The Reason We Do Everything

Norm MacDonald, one of the funniest people to ever walk the planet, was also a degenerate gambler, busting out a number of times and going to zero. His therapist told him that he gambled in order to escape reality. Norm said, “That’s why everyone does everything.”

Now, most great comedians are also philosophers (thinking here about Mel Brooks as the stand-up philosopher in History of the World Part 1), and this is one of the deepest, most profound things I have ever heard. Now, when you first hear this quote from Norm, your mind goes to vices: gambling, prostitutes, pornography, drugs. Yes, it is true that people do gambling, prostitutes, pornography, and drugs in order to escape reality. That seems pretty obvious.

But that’s not what Norm said. Norm said that everyone does everything in order to escape reality—not just the bad stuff. Let me share my experience on this.

A lot of people marvel at all the things I do—writing, trading, DJing, teaching, speaking—and wonder how I can be so productive. Why do I do these things—if I am really being honest with myself? I do them in order to escape from reality. I am no different from the addict, in fact, I am an addict, but I have simply redirected the addiction to things that are not so socially unacceptable. You might say that I am addicted to work, but I don’t really consider it to be work. I just don’t like to sit still, because I don’t want to be alone with my own thoughts. That’s really what it comes down to. So in a sense, I am trying to escape from reality, because if I am sitting still with nothing to do, it forces me to confront the fact that holy fuck:

1. I am alone, in spite of being surrounded by friends and family

2. I am going to die someday, perhaps soon, perhaps before I am ready

3. What does it all mean?

4. What happens after I die?

5. The most important thing we have is each other and yet we don’t spend much time with each other

6. All the possessions I have accumulated will end up in an estate sale or the landfill

7. I will be forgotten within weeks

8. The only thing I have to fall back on is that during my life, I was able to entertain people for a time and help them escape from reality

So nobody wants to spend too much time thinking about these things, least of all me, so I go through life like the Tasmanian Devil writing, trading, DJing, teaching, and speaking, so I don’t have to stop and think about these things. And in the small amount of time I do spend thinking about these things, I probably spend more time thinking about them than you do. Earthly concerns. Again, that’s why everyone does everything. That’s why people watch TV and movies. That’s why people play video games. That’s why people scroll social media. And that’s why I am sitting here typing this out on my laptop. Honestly, the more I think about it, the more it makes me love my cats.

Now, what if we didn’t have to constantly escape from reality? What if we could sit still with our own thoughts and think about these things? Terrifying, I know. You know what my least favorite time of day is? When I go to bed. Now, I have a very comfortable bed, and I like getting in bed at night, especially when the sheets are cool, but then I lay there, thoughts racing, in a state of sheer terror, thinking of every cringe memory I have ever had, cycling through my list of fears and resentments, regretting the things I have done and left undone, and this is my routine, every night, laying there in complete psychological hell until the 20mg of melatonin kicks in, and I can sleep deeply for eight or nine hours, and wake up, rebooted. The morning is my favorite time of day—a clean slate. During the week, I will take a shower and head down to my office and work (and escape from reality). On the weekends, I will get a coffee and sit down on the couch with my laptop and kill time for an hour or so. Over the course of the day, the fears and resentments will kick in, until about 9:30pm, when it is time to go to bed again, and I am a shambles. You might wonder why I like DJing so much. It is not about ego. Most people get into DJing for their ego, but not me. I like it because when I am performing, it is practically the only time in my life when I won’t be thinking about the past or the future, the fears or resentments, and I will be completely present in the moment. It is hard to be completely present. Ask the Buddhists how easy it is. I have thought about going on a silent retreat for a week, but I would probably kill myself.

But yes, the goal is to be completely present and free from distraction, worry, and negative thoughts. How are you doing? Not so good here. Again, I am not superior to you or anyone else. We are the same. I may create all the time, and you may watch TV all the time, and someone else may drink all the time, and we are all doing the exact same thing. We are running from something. In the past, I have made fun of endurance athletes. With them, it is a little more obvious that they are running from something. I once met a Navy SEAL who was running an Ironman a week for a year. Doesn’t take a psychology PhD to get inside that guy’s head. And yes, obviously, people do it with exercise, too, but again, exercise is a socially acceptable outlet, while whacking off is not. Same thing! Just because you are redirecting that energy into something more positive, doesn’t mean that you’re not spiritually ill. But we hold up these people as examples: the athletes, the thinkers, the doers, maybe people like me—and we are all running. I have a challenge for all of these people: sit still and contemplate. Go to that silent retreat. Learn to meditate. I have always wondered about the meditators—some people swear by it. Some people claim to have had out-of-body experiences while meditating. I can meditate for about .37 seconds before the racing thoughts take over. People tell me you get better with practice, but the idea of practicing it sounds terrible.

It also makes you wonder if the things that people consider to be virtues are not really virtues. Is hard work a virtue, when you are running from something? Is thrift a virtue, when it doesn’t really matter in the end? When you strip away all that material stuff, all that is left is unconditional love, emphasis on unconditional. Our relationships with people and pets for the time that we have on this planet. After 52 years of my fat ass on this earth, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the only thing that matters. So you try to maintain relationships with people, and they’re busy—busy with kid lacrosse games, busy with work, busy doing God knows what unimportant thing, when they’re missing the one thing that’s right in front of their nose, and nobody has the time, because we’re all too busy running.

I am guilty of it. Maybe someday I will stop running and think about things. Maybe one day I’ll stop being the Tasmanian Devil. But I doubt it. If you’re lucky enough to have a happy, drama-free upbringing, then maybe you have the luxury of contemplation. The rest of us are running from our trauma. The antithesis of busy is idle. Who wants to be idle? Even retired people aren’t idle. They’re running to Wal-Mart, they’re running to Costco, they’re playing golf or tickling the grandkids or playing bingo. Even retired people don’t sit there and do nothing but think, but maybe we all need to spend some time being idle, and sitting somewhere, doing nothing, and thinking? Most people would rather scrape the back of their thighs with a cheese grater.

When I was a kid, I grew up in the Episcopal church, and I was fairly active in the church, and for a time, I entertained the idea of being a priest. Are priests busy? You have a two-hour service on Sunday, but what do you do with the rest of your time? Some of it is spent writing the sermon, and practicing the sermon, and probably visiting members of your congregation, but what do you do with the rest of your time? Think? Pray? Carry on a conversation with the creator of the universe? By the way, the priest I had growing up quit being a priest and became a monk, and joined a brotherhood, living a life of austerity. He wanted a spiritual life above and beyond what the priesthood offered him. That is hardcore. And he was very, very devout.

The only advice I have for anyone who reads this (and I will try to take my own advice) is to slow down. Slow down working, slow down the self-abuse, slow down watching TV. Be alone with your thoughts. And after you’re alone with your thoughts for a while, pick up the phone and call someone, and book a trip to see them. There literally is no purpose to anything else.