We Are ALL Dingus
A rallying cry for the seriously unserious.
Let’s get this out of the way.
You are Dingus.
A cosmic accident, hurtling through a vacuum on a mossy piece of spinning space-debris, accompanied by billions of other cosmic accidents who are equally confused… but all pretending they’re more enlightened than you.
I am Dingus.
A quickly-decaying sack of flesh comprised of atoms that have somehow organized themselves in such a way to have anxiety about their collective FICO score.
We are Dingus.
We know even less about why we exist than we do about why the opposite sex is the way they are... which is to say, we don’t know shit.
Anyone who claims otherwise is either selling the Kool-Aid, guzzling it, or stockpiling it in their doomsday bunker next to their gallon buckets of baked beans and ‘forever’ mashed potatos.
BUT, these realizations are not what make us Dingus.
Realizing the ridiculousness of life, then marching towards the abyss with a shit-eating grin on our face and a giant ketchup stain on our fresh fucking shirt, hoping someone with a coffee stain on their crotch will point it out and laugh with us…
THAT is Dingus.
Those who haven’t earned the right to be called Dingus often fall into one of two camps: Patricias and Richards
The life of Patricia:
realizes she’s gonna die,
panics & begins constructing (or inheriting) an elaborate belief system to make it all mean something.
begins worshipping a god, a grind, a five-year plan, her six children (or twelve cats) — something, anything, to feel like there’s a point.
Patricia is the main character of her own fairy tale, of which, each chapter is continually rewritten to preserve ego.
“We’re all gonna fucking die!
But I’m special. And if you copy my beliefs and inherit my meaning, you can die special like me.”
-Patricia, the Pretender
Richard is a bit more nihilistic (often under the guise of a “realist”). He’s enlightened enough to realize that existence is inherently pointless, and that humans are about as “special” as a beige-colored crayon.
The life of Richard:
realizes he’s gonna die
buys a dozen black turtlenecks and dreams up a thousand ways to end it early, but is [usually] too chicken to follow through.
spends his days misquoting Nietzsche, writing sad songs, and doing his best to bring us all down into his pit of despair.
He’s the unfortunate victim of the evolutionary lottery, of which, he has no control over — so what’s the point in living?
“We’re all gonna fucking die!
So what the hell are we waiting for?”
-Richard, the Realist
Dingus has empathy for these two, because we’ve been there.
We were all sold a story at some point, and believed it deeply with our entire being, like Patricia.
But somewhere along the line, our heads were violently yanked out of the sand and we took a peak behind the mysterious curtain.
We discovered that the only thing hiding behind the curtain is a warped carnival mirror and a loudspeaker playing a bad cover of the Macarena on repeat.
Dingus has learned that the only truth is that there is no truth.
There just, is.
It turns out Richard is right… existence is absurd. It’s also unfair, frequently idiotic, often cruel, and almost completely devoid of inherent meaning, no matter how many vision boards or Sunday church sermons say otherwise.
But rather than wallow in despair… Dingus has decided consciously, deliberately, as an act of quiet rebellion — that we’re gonna have a really good time in spite of it all.
This way of living makes Dingus resilient. Anti-fragile.
When Patricia is handed a lemon, she squeezes it, adds orange food coloring and sugar, then serves it to her friends and family as “orange juice”. Fuck you Patricia! I don’t want your bullshit “orange juice!”
When Richard is handed a lemon, he squeezes it, adds a cup of salt, then rubs it in his eyes while screaming for help.
(Dude, Richard, stop… Here’s a rope, a butt plug, and some Astroglide, at least make it exciting on your way out.)
When Dingus is handed a lemon, he squeezes it along with some onions, adds some sugar and a dash of habanero, then declares a new creation: “Onionade!”
That is Dingus.
Not a movement. Not a lifestyle brand.
Not a “community of like-minded individuals on a spiritual journey to find meaning in the little things…” (FML, please, no.)
Just an absurd word for absurd people, like us.
A word for people who look at the whole situation: the folly, the chaos, the fact that we’re all just making this shit up as we go — and we laugh.
We laugh hard.
We laugh at the dipshit in the propeller hat, especially when we realize that dipshit is staring back at us in the carnival mirror.
We are ALL Dingus.
A rallying cry for the perpetually over-enlightened.
Dingus is the person who knows they’re ridiculous and doesn’t need anyone to pretend otherwise.
Dingus is the person who can take a joke, make a joke, and be the joke — because the joke isn’t threatening when it’s THE thread that holds everything together.
Dingus is the person who lets others be who (or what) they are, because Dingus is sure as hell gonna be themselves too.
Dingus finds purpose, IF Dingus wants purpose.
Dingus seeks meaning, IF meaning is meaningful to Dingus.
Dingus is finished pretending, because we fed our inflated egos through the wood-chipper of life and decided to leave them there to rot, instead of desperately taping them back together and stapling them to our foreheads like a delusional badge of honor. (That one acid trip may have had something to do with it too.)
The Daily Dingus exists because I woke up a few years ago, after 40+ years of life, and realized that I was completely done pretending.
Pretending things are more serious than they are.
Pretending I have answers that I don’t have.
Pretending the world makes any sense…
That people make sense…
That I make sense. (Which, for the record, I do not, and my wife will confirm this in writing.)
Whenever I feel like it, something will appear here in The Daily Dingus. Something, probably short, hopefully funny, definitely absurd. Or maybe just a picture of a weird bird… dunno, haven’t decided anything yet!
I also want to continue the comic strip featuring two unhinged puffins, because, duh. The problem is - many of you hate AI “art”, and I can’t fucking draw… So maybe if the wife eventually helps we’ll reboot it. Or maybe I’ll shove my AI art down your throats, and tell you to read the message and get the joke. None of this matters, after all.
In any case… This newsletter will not change your life.
But maybe, if it goes well, it’ll give you a laugh, and make you feel slightly better about the one you’ve got.
And remember:
PS - If you are not Dingus, you’re likely offended. Sorry, not sorry. You’re welcome to unsubscribe. Or stick around, but you’ve been warned. ;)