How to Self-Destruct

I was asked by _____ Magazine to write some subheads for an article on self-destruction. Then something changed, and they no longer needed what I wrote. They then did something extraordinarily rare, and still paid me. Freelance writing is grueling and thankless, so I’m grateful for their kindness and decency. Here’s what I wrote, which is meant to be tongue in cheek.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR LIFE SMALLER AND SMALLER

A full, rich life is much harder to destroy than a small, isolated one. If you’re looking to really fuck things up, you need to shrink your experience of the world.

Offered a promotion? Decline it. Climbing the ladder at work is cliché. Interesting people choose to slide down instead.

Friends have a tendency to text and call, inviting you out, checking to see how you’re doing. It’s important to ignore them. Trevor’s having a bachelor party, Claire’s got an art opening. So what? You’ve got beer in your apartment, and Hulu’s running a Frasier marathon. Some of your older friends will be hard to shake. They’ll keep calling. They might leave messages saying they’re worried about you. Stay strong. Do not reply. That’ll only provide a crack for the outside world to seep through. Eventually they’ll give up. After all, you haven’t been fun to hang out with lately.

HOW TO LOSE INTEREST IN EVERYTHING THAT ONCE MATTERED

It used to drive your girlfriend crazy that you were so focused on rock climbing, or worse, reading books. “I wanna have sex!” she’d say, so you’d begrudgingly put down your copy of War and Peace and unzip your pants. Well, she’s gone now, and nobody’s watching you read that book you barely understand. The performance is over. Pick up your phone, you know you want to. Open Candy Crush. Do not try to control how long you play, like all those idiots out there.

The world is designed to pull you away from what matters, to thrust you into an infinite clusterfuck of doomscrolling, and advertising consumption. Let go, enjoy plummeting into mental degradation. Isn’t it a relief to surrender to your dopamine addiction?

Did you ever actually use those muscles you built in the gym? Did you lift a car off a kid? Exercise is honestly pretty corny. You can give that up too. And why pay therapists two hundred bucks an hour when you no longer have friends or partners to interact with in a healthy way? Use that money to subscribe to porn sites, or try something new, like crystal meth.

HOW TO HAVE HORRIBLE BOUNDARIES