Blight

Every time I do turn to the things I call important and meaningful, I delude myself. Those books with theatrical endings, those movies with morals that manipulate me to tears, those songs with perfect righteous messages of truth, they are all hollow. Works of art, of course they are nothing. They cast a story, a conflict, a thought, and ideal as if it were so simple. Of course it seems meaningful when it is all one side. And of course, all my infatuation with perspectives makes the world seem full with meaning. It is just picking out paths that follow consistency down an infinite tunnel that disappears into the abyss. Those threads, I create. They are not there, I imagine them. I think they come together to make a wonderful picture. Of course they do by placing them and picking them out so carefully prejudiced. If, instead, you look at all of it, everything together, all you would know would be a mess of nothing on top of nothing on top of nothing. Everything blends, not into an orchestra, but into a pitiful destruction of all that might have been beautiful about it. And it takes all the good mixed into it along, crushing and dragging it down with the rest.

The sooner I give up on my laughable obsession with meaning and ideals the happier I'll be. No, not happier. I'm happier living such lies. But what contradiction. I seek truth, I tell myself, but want to turn away.

I should stop all of it. All of the useless searching and desire. I have enough, more than enough as it is. I am fortunate to have such a place in this world. And I should attend to it instead of wasting it. Do what other people do, indulge myself awhile in tangible pleasures. Feed the basic human needs. I have neglected them, told myself I didn't need them, tried to live apart. But I'll just ruin myself this way. I'm just a primal human and I should act it. Give myself pleasure by pandering, go ahead and seek attention, stop questioning, always be right, believe I am the center of everything, take whatever I want, mindlessness isn't bad, don't worry about honor, progress, or transcendence.

There is no reason to try my best. Just get by. There is no reason to act like love is anything more than a simple satisfaction of a selfish need. It is a waste of time and energy to seek higher pleasures. It's foolish and presumptuous to suppose that I can be better. I'm just more delusional. That doesn't make me any worse either. I'm just the same as everyone. Just the same. So why antagonize myself, why pretend that there is more and I'm some wonderful martyr seeking out truth. Isn't that exactly what your fanciful journey is about - avoiding the lies. Well you know what is definitely earthly and true. Why am I still looking instead of tending to it?

I should be doing all the things I know I should do. Not because they are more worthwhile, but because that is something that is tangible and planned out. Get those grades and points not because they matter, but because they will get me a comfortable life. It won't be one wrapped in epiphany (what a joke) and it won't be the most luxurious (I never wanted that) but it will be pleasant and that's the best this world has to offer.

What are ideals but things to make us feel better. I've seen how time after time morals and truths are presented as absolute, even when they are directly contradictory to other equally perfect ideals and truths. Yet I ignore that and believe them anyway? I might as well join up with religious fanatics, it would give me the same kind of fulfillment. No, these are the things that I decided not to enjoy. Arbitrarily, but it is so. So I will stick as close to the truth as possible. Not the idyllic kind, but the reliable kind.

Stop thinking. Just act. It has served you well, and will always. None of this turbulence that could cast me away at any time. None of this higher-order tinkering that could just mess something up. Just do enough to get by and close your eyes from the dazzling promises of "higher things." They don't exist, and even if they did, they could just as easily rend and raze you and all that you have carefully built.





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How much do I believe what I just said? A lot. Sometimes I wish I didn't think it or at least could laugh and ignore it. Instead it lives on inside of me, complete and smug that it is so impenetrable. It's buried and covered and surrounded by more worthwhile perspectives. It doesn't intrude much on how I think, except when I want it to. But it certainly exists, and a lot more undeniably than many of the other worldviews I prefer.
And, consistent with what I think is right, I preserve it despite how much I sometimes think it poison.

I can't say that I can give perfect letter to why is is wrong or at least why I don't believe it. But I don't, and I know I don't, and I hope I never do. What I know instead are beautiful wonderful things in this life. Some of them are ideals. Some of them are perspectives. Some of them are crystallized emotions and spiritual "epiphanies." And all of them make me who I am. They are found, collected, treasured, and made mine. They are the things that guide my life instead of that thing.
Still.
I live with the knowledge that haunts me.