The Existence Tax
Years ago, I came up with a concept that’s been helpful whenever some proverbial shit hits my metaphorical fan. I call it the “Existence Tax.”
Imagine that you’re in a hurry, and you just have to make a quick stop at the corner store on the way home. There’s an illegal parking spot right in front of the store, and you pull into it, thinking that you’ll only be there a couple of minutes, and you don’t have time to cruise around the block looking for a legitimate spot. Of course, when you come out of the store, there’s a $75 ticket flapping on your windshield, and you drive home steaming, cursing yourself for being such an idiot and the parking police for being such assholes.
From the moment that ticket wormed its way under your wiper, any time spent stewing over it is wasted. You’ll still have to pay the fine, no matter how many F-bombs you drop on the way home. So how can you put it behind you as quickly as possible and move on to something more productive (and definitely more enjoyable)?
This is where the existence tax comes in. Depending on your views about free will, you may believe that we’ve got a lot of say in how our lives unfold, or not so much. We can all agree, however, that we’re all destined to eat some crap sandwiches before this picnic is through. If you own a car, sooner or later you’re going to get a parking ticket. If you pursue your goals, sooner or later you’re going to fail. If you put any faith in people, sometimes they’ll disappoint you. If you love something or someone, you’re probably going to lose them someday.
The failing is built into the doing. The losing is part of the having. The parking tickets might as well come preloaded on your windshield, because they’re as much a part of the car as the hubcaps.
When April 15th rolls around, we don’t enjoy paying our taxes, but we aren’t surprised, and we don’t spend any time cursing ourselves for being stupid enough to earn a living.
We exist, so we owe an existence tax. The tax code is opaque and confusing, and definitely not fair, but it’s the only one we have. What they say about death and taxes is true: they’re the price of doing business, if your business is being alive.
