Easy life

So I was thinking the other day on the tube about the life I would choose if I could be born anywhere at any time, and I didn't think about it for that long, but the conclusion I drew was that the best person to be ever would be a man living in rural Italy. Men obviously have it easier than women. And I chose rural Italy because I believe that people with a strong faith have it easier than atheists, and Catholicism is probably the easiest faith of all, in that it is clearly bonkers and you have to do so little except believe patently absurd things and apologise for any transgressions to a man sitting the other side of a partition. Everything that happens is the doing of someone else, whether it's the Pope or God or whatever, and about six days out of seven there are feast days when you get to eat lots of cake. What's not to like? Plus the weather is nice in southern Italy.

I wasn't sure of a good time to be born into this male's body near the sole of the boot. I think the technological era has probably made life more complicated, so I wanted to live before the dawn of computers, but then there were two world wars which weren't that great for Italy and I would certainly want to avoid any sort of fighting in armed conflict. So that was a bit tricky. And I wanted to avoid the mafia if possible. Again, not sure if that's an option. To be honest, the whole thing's a bit of a guess, given that, as far as I'm aware, I've never been male, Italian, religious or truly thick. Any improvements more than welcome.

Finer details aside, basically my idea is to go somewhere as hot and boring as possible, and be as thick and powerless as I can, so that anything bad that happens to me is not remotely attributable to myself. It's a long winded way of saying ignorance is bliss. Of course, bad shit happens to weak morons too, but I doubt they sit around saying, 'Fuck, I just got arthritis, I knew I should have taken more Omega 3s, I'm such a DICKHEAD,' whereas I would be flailing around hating myself and my disintegrating skeleton and shouldering around 97% of the blame for a condition that was about 2% preventable.

I do not currently have arthritis. It would just be nice to be utterly certain that my desires will change absolutely nothing about my reality. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure that we're all slaves to capitalism and I am pretty sure that any concept we have of free will is pretty much bollocks. I mean, sure, I think I'm doing what I want. But how did I decide what I wanted? Free will? Nah. I was socially conditioned, innit. We're all in thrall to The Man. But like a character in The Matrix, I still live under the illusion that I can control stuff. Clearly it's patently absurd, and I'd like to give it up. I'd like to accept, deep down, that I am as ineffective as I rationally fear I am. Life would be so much easier. I could be utterly flaccid and just go with the flooooooooooow mannnnnnn.

As it is, I spend my mental life in an imagined section of the Amazon where huge logs are carried along at speeds of over 70mph, and I am standing waist-deep, a large stick in my left hand helping me to stay upright, fighting against the current to go upriver. Dunno why. It's just the way it's always been. The idea of turning round and letting the water carry me with it is somewhat appealing, but I just can't do it. I'd feel like I was giving up. So I push on through the rapids, and sometimes I think 'Wow, this is an amazing challenge,' but most of the time it's quite hard work and I get very confused as other humans float past me on lilos, reading Heat magazine and having a whale of a time. And sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be a lot easier to be a thick Catholic man from pre-internet Italy.