Around midnight Monday morning I walked into my house, stumbling around from the two mouthfuls of NyQuil coursing through my veins, and I noticed my father asleep on an uncomfortable sofa-type object in the living room. This made me wonder if perhaps my parents finally hated each other as much as I collectively despised them, or if maybe my father just couldn't stand the draft in the back of the house and chose to sleep by the wood-fireplace in the north end. Regardless of whatever the truth was, I began thinking about how parents from their age became parents for the sole reason of becoming parents; not because of love or the desire to create a mesh of two gene pools, but for the sole excuse that that is what their lives meant to them. The resultant factor of this has been systematically proven to be divorce; nobody can stay together and not be in love, which seems to be a scientific law made so from the insurmountable evidence that is my parents' entire generation.
I was under the delightful effects of generic brand NyQuil when I wrote that introduction, and I decided in my stupor that it warranted me reversing my writing technique in order to accommodate it. Believe it or not, everything I've ever written has started with the title and trickled down into a sort of analyzation of said title. At least, in my non-collegiate writing. And even those essays follow a similar structure. But this crap is what I prefer. I had been looking for an excuse to write about the parallel between the concept of the love I believe in and the forced abomination that is the love my parents and ninety percent of current middle aged couples believe in. It's actually rather a glue developed from the morality of that demographic, one that stays together for the children involved, one that very often falls apart.
I am not a child of divorce, though I could care less either way. If my parents thought they were doing me a favor by staying together so I could bare witness to their ignorance and disgusting bickering then they should have split up a long fucking time ago so I could have used the alimony to pay for college. If that sounds harsh, well, let's just say that now I am too old to be a recipient of child support, I have dreams about using their life insurance instead. But don't think me a greedy bottom feeder; if you grew up in a family where your sister raised you while your mother locked herself in a room doing homework all day then you'd feel less than appreciative toward your parents too. Allow me to reiterate that slightly for better effect; my mother went to college in her thirties while I was a child. I never saw her. My sisters and great grandmother were more a mother than she ever has been, and my father, well that's irrelevant right now. Now had my mother used her education to make life better for her kids I would have understood, but to become a teacher? And a middle school teacher at that. In a town full of stupid little kids and minorities who have it beat into their heads that they're worthless already. What a waste of life my mother is.
Go ahead and say that I should love her because she gave me life. Anyone who brings a child into this world and then ignores him and only him and not her other children deserves to burn in Dante's ninth circle of Hell. I live veritably well if you consider being stuck in community college in a house of two people you hate "well." I have trust issues like none you've ever seen. I fall in love and hate myself for it because I just want a fucking maternal influence in my life. I have manic depression and that's all well and good unless your parents come from an age where mental disorders require more "stop being a sissy" than "here's your Zoloft I hope you get better." Mostly the love thing hurts. Teenage angst is an obvious necessity in our lives, but there's angst and then there's torment. The worst thing to do to someone with all these complexes is ignore them.
I have two friends at the moment who I would trust with my life. One I have been friends with since I was nine, the other is a beautiful, amazingly talented, smart, and funny girl who I am proud to be considered a friend of. Between them there's not one thing I have hidden in my life. Neither of them can fathom it. Neither of them can say they've been there, because everyone's unique in their own minuscule way. But you know what? It doesn't matter. Friends are there to be a crutch in the bad times and a boost in the good times. For me, they keep me fairly centered on the manic depressive scale, what most people consider normal. Though, when you think about it, if you can understand, and I don't expect you to, there's no real "normal" for people like me. There's only really shades of insanity, the most "normal" of them all being that mundane gray-shaded apathy. The most wonderful feeling for people like me; to not have to care, to not be ABLE to care. To just live, to watch the ships sink, and neither sink nor swim, but to just. . . Exist.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Wrath
There's no reason to tread lightly concerning the subject of wrath, as it would be quite impossible to accurately describe it if you did. It's a beautiful word, my favorite synonym for anger and respite. It almost always flows from the tongue in a manner of fervent energy; such a passionate word should only be used this way. We all know what it pertains to, or at least that it's one of the cardinal sins. We classify it merely as anger and understand that it is an unrighteous concept. Doing this is such a waste of such a human feeling. You can't truly appreciate wrath if you only think of it as anger, and trust me, it's so... fulfilling to embrace it. Don't be afraid to admit it, that's partly why it's a sin in the first place. It's a delicious poison that seemingly forces a person into committing the most vile of crimes: Rape, murder, genocide, anything that brings to mind causing intense pain and suffering can be associated with this.We've all felt it, the stiffening of the muscles, the insurmountable rage, the loss of all moral obligation. It's so natural, such a common part of our lives.
Wrath gets a bad rap. It is really the only sin that involves such demented and horrific destruction. By no means am I saying that everyone who walks in on their significant other cheating should forcefully insert sharp objects into them. Nor am I suggesting that after a bad day at work you should blow off some steam by finding a homeless person and drug them, hang them by their toes and slit holes into their stomach, and proceed to amputate whichever appendage offends you the most. I mean no-one would miss them but that's clearly not my point. All I'm saying is that we've all felt it, the intense desire to harm somebody based on anything from nonsensical fury to rightful vengeance. That doesn't mean you go and abort a baby with a coat hanger and pliers. Most people just breathe in, relax, and shake the thoughts from their minds. Me too, just to clarify. You won't see me on the news for feeding prostitutes' entrails to animals for shits and giggles. There aren't even any hookers in Denison.
I did say earlier that just classifying wrath as a sin and swearing to never intentionally succumb to it is a waste, or maybe I implied it, but I never said anything good came from it, and it's definitely not a pro-moral choice. There are other outlets. Look at me, I'm a manic depression-ridden wreck, of course I have moments when I want to strangle someone beside me for no reason and feed them pieces of raw dog meat and curdled milk while they gasp for air. That doesn't mean I actually go through with it, and if I can resist the temptation, so can you. Just do some sit-ups or something, God knows our country is overweight, put the high pulse to some beneficial use. If that's not enough, picture (insert favorite sado-masochistic verb)-ing (insert least favorite person, gender, or race) and you will have done so many sit ups that by the time you finish you won't even know where the time went, and you'll be one step closer to abolishing that stubborn belly fat.
Point is, venting is good, healthy, and most importantly, necessary. If you don't vent you'll end up psychotic, I promise. Wrath has caused many unfavorable historical events to occur (the Holocaust comes to mind) and unless you'd like to be the next famous genocidal psychopath, you'd probably better blow off some steam every now and then. You most likely won't go that far, but why argue? We all know it feels good to get pissed off and have sex, or at least I'd imagine it would. Hell, next time you want to pull someone's colon out through their ass with a plunger and some plastic cement, just go build a model airplane. That way you didn't waste money on the cement.
Wrath is obviously not a good thing, or else it'd be over there with the virtues and poptarts and not the sins and feminists. God knew what He was talking about when He decided it was a no-no, so take His word for it if not mine. It has had beautiful stories written based on its effects on human nature, and epic poems devised with it at their core. So from a literary and symbolic point of view, wrath is an art form. From everyone else's point of view... Well, you get the point.
Wrath gets a bad rap. It is really the only sin that involves such demented and horrific destruction. By no means am I saying that everyone who walks in on their significant other cheating should forcefully insert sharp objects into them. Nor am I suggesting that after a bad day at work you should blow off some steam by finding a homeless person and drug them, hang them by their toes and slit holes into their stomach, and proceed to amputate whichever appendage offends you the most. I mean no-one would miss them but that's clearly not my point. All I'm saying is that we've all felt it, the intense desire to harm somebody based on anything from nonsensical fury to rightful vengeance. That doesn't mean you go and abort a baby with a coat hanger and pliers. Most people just breathe in, relax, and shake the thoughts from their minds. Me too, just to clarify. You won't see me on the news for feeding prostitutes' entrails to animals for shits and giggles. There aren't even any hookers in Denison.
I did say earlier that just classifying wrath as a sin and swearing to never intentionally succumb to it is a waste, or maybe I implied it, but I never said anything good came from it, and it's definitely not a pro-moral choice. There are other outlets. Look at me, I'm a manic depression-ridden wreck, of course I have moments when I want to strangle someone beside me for no reason and feed them pieces of raw dog meat and curdled milk while they gasp for air. That doesn't mean I actually go through with it, and if I can resist the temptation, so can you. Just do some sit-ups or something, God knows our country is overweight, put the high pulse to some beneficial use. If that's not enough, picture (insert favorite sado-masochistic verb)-ing (insert least favorite person, gender, or race) and you will have done so many sit ups that by the time you finish you won't even know where the time went, and you'll be one step closer to abolishing that stubborn belly fat.
Point is, venting is good, healthy, and most importantly, necessary. If you don't vent you'll end up psychotic, I promise. Wrath has caused many unfavorable historical events to occur (the Holocaust comes to mind) and unless you'd like to be the next famous genocidal psychopath, you'd probably better blow off some steam every now and then. You most likely won't go that far, but why argue? We all know it feels good to get pissed off and have sex, or at least I'd imagine it would. Hell, next time you want to pull someone's colon out through their ass with a plunger and some plastic cement, just go build a model airplane. That way you didn't waste money on the cement.
Wrath is obviously not a good thing, or else it'd be over there with the virtues and poptarts and not the sins and feminists. God knew what He was talking about when He decided it was a no-no, so take His word for it if not mine. It has had beautiful stories written based on its effects on human nature, and epic poems devised with it at their core. So from a literary and symbolic point of view, wrath is an art form. From everyone else's point of view... Well, you get the point.
Lust
Now you know you've felt this one, there's no use denying it. "Teenager" and "lustful, horny bastard" could be interchanged in any given scenario. Try it if you don't believe me. Not to deter from the point, and to save a lot of regurgitated verbiage, we're all human. Maddeningly redundant yeah? Well it's true. I'm abstinent and hold the respect of women in the highest regard, and even I find myself wondering what certain chicks look like in their birthday suits. Call me a pervert, call me a sexist pig, you're more than welcome to, as long as I can call you a shit-spewing hypocrite. Let's just say lust would be a disorder and not a sin if not everyone was full of it. And by full of it I do mean figuratively; Not every guy walks around with a mirror taped to the toe of their shoe, and I actually don't know any guys who hide minicams in ladies' bathroom stalls, but those are some of the fabled tools of the lusty teenage boy's trade. Mostly we just divert our gaze when a lovely young woman meanders by, it stimulates the imagination if nothing else. Worse-case scenario you'll find yourself in with a guy is he sneaks a picture of you with his phone. Never tried it, but suffice it to say some guys do.
I think I've spoken ill enough of my sex, and having said that, I may as well mention the horrid terror creeping down my spine as I begin my analysis of the female libido. If you've read any of my other stuff, and God pities you if you did, you'll be able to ascertain that I have more respect for women than I do for men. That probably stems from the sense of longing I have to be with someone who doesn't completely suck, no pun intended. Plus men are testosterone-driven maniacs who rely on attention, pride, and ego to sate their desire for acception. That being said, women are fucking insane. I'm bipolar, and I wouldn't say it if I didn't have to, but even completely "sane" women baffle me some days. I thought that I was unhinged... And from that hopefully you can predict my next statement: women are worse than men about sex. If you think guys are horny and disgusting, well I don't want to dig myself in all the way. Use your imagination, you know I'm right.
Say you happen to be in a situation where you accidentally witness someone of the opposite sex getting out of the shower. For a guy, this girl is everything you fantasize about, and I'll use my own perception of beauty for this. She's as tall as me, shoulder-length chestnut hair, not grossly silky, but not a Jew fro either. Perfectly proportionate, her skin a light shade of tan.Slightly petite but not sickly. You can tell from across the room from her glow that she's the kind of girl you would be terrified to talk to, not because she's way too hot, but because she might actually be smarter than you, just judging from her appearance. You don't have to fantasize because everything's already there. She notices you, yet for some reason she doesn't seem appalled that you're sitting in a recliner gaping at her completely naked body, (Hey it's a fantasy shut the hell up.) she actually seems a little flattered. She does that weird towel-wrap thing that only girls can do, then she moves towards you slowly, very seductively, but this could be your lustful mind telling you what you want to hear. But then she beckons you stand, and as you rise her lips meet yours in a warm, heart stopping embrace. Your mind has already flooded, emptied, and refilled with a thousand scenarios as to what happens next. You place your hands on her hips, the towel is gone, and somewhere in the confusion so are your pants and shirt. Your heart is now racing, your muscles trembling, you're half there and half not, still fantasizing all these things you could do to her.
And then you wake up and do what all guys do when they have a dream like that. Come on there's no way in hell that would happen. Girls throw things, heavy, heavy things, at you when you watch them leave the shower naked, er so I would imagine... Well, for a girl, there's probably a lot less thought involved, no offense. They tend to turn off their inhibitions when they're about to get what they want. Oh yeah and I'm not about to do a head-to-toe analysis of the perfect naked guy, because being a guy, I can assure you there isn't one, so take my word for it. Penises look too funny for me to describe seductively anyway.
We've all got our fantasies. There's that person out there, real or imaginary, who you would completely ravage if you had the chance. Just all out all night if you had the energy, and you'd find the energy if you didn't. Lust is the most enjoyable sin to indulge in with the least amount of regret and self-contempt involved after the fact. It doesn't even seem like a sin, but if you're a hardcore Christian you understand why it is. Most of you doubtfully understand what it does to your mind in large doses, and just how inappropriate it really is. That's not an insult, it's purely understandable, especially for teenagers, but you should at least have some idea the disintegrating effect it has on your morality, and in the end that's all you have. But Hell, don't pay any attention to my ramblings. Your lusty pleasures are between you, your pay-per-view provider, and God.
Envy
What would we have if not the want for everything we don't? We'd be a sorry excuse for a superior species if we didn't have that drive and determination for what makes us better, and how are you supposed to know what's better for you if you don't desire what better people have? It's a paradox true enough. We can't be expected to live our lives taking what's right in front of us and not wondering what others have that we might want. Seeing what someone has as beneficial and wanting that for ourselves shouldn't be considered a sin, right? I mean, there's no other way to really know. We're not God, that's just silly. He knows, we don't, so wonderment and curiosity is all we really have to go off of. If you agreed with any point I made then you're a sinful wretch, apparently.
Envy goes a lot deeper than most people give it credit for. Sure there's seeing the shiny new whatever your neighbor has and wanting it yourself, or having intensely lustful feelings for his hot wife, but that's really just the cusp of it. Dig down deeper into your horrid little heart and you'll see that you don't want those things as much as you want him to not have them. There's envy. It's right there between lust and gluttony, stuck in between your greedy, irate little fist, dying to escape. It makes you feel so shameful, and so wanting at the same time. You'll go from the initial pride of having such a successful sibling to hating them for their success and wanting them to overtake your misery while you indulge in their spoils. You don't just want to be lucky like your famous cousin, you want him dead so you can be on t.v. modeling sexy man thongs in his place, even if you are obese and hairy. Doesn't matter, you want what others have. We all do.
Envy is the gateway drug for the rest of the sins. It fuels the wrath to commit the murder. It drives the passion in the lustful adulterer. It feeds the fire for the prideful soul. It softens the conscience for those obsequious to their gluttony. Somehow it gives justification for the greed-driven spirit, and alleviates the consequences for the slothful and nonchalant. We could go far enough to say that everything we have stems from envy of someone or something else. The great thing is you don't even have to envy real people anymore; you can find what you want in the lives of people from t.v., books, and anything else that has something you want. It's beautiful how uncreative, unoriginal, and plagiaristic we have become.
Well we all do it so who gives a damn right? Apparently someone cares or it wouldn't be a sin. I will be quite frank in admitting that I find a lot of loopholes in this particular moral debauchery. We have to find amazement in people's ideas so we can expand upon them and create better ones. The whole redefined purpose of human existence is progress and change, and to be blatant, we suck far too much to have that many original ideas. And in case that seems to be stretching far from the point, consider how difficult it would be to "expand upon" another's ideas if we did not first respect said idea to the point that we wished it was our own. Hence envy.
Arguably enough my opinion on the subject is irrelevant, but some things make too much sense to argue about. Sure there are certain limitations to envy's usefulness, they happen to be where it bleeds into something like murder or thievery, but hey you win some and you lose a lot. The world's a depressing place when you only see the bad that something has to offer. We'd be unemotional and overall apathetic if there wasn't our neighbor's new wife to keep us going. So when you're done ogling her niceties, give her a wink and get back to work. We need a new Stephen Hawking, the old one's almost worn out.
Sloth
It doesn't seem like there'd be much to say about sloth. You're lazy, so what? You don't aspire to be anything, that's your problem. How's it a sin? It doesn't hurt people, it doesn't make you feel anything bad or good , it just makes you... exist. It should be more of a state of mind than a sin if you think about it, right? Well, you thought wrong. It really doesn't tie in with any other sin, it's fairly unique in its chemistry. But because it makes you indolent and apathetic, it makes you oblivious to the world around you, which is dangerous, and in turn, sinful. It's a little more difficult to contemplate due to its seemingly transparent affect on human nature.
Other sins have direct here-and-now effects, wrath being the most sudden and violent of them all, but also the others. Envy festers in your mind until you know for certain you will never be complete without whatever it is you obsess over. Gluttony is the bottomless abyss that strives for more of everything that won't make you a better person, as anything in excess is essentially detrimental. Greed blackens your heart with ultra-capitalistic overtones and quiets the conscience with promises of more, more, more. Lust fills the soul with the desire for romance so much that it becomes a drug you can't clean from your body. And pride numbs the consequences, assuring you that you, in your insurmountable glory, can do no wrong.
Sloth feeds on you from the inside, exponentiaiting its torment with every successful obstacle it creates in your mind. Why do your homework? There's so much of it, there'll be plenty to do tomorrow. Why feed the dog? It's a beast, it can fend for itself. Why go outside for that matter? It's too hot. It's too cold. I wanna play Xbox damn it. People die out there, only my hopes and dreams die in here. Why should I go to school? I've skipped too much homework, I'll never catch up.No point getting off the couch, I've got a an IV drip in here. I've become the epitome of a wasted life, why should I live? I've dropped out of school, I don't go outside, I have no job, no girlfriend, no friends, I think my parents moved out... I should just end it. Fuck life.
And when you fuck life, you fuck yourself out of heaven, and hell fucks you. Seems kind of obvious why it's a sin now. It facilitates the beginnings of the most pitiful humans in history, all by not doing anything at all. It puts in your head the seed of indolence, nurtured by the subtle beauty of apathy, finally sprouting into the fully-thorned vines of sloth, enraptured by the taste of your will, finding loving embrace when curled around your sanity, only releasing you from its confines when your beating heart palpitates the final ounces of blood from your gaping wrists.
Pride
There are infinite ways to go about analyzing pride. It is its own rainbow of stubbornness and egoism, where every color is a different intensity. It's so difficult to explain because you can only really explain how it controls you, and not necessarily anybody else. There are those of us who take pride in everything we do, but in the good way, the way that leaves us with the taste of a job well done in our mouths. Then there are those of us with that holier than Thou attitude, the ones who stand in the mirror for ten minutes at a time flexing their bro-muscles, then put on a skin-tight shirt and go torment the little kids at the park. Those would be the two extremes, and most of the rest of us fit somewhere in between.
To reiterate, pride isn't entirely that bad when manipulated in small proportions.You have to have confidence in yourself, for example, to do anything right, except fail. And yes confidence is one of those "intensities" in the spectrum that is defined as pride, but it's at the weaker end, because mostly good things come from it. You can't consume yourself with thoughts of how everyone is better than you if you plan on surviving in this Hell, but you also can't think of yourself as our Messiah. It's a tough sin to keep a peg on, because it is a necessity, but at the same time you can't just give in and become one of those jerk-offs who runs around breaking people's hearts and letting people down because you're too consumed with your own image to notice there's other people in the world. It's tough to maintain a proper balance.
It is incredibly difficult for me to explain pride in sufficient terms, because I am one of those few people who doesn't have an ego, and at times very little self confidence. That being said, I can't adequately describe the feelings it gives you when you're full of prideful ambition, not from a first-person account. I can however tell you what I see in people who are obsessed with themselves, and I can tell you that beneath every egotistical bastard is someone very much like me, someone very determined to be successful, even if they happen to be doing it for all the wrong reasons.
Everyone wants to be liked, to have something that people admire them for, and in some people that desire drives them a little too hard. I see people who admire themselves more than they respect anything, and it hurts a little, after the initial desire to stab them. They don't realize it now, because they have too many things to love about themselves, but eventually they'll be alone, and when you have that epiphany, the one that tells you you've screwed over everyone who could have loved you, you could do one of many different things. You could spend the rest of your life trying to make up for it, or you could just kill yourself. Those are the two less creative alternatives. Pride is as much a drug as any hallucinogen. It obsesses your mind with all these imaginary obstacles, forcing you to believe that you have to overcome them to have the life you deserve. And if you ever overcome them, and you very seldom do, your pride isn't there to be your crutch. It leaves you as soon as you've lost everything that counts, leaving you with nothing in this realm to save you and a broken spirit to assure you never recover. At least, that's what I see as the fate for all of those people.
Pride disgusts me more than any other sin, mostly because I don't understand it nearly as well as any of the others. I have become as intimate with the other sins as you could with a lover, but then I've got plenty of things wrong with my mind that more than constitute as a surrogate sin for pride, one of them being manic relapses, which seem a lot like what pride does to you, but then I don't really know. Pride takes what you've got and tells you you're too amazing to cherish it, too wonderful to respect it. And then when it has annihilated your inhibition, drowned your common sense, and forced you into a slew of unfavorable actions that results in you losing everything you had, it leaves you too. It works like a fanatic cult leader, filling your mind with delusions of grandeur, then force-feeding you the poisoned punch that is reality, and it simply walks away. Then you're empty, cold and alone, and immediately and easily susceptible to all of the sins that pride initially shielded you from. I guess it does give you one thing, as a sort of peace offering. It relinquishes the contemplation of suicide from what used to be taboo, but that's not really what you wanted to hear now is it?
To reiterate, pride isn't entirely that bad when manipulated in small proportions.You have to have confidence in yourself, for example, to do anything right, except fail. And yes confidence is one of those "intensities" in the spectrum that is defined as pride, but it's at the weaker end, because mostly good things come from it. You can't consume yourself with thoughts of how everyone is better than you if you plan on surviving in this Hell, but you also can't think of yourself as our Messiah. It's a tough sin to keep a peg on, because it is a necessity, but at the same time you can't just give in and become one of those jerk-offs who runs around breaking people's hearts and letting people down because you're too consumed with your own image to notice there's other people in the world. It's tough to maintain a proper balance.
It is incredibly difficult for me to explain pride in sufficient terms, because I am one of those few people who doesn't have an ego, and at times very little self confidence. That being said, I can't adequately describe the feelings it gives you when you're full of prideful ambition, not from a first-person account. I can however tell you what I see in people who are obsessed with themselves, and I can tell you that beneath every egotistical bastard is someone very much like me, someone very determined to be successful, even if they happen to be doing it for all the wrong reasons.
Everyone wants to be liked, to have something that people admire them for, and in some people that desire drives them a little too hard. I see people who admire themselves more than they respect anything, and it hurts a little, after the initial desire to stab them. They don't realize it now, because they have too many things to love about themselves, but eventually they'll be alone, and when you have that epiphany, the one that tells you you've screwed over everyone who could have loved you, you could do one of many different things. You could spend the rest of your life trying to make up for it, or you could just kill yourself. Those are the two less creative alternatives. Pride is as much a drug as any hallucinogen. It obsesses your mind with all these imaginary obstacles, forcing you to believe that you have to overcome them to have the life you deserve. And if you ever overcome them, and you very seldom do, your pride isn't there to be your crutch. It leaves you as soon as you've lost everything that counts, leaving you with nothing in this realm to save you and a broken spirit to assure you never recover. At least, that's what I see as the fate for all of those people.
Pride disgusts me more than any other sin, mostly because I don't understand it nearly as well as any of the others. I have become as intimate with the other sins as you could with a lover, but then I've got plenty of things wrong with my mind that more than constitute as a surrogate sin for pride, one of them being manic relapses, which seem a lot like what pride does to you, but then I don't really know. Pride takes what you've got and tells you you're too amazing to cherish it, too wonderful to respect it. And then when it has annihilated your inhibition, drowned your common sense, and forced you into a slew of unfavorable actions that results in you losing everything you had, it leaves you too. It works like a fanatic cult leader, filling your mind with delusions of grandeur, then force-feeding you the poisoned punch that is reality, and it simply walks away. Then you're empty, cold and alone, and immediately and easily susceptible to all of the sins that pride initially shielded you from. I guess it does give you one thing, as a sort of peace offering. It relinquishes the contemplation of suicide from what used to be taboo, but that's not really what you wanted to hear now is it?
Pain
I believe I might end up in love with one of my best friends. An ostensibly ironic way of beginning something entitled "Pain" you might think. Well, pain takes a lot of forms. There is indeed an infinite multitude of synonyms for pain depending on the connotation. Hell, you could be in pain when watching your child's first step, when you're consumed by nostalgia and the fear of knowing that your life no longer means anything but what is expressed through that little bastard's development. There's pain in that, the selflessness forcefully imbued into a person who isn't even prepared to live their own life independently. I mean that's just one thing that sprung into my mind, there's a lot of pain out there.
By the time I finish this I may have decided whether or not to actually post it, or maybe I'll just keep re reading it over and over then accidentally click to post it while I'm trying to add a sentence explaining why I might not post it, but then you won't really know unless I do, obviously, and I bet you never know which sentence THAT would have been... I'm not entirely sure if I am at all correct in my presumption that I am in love with her. I have enough problems, enough baggage, and enough self-contempt stored in my being derived solely from things my fault to have another, and having this out there written would just solidify it, making it something tangible instead of just a lurking fear. I've got my incredible procrastination skills, anxiety, self esteem or lack thereof, and an astonishing ability to make everything a lot harder than it needs to be; I don't want to be in love with anyone. I hate it. Rephrase: I hate the person I am, more, when I am in love.
There's something you should know about me pertaining to this; I like love. I hate being in love. There's nothing more painful than being in love with someone. It doesn't matter, in my case at least, who it is, or what it is, or what it/her tastes like. I hate being in love. I love a lot of things. I love the idea of not dying alone, as paradoxical as that is relative to my stance on the subject I am examining. I love my friends, but I'm not usually in love with any of them, because most of them have penises, and that would make me gay, which I most definitely am not. They're probably not happy with me right now but it's whatever, to be blatant. If I could explain how I feel in all entirety every subject of my life right now without feeling like a whiny hypocrite then I would, and they wouldn't be mad, but I'm not Jesus, so there.
Anyway, having cleared up slightly the indiscernible miasma that is my thought process, We are brought back to my impasse. It was funny how we came to meet. It's even funnier why I feel the way I do, but funny isn't pain and neither is the opposite unless you're as macabre as I am, and you're not. Simply put, you can't help falling in love, but you can help putting it on the internet. And since I only use the internet anymore to keep this stupid shit I write recorded where people can read it if they want, I honestly don't give a God damn what people think unless they plan to tell me I'm the next Ralph Waldo Emerson, and they won't. They being you, and I doubt most people my age know who that was. Anyway, If I could help how I felt then I wouldn't have to remind my mother every time we argue that I simply hate her, and I wouldn't have to fear having stupid feelings that I detest because of the fear of them breaking up one of the best friendships I have going now and ever did have.
To reiterate, the prepositional phrase "being in love" represents at least ten-fold the amount of pain that "Fuck, you stabbed my hand" does. At least your hand's going to maybe get better. I've been around a couple years, and I've never heard anyone say over malt liquor and a really big cigarette, "God I've just never trusted people since he stabbed my hand with that spork," though had that spork been made of elephant bone gilded in titanium that might be understandable in some sick bed-room scenarios. On the other hand, being in love always seems to animate that beautiful pain that poets write about and writers bitch about; that exquisite blood red emotion that churns about, fermenting with each cyclic manifestation, festering as a sore in the heart, never relieving you of your agony. Like the psychotically ill, a pain for which there is no catharsis.
By the time I finish this I may have decided whether or not to actually post it, or maybe I'll just keep re reading it over and over then accidentally click to post it while I'm trying to add a sentence explaining why I might not post it, but then you won't really know unless I do, obviously, and I bet you never know which sentence THAT would have been... I'm not entirely sure if I am at all correct in my presumption that I am in love with her. I have enough problems, enough baggage, and enough self-contempt stored in my being derived solely from things my fault to have another, and having this out there written would just solidify it, making it something tangible instead of just a lurking fear. I've got my incredible procrastination skills, anxiety, self esteem or lack thereof, and an astonishing ability to make everything a lot harder than it needs to be; I don't want to be in love with anyone. I hate it. Rephrase: I hate the person I am, more, when I am in love.
There's something you should know about me pertaining to this; I like love. I hate being in love. There's nothing more painful than being in love with someone. It doesn't matter, in my case at least, who it is, or what it is, or what it/her tastes like. I hate being in love. I love a lot of things. I love the idea of not dying alone, as paradoxical as that is relative to my stance on the subject I am examining. I love my friends, but I'm not usually in love with any of them, because most of them have penises, and that would make me gay, which I most definitely am not. They're probably not happy with me right now but it's whatever, to be blatant. If I could explain how I feel in all entirety every subject of my life right now without feeling like a whiny hypocrite then I would, and they wouldn't be mad, but I'm not Jesus, so there.
Anyway, having cleared up slightly the indiscernible miasma that is my thought process, We are brought back to my impasse. It was funny how we came to meet. It's even funnier why I feel the way I do, but funny isn't pain and neither is the opposite unless you're as macabre as I am, and you're not. Simply put, you can't help falling in love, but you can help putting it on the internet. And since I only use the internet anymore to keep this stupid shit I write recorded where people can read it if they want, I honestly don't give a God damn what people think unless they plan to tell me I'm the next Ralph Waldo Emerson, and they won't. They being you, and I doubt most people my age know who that was. Anyway, If I could help how I felt then I wouldn't have to remind my mother every time we argue that I simply hate her, and I wouldn't have to fear having stupid feelings that I detest because of the fear of them breaking up one of the best friendships I have going now and ever did have.
To reiterate, the prepositional phrase "being in love" represents at least ten-fold the amount of pain that "Fuck, you stabbed my hand" does. At least your hand's going to maybe get better. I've been around a couple years, and I've never heard anyone say over malt liquor and a really big cigarette, "God I've just never trusted people since he stabbed my hand with that spork," though had that spork been made of elephant bone gilded in titanium that might be understandable in some sick bed-room scenarios. On the other hand, being in love always seems to animate that beautiful pain that poets write about and writers bitch about; that exquisite blood red emotion that churns about, fermenting with each cyclic manifestation, festering as a sore in the heart, never relieving you of your agony. Like the psychotically ill, a pain for which there is no catharsis.
Greed
Greed is sadly misconstrued by its own definition, the denotations of which insinuate that one who is greedy thirsts for monetary or egotistical appropriations. As I said, a sad misconception. This gives people such a shallow, two or even one-dimensional perception of a sin that has such beautiful devices at its disposal. You feel it every single day of your life. Maybe you're a freak or just lie to yourself and don't worry about money. That's perfectly fine; greed doesn't discriminate your desires. All it cares is that there is something in your life, or more appropriately, something NOT in your life, that you "need" more of. It's such a beautiful caricature of the human condition; it's one of those four beautiful sins that work in the dark, convincing you that you have made up your own mind, that you control every facet of your life.
Perhaps I am suggesting, and thus contradicting myself in this suggestion, that greed is veritably synonymous with gluttony, lust, and envy. Previously I have made hopefully articulate presumptions and presented hopefully accurate statements concerning the certain opposition of these four sins. I do hope in that sense that I have contradicted myself, because they are extremely similar in mechanism, but extremely different in nature. They work harmoniously, as cogs in a machine connecting other cogs and gears, efficiently giving said machine motion. These do just that, except that the machine is your inhibition, or lack thereof, as the case may be.While they do make you feel differently, extraordinarily differently, they are like the steps on a ladder; a very weird ladder that no-one would use for practical climbing purposes.
Where lust pushes you into that first kiss, greed is pushing lust making you NEED that first kiss. Where gluttony makes that God damned cookie so delicious, greed starves you into necessity. Where envy tells you your friend's car is so much better than yours, greed blinds you until you're done bankrupting yourself into a brand new one. It's such an awe inspiring cycle, it really makes me want to cry in joy that as much as people swear they're an individual, they are controlled by the same hormones and desires as anyone else. To be abstinent of anything is to starve the brain of the necessities of human interaction. A travesty, in other words, punishable by the consequence of a life of doldrums.
I considered subliminally how to write my last two analyses of sinnery for many weeks after my last post about pride, not because I care what you think, and certainly not because Myspace rocks, because it fucking blows, but because I am obsessed and driven to make myself one of those writers at least someone remembers, despite where I have to start.I came to the conclusion about ten minutes ago that in order to make this worth reading I would have to explain the similarities between the three aforementioned sins and how said similarities actually make greed what it is; the father of the material sins. A brain dead Jewish monkey could tell what greed is, but to understand how and why it is felt and through which processes is the hard part to grasp. It doesn't just provoke the others, it does have its own symptoms.
Being in love is the perfect parallel to use. You think that despite how much love hurts it is the purest of human emotions. Do you know what really is the purest of ALL human emotions? One void of all sinful complications? Death. And that's not even an emotion, but it's the only state of mind that can feasibly present one with unadulterated clarity. Only by process of elimination do I understand that this is the only way, because it's the only state of mind I believe I have not yet felt. Being in love is a perversion, a masterful cocktail of gluttony, lust, envy, and greed.You HAVE to have more of her, her scent, her taste, her affection, her promises of loyalty. You abhorr the very sight of any man who looks at her, because she is yours. He will die if he comes between you, if you are indeed in love. You make yourself sick at night with conscious nightmares of how she has had the trust in you to tell you that she still loves her boyfriend, and you want that more than life itself. And finally the greed, exponentiating its torment into your very soul, your most simple state of being, until these desires are engraved into it, soldered into your DNA, pours forth gallons of hormonal rage, forcing you out of primal human instinct to... What? You can do nothing. You can't help who you're in love with, you can't control your greed. There is simply, deliciously, no hole, no crack in obscurity, for you to hide in.
Perhaps I am suggesting, and thus contradicting myself in this suggestion, that greed is veritably synonymous with gluttony, lust, and envy. Previously I have made hopefully articulate presumptions and presented hopefully accurate statements concerning the certain opposition of these four sins. I do hope in that sense that I have contradicted myself, because they are extremely similar in mechanism, but extremely different in nature. They work harmoniously, as cogs in a machine connecting other cogs and gears, efficiently giving said machine motion. These do just that, except that the machine is your inhibition, or lack thereof, as the case may be.While they do make you feel differently, extraordinarily differently, they are like the steps on a ladder; a very weird ladder that no-one would use for practical climbing purposes.
Where lust pushes you into that first kiss, greed is pushing lust making you NEED that first kiss. Where gluttony makes that God damned cookie so delicious, greed starves you into necessity. Where envy tells you your friend's car is so much better than yours, greed blinds you until you're done bankrupting yourself into a brand new one. It's such an awe inspiring cycle, it really makes me want to cry in joy that as much as people swear they're an individual, they are controlled by the same hormones and desires as anyone else. To be abstinent of anything is to starve the brain of the necessities of human interaction. A travesty, in other words, punishable by the consequence of a life of doldrums.
I considered subliminally how to write my last two analyses of sinnery for many weeks after my last post about pride, not because I care what you think, and certainly not because Myspace rocks, because it fucking blows, but because I am obsessed and driven to make myself one of those writers at least someone remembers, despite where I have to start.I came to the conclusion about ten minutes ago that in order to make this worth reading I would have to explain the similarities between the three aforementioned sins and how said similarities actually make greed what it is; the father of the material sins. A brain dead Jewish monkey could tell what greed is, but to understand how and why it is felt and through which processes is the hard part to grasp. It doesn't just provoke the others, it does have its own symptoms.
Being in love is the perfect parallel to use. You think that despite how much love hurts it is the purest of human emotions. Do you know what really is the purest of ALL human emotions? One void of all sinful complications? Death. And that's not even an emotion, but it's the only state of mind that can feasibly present one with unadulterated clarity. Only by process of elimination do I understand that this is the only way, because it's the only state of mind I believe I have not yet felt. Being in love is a perversion, a masterful cocktail of gluttony, lust, envy, and greed.You HAVE to have more of her, her scent, her taste, her affection, her promises of loyalty. You abhorr the very sight of any man who looks at her, because she is yours. He will die if he comes between you, if you are indeed in love. You make yourself sick at night with conscious nightmares of how she has had the trust in you to tell you that she still loves her boyfriend, and you want that more than life itself. And finally the greed, exponentiating its torment into your very soul, your most simple state of being, until these desires are engraved into it, soldered into your DNA, pours forth gallons of hormonal rage, forcing you out of primal human instinct to... What? You can do nothing. You can't help who you're in love with, you can't control your greed. There is simply, deliciously, no hole, no crack in obscurity, for you to hide in.
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