You're Not Going to Win

Actually, People Want to Die

Finally, Something is Happening

Alberto Giacometti died in 1966. He was an artist, primarily a sculptor. He was into cubism and surrealism and phenomenology and produced the kind of work that most “Traditional” people don’t like. Here’s a statue:

On October 11, 1938, in France, Alberto was hit by a car.

The driver was an American. Typical. The driver was a woman. No comment. The driver was drunk. Well, she was trying to fit in.

It was semi-late in the evening and Alberto was simply minding his own business, walking on the sidewalk. All of a sudden, this car swerves and barrels towards him, knocking him flat and crushing his foot before continuing on to smash into the window of a store. Retelling the story later, as he would often for the rest of his life since it left him with a permanent limp, Alberto claimed that, as he saw the lights swerving and realized what was coming, he thought to himself, “Finally. Something is happening.”

Here’s another statue:

I knew a woman who got breast cancer. It was the best thing that had ever happened to her. She loved it. I think, secretly, when she got better, she was even a little annoyed. Before the cancer she’d been nothing. Nobody. A middle-aged woman of average attractiveness working as a receptionist for a plastic surgeon with no particular hobbies or skills. She was fine of course. I mean, she was nice. Nobody disliked her or anything. She was just… mmm… forgettable. Not worthy of note. She was a dime a dozen Midwestern American who had a chubby husband that sold cars and two B students for children. People liked her. They just didn’t care about her. They didn’t think about her. She was just there, at the church and at the school, like a piece of furniture.

And then, all of a sudden, she was a hero.

All of a sudden she started going bald.

All of a sudden she became visibly sick and started wearing cool African print headwraps and people started asking her about her “journey.” Her JOURNEY! Oh God how she loved to talk about her cancer journey. Every week it was a new challenge. Every week it was touch and go. Chemo. Radiation. Mastectomy. Biopsy. Scans. Blood work. All of a sudden she was Brave. People were coming up to her and asking her questions about life. About death. Other women wanted to bring her dinners. She was asked to give her testimony in Church. She started posting pictures from the hospital bed with a defiant fist raised in the air saying, “F*** Cancer” and getting ten-thousand likes.

Finally.

Something is happening.

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