The Existential Wtf

So I set the stainless steel teakettle on top of a nice, clean folded sheet on top of the kitchen stool. I thought to myself, “That looks fairly steady, it’s only for a second, but yeah, it’s probably gonna fall.”

I left it there.

Within the abovementioned second (but not until after I was all the way across the room) oh yeah, it fell. Was I surprised?

You betcha!

It also broke, which made me doubly surprised because I never really expect metal things to break, but that’s superfluous to the existential wtf.

This is the existential wtf: No matter what happens, even if we pretty much saw it coming, we still feel bushwhacked.

Sure, some of our expectations are born out of arrogance (“I’ve got this!” “I deserve this!”) and some are born out of insecurity (“I’ll never get this!” “I don’t deserve this!”) but if you survive long enough, most of your expectations will be born out of experience.

And yet those expectations still won’t be met.

Do you rely on machines to function and people to keep their word? Do you believe you’ll never have to wait more than ten minutes in the doctor’s office? Did you buy a lottery ticket when the Powerball™ was up to sixty kajillion bucks?

But when your lunch buddy didn’t bother to text you that they were running half an hour late, be honest, didn’t you think “What the fuck?” even though s/he has done that the last two times you were supposed to get together? And weren’t you the teensiest bit disappointed when none of your numbers matched?

For all of our fashionable cynicism, that existential wtf response speaks to the hope that ever still dwells within the dourest, most hipster-esque human breast. Our ability to be surprised in the face of our logical expectations belies our vaunted pessimism.

Think about it. If we really, truly expected the worst, we’d just ”Uh huh” instead of “What the fuck?”

I’m not saying we’re all closet optimists. God no. I’m saying that there’s a shred of positivity in our gloomy little hearts. That means we should be able to look for the up side when things don’t work out. Whether we will or not is our choice.

I’ll tell you one thing, I’m kind of glad I don’t have to scrub that old kettle, now that I have to replace it.

But why was the folded sheet on the stool in the first place? What the fuck.