there is a short story written by howard fast about a field mouse. the mouse is visited by two aliens who ask him for a special favor. they need to collect all the information they can about earth and humans. so they grant the mouse the ability of infinite intelligence and empathy and ask him to travel the world, collect his findings and return to them and share what he learned. the mouse spends his days traveling the world and collecting information about people and relationships and time and money and and dancing and hope and disappointment and death and war and grieving and sharing and working and poetry and love.

after a year or so he returns to the aliens who take the data and thank the mouse for his duty. they are ready to leave earth with this new information but the mouse stops them cries ‘how can you leave me like this? i know everything about everyone inside and out and i see all truths- how can i go on living like this, i am more enlightened than any other being on the planet, i cannot go on like this, its too painful because i know too much’. i don’t remember how it ends. maybe he asks to be killed or to be changed back to a regular mouse .

i am thinking of this story because of anthony bourdain. i think anthony was like the field mouse. i think he had one of the greatest understandings of what it means to be human and alive, more than anyone else. and because of that knowledge and special insight, he started to feel he was carrying the weight of the world . i wish anthony bourdain did not kill himself because it makes me lose hope. do you understand?