Toothpaste kills dead cats
“once you push it out, you can get the toothpaste back into the tube!”
Another flavor of the classic “Once the cat is out of the bag, you can’t get it back in!”
I’ve heard this analogy used exactly twice in my life. Once as preparations were being made to finally release me from a psychiatric ward, as the doctor explained to me: “now that you’ve reached this point of thinking about taking your own life, it’ll always be there as an option in the back of your mind” and then he used the toothpaste analogy. His point was about making sure I continue to fight against my mind’s tendency to point towards ctrl alt deleting myself whenever things got especially tough. The other time I heard that analogy was in an African church my parents were fond of visiting as they were friends with the pastor. I hated this church especially as it had a tendency to run on till 3 or 4pm in the afternoon, eating into my precious last few weekend hours before the dreaded monday arrived bringing school with it.I don’t quite remember the context in which it was used, probably something about sin. I just find it incredibly funny that the psych ward I ended up in, had this commonality with the church.
I felt bound, trapped and constantly confronted with my mortality by both I suppose.
I also find it incredibly hilarious for something as impossibly important as death to be compared such mundane things as toothpaste and house cats. The argument could be made that death in itself is perfectly mundane, I mean it’s the most frequent and pervasive thing in our existence isn’t it? from cells to black holes and entire universes, everything dies.
I’ve been obsessed with death for as long as I can remember, it motivates all aspects of my decision making, it influences all areas of my life. “I can’t stay in this class! It’s useless! If I die today I would have wasted my last day!”
“I have to buy this for myself! If I die today, I would wish I got to experience the thing!”
so on and so forth. In some ways it renders me incapable of responsibility, of future planning. I don’t believe I have a future to plan for. No one takes me seriously when I say, I don’t know how, but I just KNOW!! That I’m not long for this world, and some way somehow I'm gonna croak soon, whether by my hand, or some other way. It feels like my destiny. When we were 16, a childhood friend of mine died. He was a real good person, real gentle sorta fella, and I halfway believe this is why he died so quickly, that he was too good for the world. If past lives exist I don’t know what I did in my last one that caused me to earn the sentencing I seem to have been given here on this earth, but I’m perpetually thinking about ways to squirm out of it. Every single day.
Some days I’m too depressed to brush my teeth, but every single day I think about dying. So in a way, death is more common and mundane to me than toothpaste is.
I think that’s pretty funny.
