I fell in, hook line and sinker. I don't know what that phrase means, but it's important to be dramatic in a dull medium like writing. The greatest trick the devil ever played wasn't convincing you he didn't exist. The greatest trick the devil ever played, the devil being all the wrong society and the status quo stand for, is the lie that being a hero is a valid and viable aspiration. I fell hard, as an impressionable kid, for the mentions of honor, honesty, and doing the right thing. The problem was the adults were lying when they told you to always tell the truth. I didn't learn the elegant dance of irony until I was at least a teen, by then it was too late. You see, lying isn't wrong if you're sparing someone's feelings on their death bed. You see, lying is right, if it's the setup to a surprise party. The worst lies ever told were truth on paper, as they were lies by omission. That's when people happily dance around the truth to get what they want. It's most insidious because they don't realize they're foremost lying to themselves.
Be somebody, kid
You play the game, you accept the red ribbon, the blue one, the plaque with gold lettering, you take some compliments along with the golden stars. Who wouldn't want to aspire to the highest plateau of their potential? This is the role of the hero. We're commended for our deaths in war and rushing into burning buildings. Hero means to protect, defend, and safeguard. It comes from the Latin word servo, which stems for the latin word servus, meaning servant or slave. It is also the origin of the word serf. These definitions sum up my thoughts. A hero is the one who bites the bullet and does the work. I don't even believe it cynical to say, that the real hero is the person who sits back and watches the hero do what they couldn't be bothered to do themselves. Maybe the real hero's in the back row with their arms crossed, as the singer is on stage sweating out his heart and soul, like a freak show, like a dancing monkey, like a puppet on strings. An artist submits to his audience and they relish in his inventions. To me, the hero is the mulleted mother of six with 17 Nascar bumper stickers and not a care in the world. She seems more free.
Do you feel in charge?
Remember, status quo, what you believe is right. What I believe is wrong. It's just a theory. It's just a point of view. It branches into sexuality. Master and slave, top and bottom, submissive and dominant are terms commonly thrown around. Submission fantasies are more popular than dominance fantasies amongst women and men when people are polled. This does not at all stand in line with tradition. Traditionally, ruling, overpowering, and domination are the types of things that stroke the ego. But I can't help but picture a sad reality lurking in the shadows. Traditionally, women are submissive and men are more aggressive. To me, women are the sexually dominant gender. This is aside from them being the arbiters of fuck. Let's look at both sides. One is a man who's jumping through hoops to please, schizophrenic with lust, gyrating and appearing to have mad cow disease. He's crazed and thrusting like a dirty ape. Meanwhile the woman gets to passively accept the physically-paid compliments and worship, doing much less work, and accept the flattery as a person who inspires great desire. All this without her hair coming undone. Not in every case, but the man's actions don't sound like the actions of someone in control. Let me try to put my point eloquently: If receiving fellatio is a dominant act, how is receiving a dicking a submissive act?
Love is complicated
If it branches into sexuality, you know it's infected interpersonal relationships. I'm definitely wrong on marriage and monogamy. Soulmates don't exist. Extremely worthwhile relationships do. Life, like love, is an infinite-sum game, at least while you're alive. The need for erotic novelty is as obvious as a cereal aisle with only Corn Chex is a bad idea. This romanticism has killed great partnerships. Example: Before committing adultery, someone says, "Well, if I'm in love, why does is this other person make me so wet I feel there's a distillery in my pants?" An endless amount couples have ended over jealously issues and insecurities. Yes, your boyfriend, girlfriend, wife or husband all get turned on by other people and will eventually grow used to you. It's called the Law of Attraction, the Law of Diminishing Returns, and the Law of People Liking New Shit. A minivan might be practical, but don't hold it against your wife for wanting to test drive a sports car. Whether you're Top Ramen or caviar, no one wants you three times a day for thirty years. As Dr. Chris Ryan puts it, with marriage people make a cost-benefit analysis. These are romantic terms. Please, put them in your wedding vows. It'll never fly with your average wife, because "love is the child of illusion."
The following will be my wedding vows:
I take you to be my partner
In this cost-benefit analysis
From this day forward
Because you're predictable enough not to scare me away
And I can tolerate all your major flaws
And we get along well enough
To give each other a steady supply of companionship and orgasms
With minimal selfishness
Thus lowering our chances of STDs
And keeping finances simple
And we were both too lazy to try and find someone better
So we're sticking together for the long haul
Until death or irreconcilable differences do us part
Ignorance is bliss
Now I want to talk about words. What I believe is wrong. What everyone believes is right. Since birth, I've been wrong. Dead, dumb wrong. I'm being self-conscious to think I'm dumb. If I'm too fat, skinny, ugly, or stupid, I'm told to stop being self-conscious. Let's really exam what "Don't be self-conscious" means at a base level. I'm not going to Webster it. It means "Don't be self-aware," which also means "Be stupid about it." Be stupid, dumb, god-awful ignorant about it. That's right, it's a national god damn catchphrase to be willfully ignorant. But instead of saying something heartwarming like "Stop giving a fuck" we've got to pseudo-intellectualize it until it sounds like the words of a clever person.
How about this one? A person once told me as a criticism, "You just float through life." That's right. I relayed this to a friend who said, "That sounds fucking awesome!" Wow, well, yes, I do try to take things easy. I walk on water. I soar above the clouds. Not even Jesus could fly. You see, we live in a society that badmouths you by calling you Superman. Reminds of me another brilliantly fucking stupid phrase, "You just want to take the easy way out." Me? No way. I'll take the stairs down 50 flights of steps to prove my enduring spirit to someone who spouts nonsense cliches.
Another pair of words I like to discuss is "making fun." Making fun is my most favorite of past times. I love making fun of things. Making fun of things is mean-spirited, though. Why, exactly? Because you sacrifice sacred cows to keep things light-hearted and on an even keel? What should I do instead, make hate of everything? Or make boring everything? Examine the words. Language is fun. The antithesis of fun is boredom. Your panties are in a bunch and that means you begin walking funny the moment you deny making fun of things. Yes, we, as Americans, literally live in a world where making things fun is frowned upon and seen as inappropriate. Can we re-calibrate what is taken seriously? Bombs on the street: serious. F-bombs on TV: not serious. Rape jokes: not serious. Actual rape: serious.
This fat ugly bitch deserves to get bullied
Arrogance is a despicable trait. This is what we've been trained. Like every other human feeling, there's a duality. What I believe is wrong, remember, but I'm sharing it anyway. No emotions are transparent in their good or bad intent and arrogance is no different. There's a caveat and it's outlined rather well in this quote by some guy from some band:
If people think we’re arrogant, that’s fine. I’ve always thought I was better than other people to a certain degree. In infant school, I was such a little runt with a massive turn in my eye, which I’ve still got but I’ve learnt to disguise. I had about 40 different nicknames and I hated it, but I still thought I was better than the rest. Because I was caring, sensitive and intelligent, and they weren’t. Arrogance has always been a self-defence mechanism for us. - James Dean BradfieldArrogance is often a self-defense mechanism. Not caring and cynicism is often viewed as hip. It's not always so much about self-adulation as it is about self-preservation. If an idiot bullies you and you're smart enough to make them look stupid, I see no reason not to meet that with glibness. Like with martial arts, it's not about wanting to kick the shit of out anyone, it's about self-defense. It's no worse than aggression, passive-aggression, or deflection. As an aside, condescension can be a way to convey frustration. It's not always rooted in arrogance, mom.
George Carlin and Anna Faris, my two favorite things
This rambling so far has been about false hopes. It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it, George Carlin famously said. The American Dream is no more relevant than an extended Tony Robbins seminar. They're words of encouragement. It's a cheerleading act. It's no different than getting psyched to lift weights by putting on a heavy metal album. What I believe is wrong. What you believe is right. Anything you believe, I promise you, I guaran-fucking-tee is 100% true.. to you. So even if you have a stupid belief that is halfway plausible your zealousness may be strong enough to convince others, so your dream will come to fruition to some extent. Yeah, I forgot to mention, dreams and delusions meet halfway. So if your dream was to quarterback for the Denver Broncos and now you coach your son's little league team, part of you wants to call that win. Okay, whatever. You made it. You're the man.
The duality of man, sir
I'm arrogant. Why? Because out of all the people on earth I think I could be the stupidest. Sometimes I feel that special, that significant. Everything I've ever believed has been wrong. Everything the majority of people believe is right. I believe idiocy is integral to the human condition. I believe the most rational belief a person can have is that humans are irrational by design. There's talk of progress but I know it won't come. Why? Because common sense can't be taught. Because half the people on earth don't have common sense and when you ask the smarter half to explain something they say, "It's common sense, dude," too self-satisfied in their intellectual superiority to, you know, help solve an issue. Basically humankind is like both sides of a T-Mobile customer service call. Half the people think they're above what they do, so they're of little help, and the other half know if they bitch enough they'll eventually get what they want. Which ain't a bad metaphor for conservatism and liberalism, either.
I used to believe in things
Everything I believed was wrong. Everything you believed was right. As a kid I strived to be cautious and careful to avoid screwing up my world or someone else's. I thought if you tried to do the right thing Badness itself would roll out a red carpet that lead you to Goodness and kept you out of harm's way. I thought life was perfect and that everything worked out. As a child, every step was aided by the knowledge of God's safety net. Eventually you'd die and play basketball forever with Jesus in heaven and Santa was your point guard. On earth every boy was Aladdin and every girl was princess Jasmine and it was only a matter of time before they crossed paths. It was only a matter of time before the fairytales from movies manifested themselves in your world in real-time. And then everyone would have their own castle, and our best friend would be a talking frog and every kid got to marry the triple-breasted hooker from Total Recall. But there is no perfect. Life is a comedy of errors for everyone.
This isn't flying, this is falling with style!
Let's say you could attain perfection or even
grasp the concept, and say you articulated it well enough in a book, a great book, 'How to
Live Your Life... Perfectly!' It would be a hit and everyone would buy
it. It would be studied and obsessed over for a great while, but that too would pass. Every dog would know the same tricks so spontaneity would die. Then perfection would get predictable and new standards would
arise as a result, and the book's obsolete in 20 years. Once something hits critical mass there's a seachange. That's why my eyes roll when people complain about mediocrity. Mediocrity just means average. The sky is blue all over, the grass is green all over. They're predictable and commonplace but I'm still pretty fond of them. An aurora borealis that happened every day would eventually just be called the night sky again. If everything were greatness, greatness would be mediocre, and greater-greatness would be the new greatness.
My motto's trying to be good, despite knowing happiness and clarity will never be a certainty. It means accepting that I'm a cunty centrist jester who mocks things because it heals the loneliness created when you try to be thoughtful and sincere. Doing the right thing is wrong when it costs you a limb.
Maybe it's best to lie and say, "Baby, you really are one of a kind!" I've been wrong for so long, I may as well see it through for my remaining year(s). You only get one life to fuck up, may as well do it right. There is no perfection, there is simply personal preference. Most everything you'll experience is well out of your control. "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain." The best one can hope for is to cover your moral bases, concede the overarching victory to chaos, and at least be deformed on your own terms. Whatever isn't a complete loss is a bit of a victory.
Aurora borealis
I'll take your 'whatever isn't a complete loss is a bit of a victory' and raise you an 'even losses eventually become victories.'
ReplyDelete