On Funkopops
There’s been so much talk of using hallucinogens to gain a new perspective on life. I recently had an experience involving Rhino pills and a tainted can of V8 Enery which caused me to question everything. I saw myself dissolved and recapitulated, I saw the 4th dimension, I heard/felt/saw the voice of a higher intelligence as my mind spiraled outward on an 8hr guided tour of infinity. I can’t fully articulate what happened to me, but I feel a strong desire to share the life affirming message I’ve received. I can’t think of a better way to do it than by discussing Hamlet Act 3 Scene 1, Shakespeare’s famous meditation on suicide.
To be, or not to be? That is the question — Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them?
I recommend being! If those slings and arrows were going to kill you, you wouldn’t have to debate killing yourself. The mere fact that we’re having this conversation demonstrates that you’re troubles aren’t life threatening.
To die, to sleep — No more — and by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to — ’tis a consummation devoutly to be wished!
This reminds me of Louis CK’s observation “You never have to do anything. You can always kill yourself. Don’t want to do your laundry? No problem, just kill yourself.” Killing yourself prioritizes avoiding inconvenience over every good that life can offer. Including Funko Pops! Don’t believe me? Listen to this:
At present there are approximately 3700 Funko Pops with counts of individual dolls ranging from 1000 to 5000. It’s unclear how many “if any” of these end up hell, but the idea of collecting them after death is laughable.
Not only will you have to leave your entire collection behind when you die. (The damned resellers will get them and sell them on ebay for crazy prices) Once you reach the underworld, you’ll have to share the tiny number of vinyl figurines with 100 billion plus people who have already lived and died! Death makes us all equal. In life, you’re only competing for Funko Pops with the roughly 1billion residents of first world countries. Once you’re dead, even if Hell is full of Funko Pops they’re going to be 100 times harder to get! Or even more so, until modern times most people died before the age of five. Despite their overall lack of sophistication, kids are super into Funko Pops for some reason.
In death, best case scenario, a Funko Pop of Deadpool dressed as Bob Ross is going to set you back $99.99. If you want the Ned Stark Funko Pop with removable head, you’d better make arrangements now and hope that burning paper money actually works, because he’s going to set you back a cool $200,000 dollars, and that’s if you die today!
To die, to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream — ay, there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.
It’s true there may be an afterlife, and if there is it might be awful. I just don’t understand the advantage of hastening the inevitable. For one thing, it’s conceivable that the afterlife is eternal. Reincarnation might be a thing, but what if it’s not. If the dead don’t die, it means the only way their Funko Pops go back into circulation is if they choose to sell them. I can’t imagine that's common. I mean they’re so darn cute. We want more Funko Pops not less for. Between the massive numbers of dead people and the possibility of an eternal afterlife. It’s no exaggeration to say that an Okoye Funko Pop could sell for over $20,000. I have an Ikora Funko Pop I’m willing to part with for $600 though.
There’s the respect, that makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law’s delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of th’ unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin?
Here’s the laundry argument again. I think the real reason people steer away from suicide is that there are so many other ways of “making our quietus”. We can spend time with our pets for example. Still, you have to be careful with pets, a friend of mine’s dog chewed up one of his Pops, and it nearly pushed him over the edge.
Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?
I’m pretty confident I’ve demonstrated that death is incongruous with the acquisition of Funko Pops, the really rare ones especially. Even now Shakespeare’s down there with Milton and Byron, and Leonardo Divinci and Ghengis Khan, all waiting for the next release. Do you really think you can contend for Funko Pops with the likes of Newton and Liebnitz? No wonder suicidal idiations are classified as mental illness, you’d have to be crazy to think you could make that work.
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pith and moment with this regard their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action.
This is a great line, but don’t quote it to your depressed friend who’s on Facebook talking about taking a vacation to clear his head. If he chokes himself of on a doorknob, his estate will come after you money, and they won’t care that you thought you were quoting Macbeth. When people find out you own highly valuable collectables it’s like you’ve got a target on your back.
— Soft you now, The fair Ophelia! — Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered.
You know what would be cool, is if Ophelia had a giant head and a tiny body. Or what if they all did? Maybe Pixar or somebody could make a Funko Pop movie, and it could have a dream sequence in it where Freddy Funko imagines he’s Hamlet? It worked on Gilligan’s Island. But, who am I to speculate about the first installment of the Funko Pop movie saga? Such matters are best left to philosophers and saints than to the likes of myself. I’ll stick to speculating about the ultimate fate of the soul.
I would like to leave you with a partial solution to the problem of mortality: Buy Bitcoin. Load up as much as you can before it moons in September, then memorize your wallet seed and your private key. Bitcoin’s blockchain is decentralized and uncensorable. When you leave your money in a bank or traditional financial instruments, all your assets will be given away to your family and the government before you‘ve even had a chance to decompose. Did you know dead people aren’t even legally allowed to own property? It’s true! If you buy today at 7,000 you could see 10x-100x growth by the time you’re in hell, as long as you remember that key that money’s yours forever. Buy Bitcoin! Unless you’re immortal, getting into crypto is your soul’s only chance of owning a Funko Pop.
