THE ULTIMATE RIGHT

There isn’t a more treacherous word than “right.” This short sequence of sounds can be a noun, as in “go to the right” (similar to “go to John”), or an adverb in “that didn’t sound right,” said to a person who has just boisterously farted. The “right way” is probably an adjective, even if the paths of hominids are notoriously crooked, while “I am going to right things with him” is a threatening verb announcing violence—which is hardly the right thing to do.
In conclusion, “right”—which ought to be a solid module of communication—is wrongly perceived by at least one of the two dudes who have been trying to mount a dialogue since Cain and Abel. Or perhaps by both.

Not to mention that since the Second World War, to be “right” is to be “wrong,” vicious, and stinking—a triad clearly indicating an advanced state of imbecility and a dangerous lack of cultural background. The “marginal skinheads” are the only ones permitted to whistle in the church because of their insignificance. The rare educated characters who happen to reflect loudly upon forbidden taboo issues—such as Europe’s rapidly changing demographic map and customs, the loss of national goals and identity, the castration of police and army deterrence, the mandatory disarmament of a peace-loving population, the transgender mania, or the quicksilver expansion of criminality and insecurity—are hunted down and burned at the stake by cohorts of non-violent veteran activists in the Holy Name of True Democracy. The abyss of inconsistency the word has reached in these inglorious times of politically correct chatter-natter fascinates the amateur linguist in me no less than the stupendous fabrication of words and concepts on stage I had the chance to taste during the Soviet communist masquerade.

Now, let us dodge the no-less-ambivalent “cultural background” recipe or the heavily loaded “civic rights” binary, and deal instead with two rights: solid, real, personal, and humble ones, yet of cosmic magnitude for the self. The first is the right to know why I am here—and why I am here now. The second is the right to know how I am going to get out of this fucking bog, continuously tampered with by media-asinine lies, without enduring martyrdom. Let the saints deal with martyrdom; they are professionals, after all. The rest of us should simply try to come to grips with our leave from the quay of this meaningless harbor called Earth, but let us first deal with our incongruous arrival into this life.

Some newcomers—babies—are the byproduct of repetitive fornication by religious folk who believe God ordered them to multiply outrageously; others are supplied by staunch supporters of the nuclear family; some were manufactured while the performers were under the influence; others were, alas, the sad result of violence; a few remarkably nimble ones are believed to be the outcome of a sensual heterosexual Pilates exercise; and most are simply the expression of chance, routine, boredom, or unemployment. Whatever was the primum movens of the makers, the outcome remains the same. Nobody ever asked these delicate, fragile, pinkish creatures if they wanted to come into the world just to join the next batch of lambs heading to Death’s slaughterhouse in under a hundred years.

Günter Grass’s Oskar certainly didn’t want to. Many fairy-tale princes were lured to leave the womb only after receiving the firm promise (with free delivery!) of a fairy princess endowed with vibrant genitals and wearing an electrical diadem of transparent gold and silver stars. She will be, she was, the chryselephantine ultimate coalescence between sensuality and holiness. If tiny, quasi-brainless birds have developed a way to read the Earth’s faint magnetic field—allowing them to fly wherever they please without GPS—humans should manage to create a system of non-verbal communication to contact the presumptive heir and ask the million-dollar question: “Hey Johnny, are you coming out, or have you decided to melt back into the whole?”

Enough with that! At this moment, if you have arrived at this point, you should know as much as I don’t know myself: what I would have answered had I been challenged on whether or not to enter the world. Of course, I am not completely sure—people change along their trajectory. Mine is a long one, and I may hit ninety soon, but looking back through my virtual telescope and activating my personal hindsight, the answer could very much be the same: I should have said, rather not interested. Too much sadness and confusion in the world; I never liked horror movies.

That sounds quite astonishing considering the fact that I have had a very interesting life—rich, meaningful, and variegated, from shore to shore and from pole to pole, being most of the time my own very generous boss and blessed by the Fates with vivid curiosity and a joyful mood at work, even through hard times. Therefore, why the fuck am I complaining? The answer is simple: freedom. Not democracy, but my freedom is in danger. The feeling of bondage, of being controlled from start to finish, offends me.

When I discovered that the great event isn’t the arrival of a half-unconscious, mentally impotent, puny two-and-a-half-kilo mass of tender flesh, but the departure of a skin-and-bones dude, rich with glorious experience through laughter and tears, with a mind far clearer and wiser than that of the pretentious greenhorn I once was—I felt a bestial interference. I craved, and I want, to be the one who decides when and where I will leave. That is the ultimate right, far more important than all others. On my arrival on Earth, I didn’t have a say. But now, after becoming my own grown-up terminal man, facing this twisted, intertwined, poisonous knot of fishy lawmakers, social bedbug thinkers, boasting academic dogs, professional pedophile clerics, and just the regular imbecile Joes drooling in chorus that you are not allowed to take your own life, that it is forbidden to speak of suicide, that you had better talk about threesome sex (knowing perfectly well that at an advanced age sex becomes an irrelevant issue)—what is the root of this nonsense protection of “life” in an overcrowded world? Respect for life? I contend that from the time of Neanderthals to nowadays, all actions undertaken by a militant group to violently protect a language, the hymen of unmarried beauties, types of food, dress, the sanctity of life, or the number of genuflections during rituals, originate in the very same vile interest: the exercise of oppressive power.

Of course, one is welcome to jump from the roof, or hurl oneself in front of a locomotive, but to say goodbye in decency with a little pill, friends around, champagne, and Cuban cigars—that is strictly forbidden. And decency is the name of the game. The sacred image looming mountain-like in front of my mind’s eye is that of King Yudhishthira, to whom the Gods granted the grace to move forth on his own two soles, accompanied by his faithful doggie into the netherworld.I feel that to elegantly leave this miserable blob of bog without a drain in my ass or a needle in my veins, I badly need a dog. An impressive, long-legged Saluki will fit me fine.