- “What the hell are you doing? Why are you just sitting there? Haven’t you seen the lists? Haven’t you been reading the books?
Here is what they tell you: You should be outside, far, far away from here, right this minute, visiting Machu Picchu or a former Hungarian brothel that’s now a cute artisanal bakery run by tiny singing lesbians, or visiting a giant musty old castle in Leipzig, or maybe taking lousy digital pictures of that Amazonian tribe that makes cute little earrings out of dried capybara testicles. Do it. Do it now.
Didn’t you know? Haven’t you been reading? After all, it’s the latest micro craze in annoying copycat book publishing and I believe it all began with that cute and wildly guilt-inducing bestseller from a few years back, “1,000 Places to See Before You Die” which was sold by the truckload at every Costco and Walgreens from here to the former Yugoslavia and purchased by every armchair traveler and wealthy retiree who likes to show off their frequent flier mileage receipts at dinner parties, and which has a great catchy title and admittedly terrific gimmick, even if it is just a giant to-do list hitched to a rather insidious idea that you haven’t actually lived until you’ve eaten fried pigeon legs in some obscure village in Vietnam.
And now, as with any passably decent idea in the popular culture, that cute little gift book has now been whored quite nearly to death. There are so many spin-off titles it’s a bit like skanky celebs showing their vaginas as they exit an Escalade. Which one to choose? Which version to read and ponder and further my anxiety that I am never doing enough, which one to make me feel excruciatingly underexperienced in the world?
Let us peruse the offerings. There’s “1,001 Great Books to Read Before You Die.” Also, 1,001 great paintings to see, 1,001 natural wonders to ogle, 1,000 places to visit (United States and Canada only). There are 1,001 recordings and 1,001 restaurants and 1,001 recipes and 1,001 movies and even—oh my God, really?—50 places to play golf before you die, and by the way, if you’ve played golf in more than, say, 20 of these places by now, aren’t you already sort of dead? I mean, just a little?
Call it Carpe Diem Syndrome, in which we take the sweet and humble idea that, rather than constantly living in the future or the past, in achievement or in wealth, it might behoove your spirit instead to learn to celebrate and indulge in the moment you are in right now, and we take that idea and torque and maul and slap it into, well, a big shopping list of crap you need to accomplish in order to make your existence seem complete. It’s life as commodity, your soul on a credit card, experience as the pinnacle of meaning.”