So, you're a happy person. 

You probably shouldn't be. 

The world is terrible. 

You are terrible. 

True story.

Don’t believe me? Why?? Did someone say something about me?! What did they tell you!!???

Sorry, sorry, sorry...I’m not good with confrontation. I meant to say, read on!

Over the years your sense of reality has been clouded by relentless propaganda insisting that the best way to live your life is to place a high value on ambition, optimism, and self-worth. Doesn’t sound so bad, right? Obviously that’s what a brainwashed person would think!

I’m here to tell you: you’re living in the matrix. Oh wait, that’s something else. But you’re still living in a false reality. Maybe we can call it La La Land. That’s taken? Shit. Ok, I’m just going to call it Placeholder for now. I’ll come up with a witty and socially relevant name later. 

Placeholder is a world in which everything happens for a reason, mistakes are opportunities for growth, and each day is a fresh start to become a better version of yourself. Placeholder is the land where every cloud is lined with silver, kissing frogs leads to finding princes, and rain showers result in flowers and rainbows. 

Placeholder is a lie.

I am now gifting you with a threshold to cross, just like a real adventure! You can either join me on this thrilling expedition, debunking conspiracies and rewiring your brain, or you can just keep doing what you’re doing and be an uninteresting, unlikeable foil character to no one cuz it’s your own life. Is that what you want?? To be the least interesting role in your own story?? 

Unfortunately, I don’t have any colored pills to offer you before proceeding — I mean, I do, but you gotta e-mail me at thisisnotadrugsale@meaganisnotadealer.com for those — and also, this is a blog, so answering the call to action is just reading on or not? That seems pretty anticlimactic. 

Hang on, this isn’t a choose your own adventure story. I’m the expert, you’re the student. My job is to tell you what to do, and you are supposed to do it, so stop living your stupid sheep life and join me into the unknown! Well, unknown to you. I know it. Or else this would be a really weird blog.

(Cue goobledy-gobbledy threshold crossing noises)

Welcome to Reality World!

Here, the days are full of frustration, judgment, and disappointment. There was no reason for your birth, your limited time as a conscious being means nothing in the overall scheme of the universe, and one day every trace of your existence will be washed away.

Huzzah!

But let’s think really about it. The human race has only existed for the metaphorical blink of an eye, so even our most memorable, one-named figures, like Caesar, Napoleon, and Beyoncé, will be lost in the ethos in the not-so-distant future. I’m willing to bet you the 1G iPod Touch that I recently found in the back of my desk drawer that the dinosaur world had its own set of beloved leaders, celebrity superstars, and mogul families that became famous after strategically leaking sex tablets (get it, like sex tape….but tablet….cuz it’s dinosaurs. Whatever, it would’ve gotten a laugh on the Flintstones). But we have no record of these reputable reptiles. I mean, the average person assumes all dinosaurs existed around the same time, which is basically the same as thinking Cleopatra taught Miley how to twerk on one of their girls’ weekends. The brontosaurus might not even be a real dinosaur!

Woah. I didn’t mean to get so bent out of shape about the inaccuracies in society’s understanding of dinosaurs. There was a point I was trying to make. At least, I’m pretty sure I had one. 

Yup, got it! 

After our inevitable (and rapidly approaching) extinction, some advanced civilization is going to pick through our remains and reconstruct our entire history based off unrelated, minuscule relics of our past. In an attempt to make their field seem relevant, these future scientists will make all sorts of wild assertions based solely on whichever meaningless piece of information they discover first, so they can get published the fastest, and their initial descriptions, no matter how flawed, will forever define us as a species.

So if future aliens are just going to assume we lived in world created entirely out of styrofoam and plastic, what is the point of investing in yourself? Nothing you do could possible matter enough to warrant the effort. 

Let’s leave Placeholder behind. Let’s abandon the pressures society has stacked upon us to do the best we can. Let’s accept that we’re becoming more insignificant with each passing day. Let’s look up at the night sky and envy the stars for already being dead by the time their light reaches your eye.

Let’s learn how to give up.