Why do you do it?

Every lying, cheating, thief, every writer, and every person who has the chutzpah to make a total fool of himself in public will at some point face the troubling question:

 “Why did you do it?”

In my own case, this disturbing query arose yet again last weekend when a high school classmate sent me an email asking why I write these pointless blogs. He included a subsidiary question: “Am I missing something?”

This blast from the past plunged me into a paroxysm of uncharacteristic self-reflection, culminating in the following (slightly edited) reply to my classmate’s email:

Dear [name withheld to protect the innocent];

Thank you for your note. I would like to be able to explain my reasons for writing a disreputable blog, but the fact is, it is not an easy thing to justify.

I have searched my soul for a decent rationalization of this loutish behavior, and can come up with only the feeblest excuses.

One possibility is the mountain climber theory. In its modern form this was best expressed by a British billionaire Humvee owner who responded to a reporter when she asked why he insisted on driving a Humvee on London’s crowded streets:

 "I do it because I can. Now bugger off you silly c--nt!"

This is more or less the existentialist answer to everything in life, popularized in the past century by Albert Camus, Jean Paul Sartre, Woody Allen, and the famous English mountain climber, George Mallory.[i]

Mallory was quoted as having replied to the question "Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?" with the retort "Because it's there". His answer is now considered to contain the most famous three words in mountaineering.

The existentialist explanation has some logic to it since the mountain of cheating, and stealing in our world is now so high that anyone can see it and try to climb around on it.  It's a big fat fun target:  the misbehavior of Ponzi schemers, Wall Street crooks, corrupt politicos, philandering megachurch ministers, unelected billionaire enablers, cheating mortgage brokers,  lying home buyers,and sleight of hand artists of all kinds.

For God's sake! People are even stealing from girl scouts while they try to sell cookies.

As one bumper sticker put it so well:
 

Sincerely,

Ed

PS. I should give at least some of the blame to the great writers and pundits of the recent century: Art Buchwald, Dave Barry, Hunter Thompson, Robert Crumb, Christopher Hitchens, Chelsea Handler, and at the top of the hit parade, the inspirational clean living novelist and poet Charles Bukowski, pictured below.

And don't forget the most interesting truth-telling political columnist alive today, Matt Taibbi. Keep up with Matt at his fabulous Rolling Stone blog

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Not mentioned in my classmate’s email, a corollary question is sure to arise so i might as well address it now. The question is:

 “What is your explanation going to be when you get to the pearly gates and St. Peter asks you about that despicable blog?”

Fortunately, because I am, or could be, if I wanted to be, a Christian, the answer to that one is easy: redemption.

Here is the way redemption works. If you accept Jesus Christ into your life, you are forgiven.  Jesus died to provide us salvation for our sins. Essentially, this takes us off the hook for all of our bad deeds.  The best part is that you don’t even have to do anything about seeking redemption until the last minute. You can still get the redemption deal---deliverance from sin---and pass through those pearly gates without even feeling a touch of heat from below. 

That is how New Gingrich explained it on TV last month anyway, and if it’s good enough for Newt, it’s good enough for me.

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[i] Mallory may not be providing me with the most auspicious of excuses, however. During the 1924 British Mount Everest Expedition, Mallory disappeared somewhere high on the North-East ridge during an attempt to make the first ascent of the world's highest mountain.