Yes, Virtual Prozac–the only medication guaranteed to have no side effects and no direct effects either. Virtual Prozac is the paradigm shift in a bottle–only without the bottle! Virtual Prozac cannot be bought at health-food stores, pharmacies or by mail order. It is not available in pill, capsule, liquid or any other form. Virtual Prozac is the first antidepressant of the Information Age, the only one to harness the incredible healing power of the Placebo Effect. It operates on the principle that when you stop brooding so much about your place in the universe you feel better about life, and when you feel better about life, people stop edging away from you on the sidewalk and warning their kids not to play in front of your house.
Unlike ordinary antidepressants, Virtual Prozac does not affect your levels of serotonin, norepinephrine or any other substance you would have trouble pronouncing at a dinner party. Unlike conventional psychotherapy, it does not involve any depressing so-called “insights” into your behavior. Jerry A. achieved all the benefits of Virtual Prozac without having to go on national television to denounce his parents as child abusers. To make it work, you merely have to say to yourself, as Jerry A. did: Look, you’re 44 years old and you’re still torturing yourself over the futility of existence. Why? Because it seemed more authentic that way. Because you thought it made you more interesting. Because it worked 25 years ago on a Vassar sophomore. But now you’re 44 years old. No one cares if you’re authentic anymore. You don’t have to be interesting to anyone. Stop worrying about your place in the universe for eternity and start looking for a place in Fire Island for August. Mia Farrow was the last woman in America who thought existential angst was romantic, and not even she believes it any longer. So give it up!
Of course, most people, hearing about this dramatic improvement in Jerry A.’s life, would say, sensibly enough, what took him so long to figure this out? Everyone else gave up on this stuff years ago and took up something productive, like golf–why should we feel sorry for him just because he can’t let go of his adolescence? To which there is really no answer, except that different people reach this point in their lives at different times, and that society has finally over the last few years given up on the myth of noble suffering. Art, which once was presumed to come from the lonely struggle of a tormented genius, now is born somewhere between the salad and the cappuccino over lunch at Spago. People like Woody Allen or Michael Jackson, who once were thought to be engagingly, productively neurotic, are now viewed as revoltingly neurotic. Mental health, once the stigma of the smug bourgeoisie, has come out of the closet.
And if Virtual Prozac helped Jerry A. resolve his spiritual crisis–just imagine what it can do for you! He sleeps for several hours at a time, eats a healthy diet plus anything else he can get his hands on and drinks only as much as he needs to. Setbacks in life that once would have seemed almost insurmountable, such as finding someone signed up ahead of him for the StairMaster, he now tolerates easily; instead of kicking the machine and throwing his towel around, he tries alternative strategies such as erasing the other person’s name and writing in his own. He still occasionally feels the need to bite his knuckles until he draws blood when he remembers some of the dumb things he said to girls when he was in high school, but he’s confident that by fine-tuning his dosage he will continue to gain improved impulse control. And despite all the terrible things that people who claim to be his friends have done to him and continue to do to him behind his back, he’ll tell you that he’s never felt better in his life than he has since he started taking Virtual Prozac.
And he’s convinced the second week will be even better.
