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RIP JewWario
Jan. 25th, 2014 10:27 pmSo today was kind of an adventure.
The local weather forecasters had been spreading the fear that this weekend was going to be awful. Shock, I know, bad weather in Erie in January. But if you know me then you also know I have severe weather anxiety. My system recognizes snow as a danger that requires a lot of my attention and focus. And snow in January, in Erie, is usually pretty unavoidable. It literally surrounds us, uncontrollable, and so winter months are very stressful for me. To put it lightly.
So I left for work WAY early. It wasn't even snowing in North East at the time, but history has shown that it can be entirely clear in North East, and yet magically, Erie can be experiencing blizzard-like conditions at the exact same time.
And lo and behold, I got into work just fine! The roads were covered, but I went slow (and passed three accidents, two cars and one semi truck) but I could see where I was going, and for me, that's the challenge. I'm actually a pretty good winter driver... when I can see where I'm going. Normally.
So I walked into JC Penney's and found the stores down the entire hall dark and gates shut. A generator had blown and we were without power. I called my manager and met up with her and was told that we were anticipating the power to come back in around 4 pm. So we went and got lunch and had a nice time chatting over by Auntie Anne's pretzels to pass the time. And then found out that supposedly, work on the generator wouldn't even commence until after work hours, and thus, we were having an adult snow day.
I called my mom to let her know what was going on, and she said that she was at my grandparents' house visiting, and I said I would stop by and visit too! But I decided to take route 20 home instead of the highway, because that semi truck wreck was shutting down half of east-bound traffic and it didn't seem like it would be cleared anytime soon. And it was smooth sailing until the moment I crossed over the town line to Harborcreek. Suddenly, I was facing white out conditions and my windshield wipers were freezing over. But I did my best and focused and went slow, and as soon as I crossed over into North East, the conditions lightened. They weren't great, but better. I sighed a breath of relief and carried on.
As I was approaching the turn to my grandparents' house, I found a SUV following closely behind me. Despite me signaling that I was about to turn, they didn't break or reduce speed at all. This isn't an unusual happenstance, it's something that my grandparents experience all the time when coming home from the west, and fearing that this large vehicle was about to collide with the back of my Sebring, I did something stupid. I made a mistake, and missed turning into my grandparents' driveway. Instead, I plowed right into their front yard. Right into a snow bank, from which I could not extricate my poor little front wheel driven car.
I trudged through the snow and entered the house, where I was greeted warmly by my family. I hugged and kissed them, and promptly asked, "Could I get some help?" I explained what had happened and they all flocked to the windows to see what I had done.
I felt so stupid.
I've never been burdened with an abundance of self-esteem, so when I make a mistake, I dwell on it. At no end. I could relate to you stupid things that I have done dating back to the second grade (although I won't, because those are my demons to bear and I don't like to add to people's knowledge of how not-smart I am... it should be abundantly clear to them by now). So I tell you that I walked into the living room, with an apologetic smile on my face, all the while feeling as low as an earthworm. I'm very close to my family... they're very dear to me. They know me better than anyone, although sometimes they don't entirely understand, and I can't blame them for that. I am a hardcore nerd. While they talk about what's going on in the lives of the people in our town that I really should know, I'm thinking to myself about how DARE the writers of "Once Upon a Time" kill off Rumplestilzkin?! (Even temporarily, because let's face us, that's going to stick as well as it does in comic books.) Reality is hard. Life is madness that doesn't seem to follow any sense of rules or structure. Good people trying to do their best seem to only find hardship left in their wake and it KILLS me. Real life is hard, I prefer to dwell in fiction. Where the good guys come out victorious (unless you're reading Game of Thrones) and behave by a set of predictable morals.
But my grandpa... he just smiled at me. A knowing, but warm "ha ha, that was a silly thing to do!" smile. And we all put on our hats and coats, and we went out and unburied my car, and my grandfather rocked it back onto the road and pulled it into the driveway. And to me, in that moment, it felt as if my grandfather had a special kind of magic. Not only because he got my car out of his yard, but because he made it so simple. I did a stupid thing, and he fixed it. In a matter of minutes.
And then it was over.
We went back inside and we had a nice time. I played a seek and find game on the computer while my grandparents went to church, and then ate pigs in a blanket and watched Big Bang Theory and we laughed and enjoyed ourselves. When it came time to leave, I was told to drive safely, said with a smile and not-quite wink, and I went home.
And then I logged onto Facebook and learned that JewWario had committed suicide.
If you don't know Justin "JewWario" Carmical, he was an internet reviewer once hosted on the website http://thatguywiththeglasses.com. He shared his love of video games, specifically ones not readily available to the US public (and Pokemon) and always seemed cheerful and upbeat, his most known catch phrase being, "I like it!" This cheerful and upbeat man, who was kind and supportive to his friends in their very darkest of hours, locked himself away in his bathroom on Thursday. As his wife spoke to him from the other side of the door, he shot himself, ending his life prematurely.
I did not personally know this man. I followed his reviews and laughed at his jokes. No more. But he once said something in one of his videos that really spoke to me. I'm directly quoting from him here.
"What I'm about to say is important. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. And I want you all to know this. This goes out to everybody.
You're not stupid. Okay? You're not stupid. Don't ever tell yourself that you are. You're important. What you have in your head may not mean a lot to a lot of people, but it's what makes you special.
You are important. You mean something. And you're going to go out there, you're going to do some wonderful things.
But first and foremost, you're not stupid. You're not an idiot. Don't ever tell yourself that you are. And, if nobody else ever tells you this, I will tell you this: I care about you."
It would seem to some that this is an unfathomable statement coming from a person who later ended their own life. But that simply isn't true. To me, this is the sort of statement that can only come from a person who wrestled with something truly dark. Each person faces their own demons, and dark thoughts are inevitable. This is the statement of a person who was fighting, truly fighting with himself, who was reaching out to people who he knew were thinking these same dark thoughts, wishing for the best for them while he himself was suffering.
You would never have guessed Justin Carmical was suffering. The outpouring of memorial statements from his coworkers are testament to the love he had for people. Many have come out with stories about how he lifted them up when they were at their lowest, through the deaths of family members, from the viral hate that spews from the internet on a daily basis when directed at them. Justin reached out to these people, helped them through the hell that life heaps upon us regularly, and did it with a smile. A person who gave so much to so many people should not have had his life ended in such a way. But the world is a chaotic, maddening place. In a work of fiction, Justin's life would not have had such an ending. But life isn't fiction, no matter how much I wish it was sometimes. And sometimes, the demons that we face win in the end. It's not so unfathomable, really, is it? We live in a country where wealthy special interest groups dictate the lifestyle of of the remaining 99% of the population, from our wages to the people we are "allowed" to love and share our lives with. Robberies and shootings happen daily. No matter how much we scream and shout, it seems easy to ignore other people who even slightly disagree with someone. It's tragic when you think about it. But it's what we've got. It's what we have to live with.
Christians believe that when a person commits suicide, they are destined to go to hell for forsaking the precious gift that God in heaven bestows upon us. I hope that isn't true. Unlike some of the people who walk around, confident that they have all of the answers to life, I will admit that I have no idea what awaits us when we expire. Maybe there is a heaven and a hell... maybe we just rot in the ground. But hell is not a sentence that should be handed to someone like Justin. Justin was a good person, a good person who lost his own personal hope for the future, but a person who shared the gift of laughter will the uncountable number of us that browse the internet on a daily basis to escape the drudgery of our own lives. This may not seem like a lot to people who are happy in their day to day tedium, but for those of us that struggle with the unfairness of existence, I assure you, that is something precious that cannot be described in words.
I recently read Norwedgian Wood by Haruki Murakami, a novel that focuses a great deal on the idea of suicide in Japan, and they have a different take the concept. To the Japanese, at least as Murakami depicts them, death is an inevitability with which we all must one day face, and suicide is the greatest act of taking control of a person's life, by taking charge of the act of dying itself. I'm not sure what the Japanese concept of the afterlife is, but I do know that JewWario was very familiar with Japanese culture. Maybe he subscribed to these beliefs, maybe he didn't. We'll never know his reasons for doing what he did, or what awaits him because of them. But we are left with his words, kind encouraging words, words that speak to the heart of all of us, we who don't find complete satisfaction in life. Those of us who want for something more, something meaningful... who just want to be accepted and loved. Like the love I saw in my grandfather's smile today.
I'm going to cling to that memory. The memory that I am flawed, but my flaws aren't rule breaking. That I can be loved despite those flaws, despite the stupid mistakes I make, despite the struggles I have against things outside of my control. Like the snow that falls around me and the jerk who rides my ass, impatient to get where they need to go, despite what I'm doing.
I'm not stupid. To somebody out there, I am doing something wonderful. Just like people I care about do simple, wonderful things for me. They might not realize that simple things, like tagging me on a FB post or saying a kind word about me, brighten my day and make me happy, but they do.
I don't know if anyone will ever read this. This blog is pretty well buried in the depths of the internet... but I hope I can convey to my friends, my family, my coworkers, that they are dear to me, and that not being able to see them, smile at them, laugh with them, would make the world just more unbearable and dark. A person's worth isn't something that you can measure, it is something unquantifiable. It isn't made up of grand gestures, of annual income, or the size of your house. If I knew that someone I cared about was feeling pressured, their backs against the wall, unending darkness in sight, I hope that I would be able to impress upon them their worth TO ME. That I love them and selfishly do not want them to leave me.
RIP, Justin. My thoughts and prayers go to the people who knew and loved you much more so than I, and I hope that your spirit is at peace, now removed from this mad world with which the rest of us have to endure.
The local weather forecasters had been spreading the fear that this weekend was going to be awful. Shock, I know, bad weather in Erie in January. But if you know me then you also know I have severe weather anxiety. My system recognizes snow as a danger that requires a lot of my attention and focus. And snow in January, in Erie, is usually pretty unavoidable. It literally surrounds us, uncontrollable, and so winter months are very stressful for me. To put it lightly.
So I left for work WAY early. It wasn't even snowing in North East at the time, but history has shown that it can be entirely clear in North East, and yet magically, Erie can be experiencing blizzard-like conditions at the exact same time.
And lo and behold, I got into work just fine! The roads were covered, but I went slow (and passed three accidents, two cars and one semi truck) but I could see where I was going, and for me, that's the challenge. I'm actually a pretty good winter driver... when I can see where I'm going. Normally.
So I walked into JC Penney's and found the stores down the entire hall dark and gates shut. A generator had blown and we were without power. I called my manager and met up with her and was told that we were anticipating the power to come back in around 4 pm. So we went and got lunch and had a nice time chatting over by Auntie Anne's pretzels to pass the time. And then found out that supposedly, work on the generator wouldn't even commence until after work hours, and thus, we were having an adult snow day.
I called my mom to let her know what was going on, and she said that she was at my grandparents' house visiting, and I said I would stop by and visit too! But I decided to take route 20 home instead of the highway, because that semi truck wreck was shutting down half of east-bound traffic and it didn't seem like it would be cleared anytime soon. And it was smooth sailing until the moment I crossed over the town line to Harborcreek. Suddenly, I was facing white out conditions and my windshield wipers were freezing over. But I did my best and focused and went slow, and as soon as I crossed over into North East, the conditions lightened. They weren't great, but better. I sighed a breath of relief and carried on.
As I was approaching the turn to my grandparents' house, I found a SUV following closely behind me. Despite me signaling that I was about to turn, they didn't break or reduce speed at all. This isn't an unusual happenstance, it's something that my grandparents experience all the time when coming home from the west, and fearing that this large vehicle was about to collide with the back of my Sebring, I did something stupid. I made a mistake, and missed turning into my grandparents' driveway. Instead, I plowed right into their front yard. Right into a snow bank, from which I could not extricate my poor little front wheel driven car.
I trudged through the snow and entered the house, where I was greeted warmly by my family. I hugged and kissed them, and promptly asked, "Could I get some help?" I explained what had happened and they all flocked to the windows to see what I had done.
I felt so stupid.
I've never been burdened with an abundance of self-esteem, so when I make a mistake, I dwell on it. At no end. I could relate to you stupid things that I have done dating back to the second grade (although I won't, because those are my demons to bear and I don't like to add to people's knowledge of how not-smart I am... it should be abundantly clear to them by now). So I tell you that I walked into the living room, with an apologetic smile on my face, all the while feeling as low as an earthworm. I'm very close to my family... they're very dear to me. They know me better than anyone, although sometimes they don't entirely understand, and I can't blame them for that. I am a hardcore nerd. While they talk about what's going on in the lives of the people in our town that I really should know, I'm thinking to myself about how DARE the writers of "Once Upon a Time" kill off Rumplestilzkin?! (Even temporarily, because let's face us, that's going to stick as well as it does in comic books.) Reality is hard. Life is madness that doesn't seem to follow any sense of rules or structure. Good people trying to do their best seem to only find hardship left in their wake and it KILLS me. Real life is hard, I prefer to dwell in fiction. Where the good guys come out victorious (unless you're reading Game of Thrones) and behave by a set of predictable morals.
But my grandpa... he just smiled at me. A knowing, but warm "ha ha, that was a silly thing to do!" smile. And we all put on our hats and coats, and we went out and unburied my car, and my grandfather rocked it back onto the road and pulled it into the driveway. And to me, in that moment, it felt as if my grandfather had a special kind of magic. Not only because he got my car out of his yard, but because he made it so simple. I did a stupid thing, and he fixed it. In a matter of minutes.
And then it was over.
We went back inside and we had a nice time. I played a seek and find game on the computer while my grandparents went to church, and then ate pigs in a blanket and watched Big Bang Theory and we laughed and enjoyed ourselves. When it came time to leave, I was told to drive safely, said with a smile and not-quite wink, and I went home.
And then I logged onto Facebook and learned that JewWario had committed suicide.
If you don't know Justin "JewWario" Carmical, he was an internet reviewer once hosted on the website http://thatguywiththeglasses.com. He shared his love of video games, specifically ones not readily available to the US public (and Pokemon) and always seemed cheerful and upbeat, his most known catch phrase being, "I like it!" This cheerful and upbeat man, who was kind and supportive to his friends in their very darkest of hours, locked himself away in his bathroom on Thursday. As his wife spoke to him from the other side of the door, he shot himself, ending his life prematurely.
I did not personally know this man. I followed his reviews and laughed at his jokes. No more. But he once said something in one of his videos that really spoke to me. I'm directly quoting from him here.
"What I'm about to say is important. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. And I want you all to know this. This goes out to everybody.
You're not stupid. Okay? You're not stupid. Don't ever tell yourself that you are. You're important. What you have in your head may not mean a lot to a lot of people, but it's what makes you special.
You are important. You mean something. And you're going to go out there, you're going to do some wonderful things.
But first and foremost, you're not stupid. You're not an idiot. Don't ever tell yourself that you are. And, if nobody else ever tells you this, I will tell you this: I care about you."
It would seem to some that this is an unfathomable statement coming from a person who later ended their own life. But that simply isn't true. To me, this is the sort of statement that can only come from a person who wrestled with something truly dark. Each person faces their own demons, and dark thoughts are inevitable. This is the statement of a person who was fighting, truly fighting with himself, who was reaching out to people who he knew were thinking these same dark thoughts, wishing for the best for them while he himself was suffering.
You would never have guessed Justin Carmical was suffering. The outpouring of memorial statements from his coworkers are testament to the love he had for people. Many have come out with stories about how he lifted them up when they were at their lowest, through the deaths of family members, from the viral hate that spews from the internet on a daily basis when directed at them. Justin reached out to these people, helped them through the hell that life heaps upon us regularly, and did it with a smile. A person who gave so much to so many people should not have had his life ended in such a way. But the world is a chaotic, maddening place. In a work of fiction, Justin's life would not have had such an ending. But life isn't fiction, no matter how much I wish it was sometimes. And sometimes, the demons that we face win in the end. It's not so unfathomable, really, is it? We live in a country where wealthy special interest groups dictate the lifestyle of of the remaining 99% of the population, from our wages to the people we are "allowed" to love and share our lives with. Robberies and shootings happen daily. No matter how much we scream and shout, it seems easy to ignore other people who even slightly disagree with someone. It's tragic when you think about it. But it's what we've got. It's what we have to live with.
Christians believe that when a person commits suicide, they are destined to go to hell for forsaking the precious gift that God in heaven bestows upon us. I hope that isn't true. Unlike some of the people who walk around, confident that they have all of the answers to life, I will admit that I have no idea what awaits us when we expire. Maybe there is a heaven and a hell... maybe we just rot in the ground. But hell is not a sentence that should be handed to someone like Justin. Justin was a good person, a good person who lost his own personal hope for the future, but a person who shared the gift of laughter will the uncountable number of us that browse the internet on a daily basis to escape the drudgery of our own lives. This may not seem like a lot to people who are happy in their day to day tedium, but for those of us that struggle with the unfairness of existence, I assure you, that is something precious that cannot be described in words.
I recently read Norwedgian Wood by Haruki Murakami, a novel that focuses a great deal on the idea of suicide in Japan, and they have a different take the concept. To the Japanese, at least as Murakami depicts them, death is an inevitability with which we all must one day face, and suicide is the greatest act of taking control of a person's life, by taking charge of the act of dying itself. I'm not sure what the Japanese concept of the afterlife is, but I do know that JewWario was very familiar with Japanese culture. Maybe he subscribed to these beliefs, maybe he didn't. We'll never know his reasons for doing what he did, or what awaits him because of them. But we are left with his words, kind encouraging words, words that speak to the heart of all of us, we who don't find complete satisfaction in life. Those of us who want for something more, something meaningful... who just want to be accepted and loved. Like the love I saw in my grandfather's smile today.
I'm going to cling to that memory. The memory that I am flawed, but my flaws aren't rule breaking. That I can be loved despite those flaws, despite the stupid mistakes I make, despite the struggles I have against things outside of my control. Like the snow that falls around me and the jerk who rides my ass, impatient to get where they need to go, despite what I'm doing.
I'm not stupid. To somebody out there, I am doing something wonderful. Just like people I care about do simple, wonderful things for me. They might not realize that simple things, like tagging me on a FB post or saying a kind word about me, brighten my day and make me happy, but they do.
I don't know if anyone will ever read this. This blog is pretty well buried in the depths of the internet... but I hope I can convey to my friends, my family, my coworkers, that they are dear to me, and that not being able to see them, smile at them, laugh with them, would make the world just more unbearable and dark. A person's worth isn't something that you can measure, it is something unquantifiable. It isn't made up of grand gestures, of annual income, or the size of your house. If I knew that someone I cared about was feeling pressured, their backs against the wall, unending darkness in sight, I hope that I would be able to impress upon them their worth TO ME. That I love them and selfishly do not want them to leave me.
RIP, Justin. My thoughts and prayers go to the people who knew and loved you much more so than I, and I hope that your spirit is at peace, now removed from this mad world with which the rest of us have to endure.
