Hell is entirely relative

The other day, I overheard someone tell someone else to "Go to hell!" And, instead of quivering in fear, the other person (or the damnee, as we shall call him) merely laughed. "Ha ha!" he exclaimed. "Suits me! That's where all the cool people go!" But he's wrong because, you see, hell is relative.

There seem to be two schools of thinking on what hell is all about. The traditional idea of hell, as preferred by bible bashers and Catholic priests the world over, is a place made of fire and brimstone; a place of eternal agony and torment for murderers and people who don't eat their vegetables.

In some versions of the story, the place is guarded by a three-headed dog called Cerberus. In other versions, the place is ruled by Satan, images of whom range from the sublime to the ridiculous.

The one common theme throught the various versions of the religious hell is that, once damned, you will spend eternity being flogged with a cat o' nine tails and being forced to commit unholy acts, such as work as a telephone operator, or ungodly chores, such as washing Hitler's underwear after curry night. And guess what? Every night is curry night in hell! Muhahaha!

The other more modern and trendy school of thought on hell is that hell is where all the cool people go. This really annoys me. Hell is not a biker bar with unlimited free booze and a fantastic jukebox, where you can still smoke and shoot pool, and which is full of cool people like Jimi Hendrix and Bill Hicks.

You see, the whole concept of hell is that it's supposed to inflict pain and suffering on the person who's been damned, and we all know that one man's heaven is another man's hell. Therefore, hell is relative. Ipso facto.

From dictionary.com:

hell ( P ) Pronunciation Key (hel) n.

1. a. often Hell. The abode of condemned souls and devils in some religions; the place of eternal punishment for the wicked after death, presided over by Satan.
b. A state of separation from God; exclusion from God's presence.

2. The abode of the dead, identified with the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades; the underworld.

3. a. A situation or place of evil, misery, discord, or destruction: War is hell (William Tecumseh Sherman).
b. Torment; anguish: went through hell on the job.

Hell is the absolute worst case you can imagine. And then some. So, to picture your own personal hell, here's what you need to do: (1) Think of the worst place in the world. The one place where you would give anything not to be right now. (2) Think of all the people you'd be more than happy never to see ever again. (3) Think of the one activity that you would sell your left kidney never to have to do ever again.

Now, imagine being in that place, with those people, doing that activity, FOREVER.

Congratulations. Now you know what hell will be like when you go there.

For me, hell would be sitting in my office, with my boss constantly interrupting me, trying to edit the typeface on a huge report that I've been working on for months, but he keeps making changes to the report, and I have to keep going back over it to update the font. He's constantly making crap and/or sexist jokes, and asking me inane questions about reports that I completed months ago, and then getting pissed off when I don't know the answer straight away. For eons and eons and eons.

So, yeah, I'm pretty much already there. I knew I shouldn't have laughed at Denis Leary's Jesus joke.

So, remember kids, the next time someone tells you to go to hell, don't flash the smug grin and make some lame joke about how you'd be more than happy to go and drink tequila with Bill. Because hell, for you, is more likely to be a New Kids on the Block reunion concert. In Milton Keynes. And, trust me, you really don't want to go there.