by FourthBase » Mon Aug 25, 2008 3:10 am
I don't even know how to begin this thread. I'm going to try to ignore the unwritten rules of what constitutes a general discussion. I'm just going to talk about me. I'm an egomaniac. I'm not sure whether the egomania is justified or unjustified. Just in case: I'm going to let you know every single thing I think, every single thing I am. I'm going to try anyway. I don't know if I can do it. But I'm going to try. Am I important? Yes, maybe. I'm not congratulating myself though. Being potentially important sucks, in a way. A big way. I might not be important. But, I'm probably important. I'm 99% sure I'm important. In the nearly infinite scenarios of me, there is the possibility of me being the most important person ever, me being the worst person ever, and me just being a worthless loser. If you feel the need to remind me sarcastically or unsarcastically that I'm one or the other, then I should let you know that I feel the might-as-well-be reality of every scenario, equally. And because of that, all I have left is to be as honest as possible. I don't trust myself, let alone you. But if you just abandon your ego at the door, maybe you'll be able to hear me sing, with both the most confusing and complex ego ever, and an identical ego as yours. I really don't know what to make of myself. Except that I know for sure that if I'm not trying to make life as worthwhile and right as I can possibly make it, then I am worthless. Less than worthless if whatever truths I possess (arbitrarily) are undercut by my own (arbitrary) psychological baggage. (G and J!) So I'll try my best to undercut my own psychological baggage, to whatever extent it takes to be helpful to you and everyone. For example, should I have subjected even the most erroneously confident meat-eater to pictures of dogs and cows butchered? Probably not. I wanted to get revenge, because those pictures, that reality, makes me sob. There ARE better ways for me to persuade everyone, even if they still involve pictures. Why keep showing MLK dead and assassinated, even if it actually happened? It shouldn't have happened. We never should have been eating pigs and cows and dogs and cats and birds. No one has ever successfully imagined a different more moral world. Number one on the list of proofs for success: Successfully imagining a world to the utmost necessarily involves the best case scenarios being realized in the real world. But how is so much shit so awful right now, just curious. How in the hell did we wind up doing what we're doing? Only being 31 years old, I can't really say. Evolution? Whatever the process was, however natural it was, it ain't right. But it probably also ain't right for me to subject people to reality they can only keep sane by ignoring. Sane and insane, simultaneously. Women have been slaves! And they've also been masters, behind the scenes. Everyone is to blame, and nobody is at fault. How hard is it to accept the paradoxical dilemmas of life? Almost impossible. I sometimes wish I'd wound up like the stereotypical Southie quasi-hero. A good kid who suffered much but found a commonplace peace of mind at the MWRA. I didn't wind up that way, though. I wound up like the kind of realistic once-a-bully-then-perpetually-bullied Will Hunting that would've existed had he been born from a lineage of strong indomitable characters, and who then found his way to understanding Nietzsche, better than even Nietzsche himself. Who understands the inscrutable David Foster Wallace better (although maybe not more) than David Foster Wallace himself. I don't resent the kids I grew up with who tormented me though. It wasn't their fault. Neither was it my fault. I know, so trite, but if that movie's good for anything, it's that scene. I want to gather all the kids who ostracized and bullied me, and I want to throw them a party. Life is way too fucking short to hold grudges. Life is way to fucking unpredictable to decide that there's no way you could connect with even a monster like Dick Cheney and change his mind for the benefit of all. If you think there are demons, fine. If you think there are demons who have more control over the world than you do, then you are wrong. You, and I, can do whatever the fuck we want. If we've grown up without being terrorized beyond belief -- and as many times as I was punched in the face, I am aware there are worlds of hurt I can't comprehend -- then that "you are free" should result in really good and hopeful and empathetic attempts to help "save" the world. As if it needs saving. Life is great. You'd rather be dead? Really? Within the past three months, in the same family, my family: One cousin tried to off herself, and failed. "Failed". LOL! (SOB) Then her sister took a stupid dare and did something that should have killed her, and she's not dead, nor is she even paralyzed. My family is full of stupid, lucky, indestructible characters. How the fuck am I alive? I have been places in my mind that would've driven 99% of humanity to suicide. I am a tourist of suicidally profound thought, and what I've concluded: I much prefer home. The home of meaning, unthinking meaning, the kind of meaning you felt during childhood if you didn't have a completely fucked up childhood, the kind of meaning you felt if you DID have a completely fucked up childhood but have since recovered and then some. My heroes are Holocaust survivors who NEVER KILLED THEMSELVES, because what they discovered in their incomprehensibly horrific experiences in that one stage of their life, was the secret to happiness. Not that suffering itself is worth discovering that secret. But the secret is often the accidental bi-product of unimaginable suffering survived, I imagine. Nietzsche. If you are not reading him in the healthiest possible way, then you're only reading your own sick self, and you should go to a doctor. After 20+ years of mind-blowing depression and anxiety without ever abiding by a schedule of prescribed medication, I'm now at the point where I've respected my natural/nurtured curses long enough, I'm now ready to completely disrespect my anxiety and leash it with pills. Enough. Forget a leash, I want a pill that will smash my (organically born and justified-by-reality) anxiety in the face from behind with a folding chair, behind the ref's back, so that I can jump on it and pin it to the ground until it is defeated. I can't beat my anxiety at the moment, it's too strong. It often outthinks me. My life and I have created a monster, one that's always been slightly stronger than me. Fuck that monster. Fuck it to hell. I could actually play a small-to-big part in saving the world. You could, too. I'm not about to let the absurd texture of ultimate reality trip me up. I'm pretty sure I am viewing the world with an almost ideal combination of cynicism and generosity. I'm not the GOAT. But I'd like to be known as a credit to my species, I'd like to one day be inducted into the Human Hall of Fame, even as a 3rd rate hall-of-famer. Our species is AWESOME. We fucking rock. We are beautiful. We're not perfect. IF we were perfect, ironically, we wouldn't be beautiful -- we'd be hideous. I'm drunk. Very. But if you think I'm not going to continue, in the future, blabbing about myself in both real and imagined ways...then just wait for each time this thread is poignantly bumped by me. Cheers, fuckers, cheers. I'm not alone! CHEER THE FUCK UP. Just like that corny PrimetimeLive story about the dying professor giving his last lecture, I'll reveal this: None of what I have ever posted here was for you. It was all for me, the me at the times. But shit, if you find anything useful, how lucky! Use it! HOWEVER, this is hardly my last "lecture" here. See that Scientology thread? It's on its what, 17th page? You, the extraordinary audience and members of RI, are about to watch a behind-the-scenes look at a recovering loser try to save the world. Should be fun!
“Joy is a current of energy in your body, like chlorophyll or sunlight,
that fills you up and makes you naturally want to do your best.” - Bill Russell
