Monday, December 10, 2012

Nothing is more scary than the idea of being relevant

Nothing is more scary than the idea of being relevant. What does that mean? Writing the title before you have any idea what you're going to ramble on about is always a good idea. Look, I'm already off topic, but that's the point. I'm not relevant, and have got a modest amount of happiness. I have a Modest Mouse album for my contentment. That, and pathological dishonesty. No one listens to Modest Mouse for joy. You would only listen to Modest Mouse if you hadn't listened to say, any world news in the last half century that would quickly clear that smirk right off your face. Modest Mouse is likely enjoyed specifically by atheists who have still somehow found a way to delude themselves, as their wistful cheeriness is more optimistic than any thinking man could stand.

Nothing is more scary than the idea of being relevant. I have some good points to make, when not making sweeping generalizations about musicians. I could be in the zone! A place of heightened awareness, where you slowly crawl to the mountain top to notice what things look like from above, but you never notice the fog. It's worrisome. Like a great line from Gene Hackman in The Conversation, "I don't fear death. I do fear murder." Classic, and a classic dilemma. Everyone wants to do right, not everyone wants the risk associated with it. To do right you risk being wrong, and the consequences of that potentially carry tremendous weight. Everyone wants to do right and wants to know best, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. To road to obnoxious cliches is paved using quotes like the road to hell is paved with good intentions.


Nothing is more scary than the idea of being relevant. I don't mean to repeat, but I do like the rhythm. Rhythm helps write. Rhythm helps read. Let's reiterate. I don't fear death. I do fear murder. Like Batman, someone has to take the fall and pay the price. Someone has to be That_Guy. Someone has to say, All this inaction in the face of evil is an intolerable weight! And then the net comes down. Then you're pigeonholed. Then you're typecast. Then you're in for a while. Then you're an outcast. Your shelf life's limited when you have fevered beliefs, ask Gandhi. There's a great illusion in doing. The cost of pursing grand actions is the inevitable collateral that comes with it. Like Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibility. Like any great man, all my insights are garnered from comic book characters.

Nothing is more scary than the idea of being relevant. Nothing is more scary than nothing, if you think about it, because nothingness is loneliness. But true loneliness doesn't exist as much to the extent to a man living off the grid, like Henry Thoreau, a lonely poet recluse in the forest. No, real loneliness is amplified only in numbers. Without knowing people, or at least knowing of them, loneliness wouldn't have a reference. Loneliness isn't knowing only a few people. Loneliness is knowing an endless number of people and having a shared interest with not a one of them. Loneliness is me and a package of Christmas cakes. Eat that, Thoreau. Civil disobedience a hard topic? Try compulsive overeating.


Nothing is more scary than the idea of being relevant. There's a great illusion in doing. I don't want to do, gain, or accomplish. That's a hook. Those strings tie you in. You're in the middle of the spiderweb next to a scorpion at that point. What's the web made of? The illusory puppet strings of free will, allowing you to feel like you can feel. Currently, I'm pretending to be a comedian. My act consists entirely of tugging on the strings and saying, "See, see!" Irony, I get it. Life's all a well-balanced cascade of chaos. Life is brilliantly stupid. Life is poignantly shallow. Life's a joke to those who aren't in on it. I'm only pretending to be deep. I'm no more insightful than the carcass of a stuffed animal. I'm only writing this as recreation.

Nothing is more obnoxious than the narcissism of pretend smart people. The proper word is pretentious, but that's what the pretend smart would say. There's no excuse for it, except where it is most harmless, in art. Art is a safe playground for pretension. You can pass it off as an experiment. Experiments are necessary for progress. So when an artist is over-reaching, think, well, at least no lives are directly at stake. Being pretend smart is only acceptable when your soul wants to say more than it has the ability to do so. It's almost noble. You just chalk up bad art as a failure and take note that David Lynch is a douche and carry on. But when it comes to helping others there's no room for risk. Renegade behavior is reserved for the abstract. That's why an artist's work represents the softest touch. That's why a scientist is stern and objective. Perfection is the only standard when you're building a nuclear facility or curing cancer. Or, at least, your care for your work should increase based on the potential effect on others lives. From this point of view, a working garage door is more important than a poem. The door can crush you. The poem, at worst, will offend. Despite this, some of the people granted the most power are the most reckless. This is why I must posit that intelligence is meaningless. This reiterates the point that progress is a slippery slope. Good will alone is not enough.


Nothing is more scary than the idea of being relevant. That's when on your mind others are dependent. That's when intelligence becomes double-edged. It's irrelevant without making room for morality. And I have an xHamster tab open as I write this. This is my kind of morality, alright? But take this simple premise as example. Who's smarter, a retard, or a government official? Glib answers aside, the surface answer is the government official. Is that actually the case, though. On paper, Henry Kissinger is smarter than a retarded person. On the other hand, no retard I know is anything close to a war criminal. In my village, I would much rather a man was mentally handicapped than morally. Kissinger, as a man, is definitely smart on paper, as referenced by his enormous success. Yet he's also a product of a society that championed intelligence as the cornerstone of success, with no moral component. On these grounds, he hits the bottom of the barometer of bad men. This does not make the man evil, or any equally fantastical notion. He's merely the product of a world that failed to say genius has no merit without morality.

Nothing is more scary than the idea of being relevant. Relevant entails success. Success, who wouldn't be afraid it? Once things are in motion, you're headed in a pattern. Once you have direction, you forge a path people will follow. The only way to proceed from there without error would be to fake confidence when necessary, or be completely sure of your self. And I don't believe the latter is attainable. People don't follow what's lukewarm and meandering, even if it's what's peaceful. They go for the dramatic. The donkey and the elephant. The good versus evil. That's their way of coping with an insatiable yearning for an answer that won't come. The sledgehammer that falls from the sky and defines purpose. A never-ending wait for a reason for the times they've been wronged. A guideline more clearly defined than simply do right. Do right. Do right.


Nothing is more scary than the idea of being relevant. Scary is just fear, and anxiety is simply fear at its lowest plateau. I may have pathological anxiety. People often associate anxiety with fear of judgement from others. That's not it. I don't mind being judged. I don't mind being judged as bad. What would be terrible is to be judged as bad by people who are also right. But I know I'm a bad person, so this anxiety is justified. I've killed thousands of people just to watch them die, in video games. How do I know computer characters aren't sentient beings in some form? If so, I'm sorry to the cop I lit on fire and then shot down in cold blood, and I'm sorry to the whore I hogtied and shot in the face for stealing my horse. I'm sorry to the animals I've eaten, by the time I realized it was immoral I had already tried bacon. There's no turning back from bacon. I'm sorry to the germs for the genocides I've committed under the flag of their arch-nemesis, anti-bacterial soap.

Seeking truth in our world is not a matter of climbing up. No, in my belief, in our society, it's the act of climbing down from a mountain of the collective's ignorance, deceptions and prejudices. Education is just as much about unlearning, and that's something schools don't teach. They also don't teach right from wrong which happens to define insanity in our legal system. So if you premeditate a day and shoot up your coworkers, you're insane. If you plot a war months in advance, stage a military coup and destroy a country, you earn a paycheck. Aren't we all absolved from guilt in the eyes of context? That's the argument I've been trying to get at. A million defensive measures don't add up to a single score. But also, that there's endless strings of implications regarding any single act and that in itself is a paralyzing and terrifying thing.

In short, it seems there's no such thing as gaining ground. I found answers but I also found people are unwilling to have them. The harder you press people with opinions and points of view, the higher your chances of delving into selfish territories and harmful, oppressive actions. I don't know that anything's worth that risk. Intelligence is balancing wit with instinct, probably. It seems there's no such thing as gaining ground. It's an easygoing point of view, but we gain from the illusion of good things, and the delusion the pain wasn't as bad as we remember it. If it works for you, it works for you. Just give up the pretense of meaning if you want peace. Now, to cement my indifference to being taken seriously, I will within this writing insert dramatic photos of stuffed animals.

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