. We're all out there looking for a sign. When some receive it they step into the crowd and detonate themselves. It's kill or be killed. This emptiness gnaws at me. I take comfort in the fact that we're all inside of nothing. It's the limit condition for everything.