I find it much easier to think of obligations and routine - all processes designed to control and limit the generation of too much free-flowing energy, which is the very substance of chaos - not in terms of how they serve oneself but how they serve others. To think of your tax obligation as a negotiation between yourself and the US gov’t may be tempting because it further fuels your endless investigation into that relationship. After all, one of your favorite pastimes, at least since I’ve known you, and seemingly long before that, has been to investigate, study, hypothesize, and pick apart endless absurdities committed by the US government.  

But as I suggested last night, perhaps doing taxes is less about what the government is collecting from you and how those dollars will be put to use, and more about what you are able to offer the people closest to you by relieving yourself of that psychological burden. 

One can neglect one’s responsibilities toward oneself for so long that the negligence becomes its own slow form of death. (I imagine it takes far longer than one might hope.) And ultimately, it’s never the neglected responsibility that destroys us, but the habit of neglect. Self-destruction can be strangely cathartic because of how deeply selfish it is. Masturbation is selfish too, yet unmistakably life-affirming—which is why it would be far harder to convince you to stop masturbating than to do your taxes. There is no amount of tax-free money you’d accept in exchange for never masturbating again. (Though perhaps not doing your taxes is just an extension of masturbation—why else file for a tax extension if not to prolong the pleasure of postponement?) I believe they refer to this practice as gooning.

The misunderstanding, I think, lies in imagining avoidance as a tactic for confronting fear, when in fact it is a method of indulging it. That’s what becomes embarrassing about chronic avoidance: its sheer indulgence. Indulgence is a form of privilege. It signals not real agony but a tolerance—a sometimes perverse enjoyment—of suffering. And unlike masturbation, avoidance performs itself as pain. Yet if you were truly in pain, the avoidance would collapse under the pressure of need.

It’s the same instinct that lets someone else break up with you rather than addressing the truth the moment you feel it. That only works if not addressing it is itself a bearable option. It is a privilege to be so happy with someone that even when you know the end is coming, you feel safe enough to coast toward it.

 The ability to postpone conclusion is always a sign of someone enjoying the interim.

In the end, you are pleasure-oriented in every dimension of your life. Whatever it is, you indulge. That is your routine—one you maintain with almost superhuman consistency. And somehow you’ve even found a way to take pleasure in your taxes… by not doing them. Ironically, this routine isn’t especially taxing for you, nor for the government—it’s taxing for the people around you.

And anyway, I’ve heard women think it’s kind of hot when men do their taxes…

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