Happiness or longevity...(and how serial killers can affect both)

Baseball is making me happier today. Then again, there are still three outs left...One of my favorite poems ever.

i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires

why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense

plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then to cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is to come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves

and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity

but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself

--archy (Don Marquis)

And the thing is, I have given this serious thought since I discovered the poem when I was 15, and no, there is nothing that I want to badly, or care about so badly, or anything so badly, that I am willing to die for it. That is kinda sad.

Now I was thinking about Jack the Ripper, which comes with more questions than answers, about the most basic things. (You may as well know that I am obsessed with serial killers.) Is the "Dear Boss" letter geniune? That almost suggests that Jack the Ripper was an American. Was the graffiti geniune? (That one I'd think more likely.) And Juwes, is that an uneducated spelling of Jews, or is that a masonic thing? How many victims were there and who were they, and why is there such a disparity? (Generally accepted as the "classic five" and theories as to another dozen or so more, starting half a year before Nichols - though I doubt that one - and then two and a half years after Mary Kelly...in the US, which has the most questions. Many of them only have the fact they were prostitutioes killed with knives in common.) Most importantly, why did he just randomly stop without ever being caught? Do you think that when we die, there is this room just filled with videotapes and books where all our answers to life can be answered? That would be my idea of heaven, actually.

The most freaky serial killer to me is Richard Trenton Chase, who in my opinion doesn't get the name recognition as a truly psycho person. First, he was like a vampire. But more freaky to me, he was asked how he selected his victims. It wasn't random. He said he went down the streets testing doors to find one that was unlocked. If the door was locked that means you’re not welcome. So now I'm paranoid to lock my doors. You want weird though, read this guys bio sometime. Literally, he went to the hospital looking for the person who stole his pulmonary artery, another time he said that the bones were coming out through the back of his head. He drank animal blood to keep his heart from disappearing. Thus guy was a true nut and his parents weaned him off his drugs b/c they determined he didn't need them. If I see my kid eating animals, sure as hell I'm calling coming and keeping him sedated. I mean, I know love is blind, but geesh!

And speaking of serial killers (always an interesting way to start a sentence), someone I once knew commented that he did not believe in ghosts because he had never seen one, but he did believe in serial killers, even though he had never seen one. Me, I believe in both serial killers and ghosts...