Survival of the Fittest

Before computers, before wireless communication, before multinational companies, before airplanes, before banks, before industry, before cross-Atlantic travel, and before a million other things that have been classified as 'progress', people used to understand that the sickly, the weak and the mentally disturbed were not meant to survive, and used to be not the least bit surprised when these people died young: simple survival of the fittest—even before Darwin coined the phrase, the lowliest peasant understood that most weak people were not supposed to die of old age.

Now, for some reason, in our disgustingly rich society, everyone needs to be 'saved'. If there is something seriously wrong with you, the government will take the money of those who are, in fact, of sound enough physical and mental health to make it in this world, and use it to fund a legion of health care workers trained to try (and often fail) to make you a contributing member of society (again).

LET THEM DIE. Their lives are not some holy thing—the earth is overpopulated as it is, and the weak will breed more weaklings, growing up to often lead unhappy and tormented lives.

You Just Have To . . .

If someone starts a sentence like this, I don't even want to listen to the rest, no matter how well-meant their intentions are. It betrays such ignorance of another's issues and such a lack of empathy . . . Besides, assuming the other has never even thought of your 'solution' is plainly insulting. What's easy for you, may seem like the tallest of mountains to another.

Lucid Dreams

Many days, lucid dreams are the only thing making my day somewhat tolerable. During such dreams, I can actually still experience happiness, if there is such a thing. At least I feel content, and any problems that arise I am actually able to overcome, because I am generally skilled or powerful in some way, bestowing upon me a sense of pride in my abilities, a welcome change from the daily self-hatred of real life. But, while they provide an amazing experience, they cause the day to start with by far the best part, so it can only get worse after I wake up fully.

In lucid dreams there are infinite possibilities. Often there is some action element, and fighting, but I can also fall in love and experience the girl as if she were real, even though she doesn't have a face. (At least none that I can later remember.) When I wake up I can remember all the feelings I have felt with such intensity that leaves no doubt that they were all real, even though I know every bit of it happened inside my head.

Blank Slate

I wish I could format my brain, erase everything I've ever learned, and lock myself in a windowless room so that I would never know anything but darkness, and fully embrace it as my only friend and my only truth, remaining blissfully unaware of all the horrors of the world.

Oh, how attractive the return to a state of innocence is. And how tragic that each child must learn that their beautiful innocence will get them killed or worse.

What kind of world have we created that the most precious, joy-inspiring thing on earth will be each person's downfall if not treated as if it were a disease . . .

Fear and Hate

I fear fear and I hate hate, but I hate fear more than I fear hate. I own my hate and my fear owns me. I fear love and dare not hope for it, but do not hate it; it is the fear of love that I hate. I fear and hate hope, but do dare hope I will someday soon stop feeling hate and fear through death. I love little but I would love the end of fear and hate and hope and love and life.

I fear any possibly rekindled hope and any other regeneration, because it will make the inevitable fall all the harder. This fear of hope renders moot any and all efforts made by me and others to get me 'better' again. I am already lost. Only the fear of the pain and fear of dying is preventing my death. I fear this is the only fear preventing the loss of all other fears, and I have never hated anything as much.

Prisoner

Not only am I a captive of society;

I am a prisoner of my own body

This is what I have been given

Including the mind, this most hated mind

I seem free, unchained

But even in apparent freedom

I reside in a torture chamber

Me both the tortured and the torturer

My mind: my enemy

Betraying me at every turn

Making me unable to handle anything

Some disappointment, some pressure

You name it, and it will shut me down

Madness

“The truly awful thing in madness is that we sense a total and irrevocable loss of life while we are still living.”

-- Emil Cioran

A Long Agony on the Road to Death

“Whoever has not experienced the awful agony of death, rising and spreading like a surge of blood, like the choking grasp of a snake which provokes terrifying hallucinations, does not know the demonic character of life and the state of inner effervescence from which great transfigurations arise. Such a state of black drunkenness is a necessary prerequisite to understanding why one wishes the immediate end of this world. It’s not the luminous drunkenness of ecstasy, in which paradisal visions conquer you with their splendour and you rise to a purity that sublimates into immateriality, but a mad, dangerous, ruinous, and tormented black drunkenness, in which death appears with the awful seduction and nightmarish snake eyes. To experience such sensations and images means to be so close to the essence of reality that both life and death shed their illusions and attain within you their most dramatic form. An exalted agony combines life and death in a horrible maelstrom: a beastly satanism borrows tears from voluptuousness. Life as a long agony on the road to death is nothing but another manifestation of life’s demoniacal dialectics, in which forms are given birth only to be destroyed.”

-- Emil Cioran

Silence

I keep thinking words are so inadequate that I should never write nor utter one word again. Yet even in their inadequacy they prevent me from thinking even more when expressed on paper – it prevents the words from being stuck inside my head like a swarm of locusts, so I write them down anyway . . . Better would be never to have thoughts ever again. That thought is the only alluring one.

Absolute Listlessness

I feel like I’m ninety years old. Every little thing seems to cost way too much energy: folding a towel, walking a few paces, making some tea . . . Even moving my fingers across the keyboard to form words, and keeping my eyes focused. Writing a few paragraphs without slumping down to the ground is the most active I've been all day. Yay, me . . .

Why do I seem to age dozens of years overnight sometimes? I’m not like this all the time. But when I am, the only thing I want to do is close my tired eyes, collapse and sleep forever, so that I never feel this way again. So listless, so feeble, so drained . . . Half a corpse, stumbling on stupidly, aimlessly. I can think of nothing at all to do that would bring me joy; nothing at all seems appealing. Nothing. It’s like all the world is suddenly coloured a dull grey, making anything and everything uninteresting, and it seems my limbs have turned to lead, dragging me further down with every weak step I take.

Giving Up

Most working days now the thought that crosses my mind every couple of seconds, on average, is Just give up. The work is terrible, undoable. I cannot imagine ever finishing it. A monkey could perhaps work faster than I can now, the monkey probably being in a healthier mental state than I am. Screw intelligence, screw training, screw humanity; if you're crazy, a monkey is probably better than you.

As I try to get my work done, and fail, I feel inferior to monkeys, to birds, to hippos, to otters, to every goddamn creature known to man. I wish I were an otter. A simple life. I'd like to build dams all around, until they are so high no one will ever find me. But I'm a lousy human, with millions of thoughts and emotions vying for attention, and I fail at my work, at everything, and I just sit down against the radiator  in cursed winter, and write some bullshit no one reads, thinking: if only this warmth against my back could be with me forever, it might give me the strength to make it.

Blank Suffering

Sometimes all poetry, all stories, all 'beautifully' written words seem stupid, meaningless. Then the simplest expressions suddenly appear to take on a truer form, and everything else just seems to have become redundant. Sometimes "Life sucks" simply says it all.

Loss

Loss is the greatest of teachers. It's a shame the lessons are nothing to look forward to.

On the Edge

I open the fridge with shaking hands. Writing doesn’t help, black metal doesn’t help, screaming doesn’t help, punching the pillow doesn’t help. I don’t want to go for the beer but I am out of options. Look at me, I think as I open the bottle, hating myself. Look at me, I’ve only been awake for three hours, thirteen to go before I finally die an eight-hour death, all I long for, and already I’m boozing. How am I going to make it?

“Shut up and work,” a voice inside keeps saying.

All I want to do is scream at it. “Shut up, shut up, shut the fuck up! I can’t do all this shit! I just can’t fucking do it!” Cursing doesn’t help either.

The voice ignores me. “You’ve got to do it,” it says. “Without money you’ll die. And these are your biggest clients you’re working for. Screw them over and not only will they not pay you, but they will never hire you again.”

“Don’t you think I fucking know that?!” I scream at the voice. “Stop reminding me, goddammit!”

Lost in an Alien World

I cannot even remember what my people look like. It has been so many years since they left me here, for some purpose unknown to me. For years I told myself they had a plan, that perhaps they wanted me to spy on these human beings I have come to despise with all my heart. But why then would they just fling me from their ship, naked and alone? I can no longer convince myself they must have had a good reason to leave me here. They must have just hated me to leave me with these pathetic, barbaric, greedy, self-centred creatures. Perhaps I was wrong about my own people; perhaps they are more like the creatures that dominate this planet than I had ever before cared to admit.

The truth is, I no longer know. I remember little from my childhood on my own planet, among my own people. ‘My own people . . .’ What nonsense. I don’t have a people. I am alone. Thanks to my shapeshifting abilities I could at least blend in wherever I wanted, and, having taken the likeness of one of them, I am accepted here on earth, to a degree, but I am not and will not ever be one of them.

Unremitting Pressure

Why do we allow this pressure onto our shoulders? 

Why continue if this is what life has to offer?

I feel burdened constantly, unremittingly

An anchor pulling me down, through the floor,

Through the core of the earth, through hell

I feel all the people in the world standing on top of me

And someone building a house of bricks on my chest

My shoulders slump, I can’t get up, cannot breathe,

My only thoughts of sleeping, hiding, dying

Anything to escape this ceaseless pressure

Placed there by realities that find me wherever I go

My Worst Enemy

My worst enemy is ever close by

Watching me from odd angles

Always thwarting my best efforts

Sapping my already depleted will

Cowardly, from the shadows

When I try to be alert

He makes me sleepy

When I try to be strong

He makes me weak

When I try to smile

He makes me clench my teeth

When I try to enjoy life

He makes me want to die

The Murderous Amplification

My every emotion is amplified by some unknown, malicious source in me. Sadness and disappointment become despair in the blink of an eye, frustration becomes rage, and even joy feels so overpowering I almost choke on it. It makes it a near-impossible task to truly enjoy anything, or look back on any day with a smile as I lie awake, desperately trying to find some calmness in the rushing whirlpool of my emotions. True, I detest the outside world, but be that as it may, this invisible tumour is surely the bane of my existence. And since it cannot be cut out, there is only one way to destroy this parasite, and that is to kill its host. The only question is how long I can bear this tormenting disease that infected me at birth before I lift the axe to finally deal the liberating blow.

Tedious Work

Tedious work stifles the creative spirit.

New Diary

I've started writing a diary again. There is so much rage and frustration and sadness in me I need to get OUT that it is impossible to write it all down in a way that anyone would actually be interested in reading it. I feel nearly constant physical and psychological pain, and although some people can appreciate certain written expressions of psychological pain and some interesting observations, no one, really, is interested in hearing people complain about physical pain. Everyone in the world experiences physical pain, so it's nothing new to anyone, even if the pain in question is one they have never experienced themselves. "Yeah yeah, your hip hurts. My arm hurts, what's the fucking difference?" They just don't want to hear you complain about it constantly.

Unstoppable Images of Death

When everything seems to be against me

I feel like I am bound to a post

All and sundry throwing rocks at me

And me helpless to do anything but take it

When everything seems to be against me

The repulsive fantasies begin anew

Heralding my death in a myriad of horrible ways

Becoming all I can think about

Trial By Fiery Water

As I step inside the cubicle

And feel the anticipation rising

I take a deep breath and

It smells like freedom

The relief is like a living thing

As the warm droplets slide across my skin

And I make the tiny room my home

I feel the tension leave my body

But I know it will end too soon

The fear begins to constrict my throat

Swallowed By The Blessed, Awful Darkness

I awoke in utter darkness. The fear gripped me first, and my muscles snapped taut. I wanted to cry, but no tears came. I heard a low moan, and realised it was coming from my throat. I detected more than fear in it—despair maybe, something horrible. The sound reverberated off walls I could not see, echoing all around. I must be in some room, I thought. Only then did I realise this was only the most recent of awakenings in the gloom. The darkness was my prison, and as yet I had not been able to find a way out. 

I felt along my body. I didn’t have any clothes on. I was naked in the dark. I felt around for something, anything. My fingers touched something hard. It was long and sturdy. I slid my fingers along its length, found some protrusion. I pushed it. A light came on. In my hand was a flashlight. I stood up and looked around, moving the beam in all directions. I was in some kind of cave. At first it seemed like it was completely silent, but then I noticed the low, eerie hum in the distance. I swallowed, and it sounded very loud to me. There was only me, and nothingness. The flashlight flickered and died. I slapped it, and it turned back on. There was only me and malfunctioning equipment to help me get out of here, I corrected.

The Monstrosity That Is Hope

How to give words to nearly uninterrupted depressive thoughts and feelings in a way that remains fresh and interesting? That is, if its poison can be called interesting at all. I feel like little is changing: it is just unremitting depression, infecting my every thought, that basically feels like nothingness blended with disgust. It is listlessness sprinkled with despair. It is a cake that saps the life out of you with every bite you take.

Nothing changes, and yet everything gets worse, all the time. And then life confuses you when you suddenly have a fun night with friends, and everything seems alright for just a little while, but when they leave or you go home you step into the awful pit trap you have climbed out of numerous times before, and still you keep fooling yourself into believing there is no trap, and that when things are good they could actually stay that way.

Apathy In The Face Of Finality

As I feel the days run out

Again

I ponder what to do with them

Again

The sense of déjà vu is

Overpowering

But the questions remain

To haunt me night and day

Should I finish this one story?

Should I get together with that friend

Just one more time?

Should I leave anything at all behind

In a certain way?

Born To Pay

I do not hate life. This might seem contrary to much that I have written over the past year, but it is true: I do not hate life itself. I do consider it futile, without purpose, and have many complaints, as I have been making abundantly clear. But despite the fact that I hold no hatred for life itself, I do despise my existence. I loathe being alive in this society, in this time. And, as I have stated many times, I thoroughly detest mankind. Man, and the society it has created, ruin it for me. And there is no place to go. The least unspoiled natural wonders and peaceful environments are inaccessible to me for a variety of reasons, not least among them the financial obstacle. 

Stupid Modern Caveman

Take out the trash

Do the dishes

Get some groceries

Call that one company

Put an ad online

Clean the bathroom

Translate that one page for that client

It won’t take that long

Just do it

What’s your problem, asshole?

Just get this stupid shit done

I tell myself these things and then

I think I’m going to be sick

And for the thousandth time

I drop down on the couch pathetically

Longing for beer

For any kind of distraction from ‘useful’ activities

For a way not to do all these stupid things

All of which seem impossible tasks

That I postpone time and time again

Bust Your Ass, Or Be Unworthy

For many years I was driven by a need that now sickens me. Day in, day out, for years on end, the only thing in my mind was: work, and work hard, damn you, else you are unworthy. Being self-employed, as I am, you need some kind of motivator, at least, to work hard. To work at all you just need to be hungry, or behind on rent, or bored to tears or something. For many, a boss watching your every move and/or the threat of getting fired if you don’t work hard is their motivator. For some, it is the conviction that their work is important somehow—some kind of invented meaning. Others just like money and luxuries so much they are willing to bust their ass for it. Yet others feel a burning need to develop their skills through work, to become all they can be. Still others just have to think of their family and feel their sense of duty taking over to go and slave away. The only thing that motivated me was the thought that I was unworthy if I didn’t work hard. I felt I could not find acceptance in the world, from my friends and family, if I didn’t do this. The need for acceptance, for respect, overruled everything else, dominated my life. They would know I was worthy if I worked so hard that it made me feel like shit.

The Power of Curiosity

As you feel your curiosity diminish, so do you feel your will to live subside.

Victory and Defeat

For some reason

I am trying . . .

Making an effort

At life

If you can call

This half-assed attempt

Effort

I am looking

For a shitty

Minimum-wage job

A monkey could do

One I know I'd hate

Feeling sick

To my stomach

As I get in the car

Every day

For a couple of bucks

And yet lying

Through my teeth

In the interview

And hating myself for it

To get the damn job

Killing Time

I keenly remember a time

When I was never bored

When there never seemed

To be enough time

When I felt exuberant

When I had loads of interests

When I hated bedtime

When time was my enemy

In an altogether different way

Selected Poetry August 2012

Download my poetry (27 poems) written in 2012 so far here.

Listless Ruminations on Innocence

The nights are so endless

Every activity that pops into my mind

Pointless

But I do them anyway

Shaking my head at the futility

Getting bored with them

Right after I start

Nothing can satisfy me

There is truly no reason to be

But what else is there to do?

Even the beer tastes foul to me

As I slam the bottle down in disgust

Then take yet another gulp

Hoping to shut off my brain

And finally stop thinking for today

Degradation Through Work

“Men generally work too much to be themselves. Work is a curse which man has turned into pleasure. To work for work’s sake, to enjoy a fruitless endeavour, to imagine that you can fulfil yourself through assiduous labour—all that is disgusting and incomprehensible. Permanent and uninterrupted work dulls, trivialises, and depersonalises.

Alone in an Empty Room

I sit alone in an empty room

Just staring at the walls

And I feel the cents slipping away

From my bank account

Along with the seconds

Of my life

I sit alone in an empty room

Just breathing, thinking, existing

But existence doesn’t come cheap

Fear of Sadness

“I actually attack the concept of happiness. I don’t mind people being happy - but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. It’s a really odd thing that we’re now seeing people saying “write down 3 things that made you happy today before you go to sleep”, and “cheer up” and “happiness is our birthright” and so on. We’re kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position - it’s rubbish.

Unrelenting Physical Torment

The day began with a dream

In it a man walked in, pistol in hand, laughing

And when he pointed the gun at me

In this moment of terror, I woke up

And instantly regretted it

As excruciating pain wracked my back

Worse than I had ever felt before

And my teeth would clench no harder

I worked my fist into the offending muscle

Trying to stifle a cry of very real pain

But my back refused to let up

And laughed at me

Though I didn’t know backs could laugh

Moving . . . Where?

I know I should be exhilarated

To be moving house

Heading toward salvation

Or at least that’s what they tell me

For a brief spell I was homeless

And I felt like dying in a ditch

Alone and forgotten

Instead bothering friends and family

Asking to stay at their place

Plodding on, not knowing why

Defeated but still alive

And making their lives just a little harder

With my continued, breathing presence

Cursing myself all the while

The Dreadful Longing For Understanding

How tortured I am by my unwanted longing for understanding of my plight. I have come to realise by now that it is next to impossible to find understanding in other humans, separated as I feel from them by an infinite distance, a distance so great it almost seems we are of different species. Why, then, am I still trying? Why do I feel this desperate, burning need for people to understand what I feel, why I feel it, and why I act the way I act? They will only ever understand, I know, if they ever reach the point where they suffer as I do, and since only naïveté, only the absence of knowledge, of awareness, can spare them from eternal torment in life, and I do not wish this upon them. To seek their understanding, therefore, is wishing upon them this eternal sadness and despair that has become an inseparable part of my own being, and thus means contradicting myself. Nevertheless, this need for understanding continues to well up in me, manifesting as an uncontrollable urge, slapping my feeble attempts at reason in the face, showing it who is the undisputed master.

Apocalypse

“How I would love one day to see all people, young and old, sad or happy, men and women, married or not, serious or superficial, leave their homes and their workplaces, relinquish their duties and responsibilities, gather in the streets and refuse to do anything anymore. At that moment, let slaves to senseless work, who have been toiling for future generations under the dire delusion that they contribute to the good of humanity, avenge themselves on the mediocrity of a sterile and insignificant life, on the tremendous waste that never permitted spiritual transfiguration.

Cursed

“Why this curse on some of us who can never feel at ease anywhere, neither in the sun nor out of it, neither with men nor without them? To possess a high degree of consciousness, to be always aware of yourself in relation to the world, to live in the permanent tension of knowledge, means to be lost for life. Knowledge is the plague of life, and consciousness, an open wound in its heart.
Is it not tragic to be man, that perpetually dissatisfied animal suspended between life and death?”
                                                                                        --Emil Cioran

The Temporary Salvation

“There are experiences which one cannot survive, after which one feels that there is no meaning left in anything. Once you have reached the limits of life, having lived to extremity all that is offered of those dangerous borders, the everyday gesture and the usual aspiration lose their seductive charm. If you go on living, you do so only through your capacity for objectification, your ability to free yourself, in writing, from the infinite strain. Creativity is a temporary salvation from the claws of death.”
                                                                                        -- Emil Cioran

Sweet Resignation

Oh, humanity

How you keep trying

How you keep poisoning

The earth; yourselves

Why were you chosen

You and all of your wretchedness

To populate, to dominate

This beautiful oasis

In a desert of galaxies?

Consumed

The fire consumes me

But I am only wax

Helpless to do anything but watch

As I feel my life force slip away

The fire consumes me

And I am the flame

Burning the wick, the wax

Burning it all, uncaring

Good Intentions

If actions springing from good intentions continue to have bad consequences but the doer is blind to this, can the intentions still be defined as 'good'?

Fear

Fear dominates the human race. It is our one true master.

Embrace Me, Night, And Do Not Let Go

Many believe there is no such thing

As resurrection

But I am revived each day

Resurrected from a peaceful slumber;

All I wished for

But each morning my dreams are shattered

As I rise cursing

To face the horrors of life once again

Stand Tall and Die

I see them all begging . . .

The poor suckers

Begging for work

Dressed up oh so nicely

For the job interview

Nervous, afraid . . . willing

Uncomfortable in clothes they never wear

I look at them and ask myself

Why do they do it?

Oh fuck, please tell me why . . .

Why beg to do something that wearies you

Physically, mentally

Even to do something you hate

Just to live?

Silent Companion

There is a man, clad in black

Who follows me around

Wherever I go

He is feared by many

But not by me—not usually

He used to follow me from a distance

Teasing me, staying just out of sight

But now, whenever I turn my head

I see him looking over my shoulder

Always there, a silent companion,

A guardian, I pray

My dear silent companion

Bold and unafraid

I cannot seem to shake him

No matter where I hide or turn

But I want him to stay;

Without him I’m afraid

An Unwelcome Guest

It can hit hard

And very suddenly

The air gets thick, oppressive

Suffocating you

Dominating you

Like an invisible hand

Around your throat

And the loneliness always comes back to visit

Like an unwelcome guest

With a key to your back door

An Edge Over Reality

In my dream

My every action led

To some terrible

Punishment

I could do nothing right

And I could not be

Saved

Truth

Most of us choose convenience over truth - the cowardly man chooses convenience; the brave man chooses truth.

Empty

My wrists itch, ache and throb

With life unwanted

Dual red lines form

Constant reminders

Of my failure

Taunting me day

After dreadful day

Nothing better to do?

Never trust a man who spends his free time cleaning his spotless car.

Fix This Person!

People act like having a death wish is like having a disease that needs to be cured. But what if life is the disease? Aren't we the illness, the virus, destroying this beautiful planet?

The Perfect Employee

I will be an asset

To your company,

I say

I will take orders

Without question,

I pledge

Suddenly

I am a good team player

Yes, sure,

I will greet your customers

With a smile

Yet still I am doubtful

So I throw in ‘pro-active’ as well

Marathon Runner

I am a marathon runner

Though not by choice

The run seems endless

And the route is not set

The finish line is far

Seemingly out of reach

Most faces are blank

And the spectators turn away

Keep Going

Don’t stop

To think

To reflect

To rest

There’s no time

To feel like shit

To feel tired

To feel sorry for yourself

Burden

Push, push

Go stand at arm’s length

Keep too close

And you might

Hear my thoughts

Push, push

Don’t you ask questions

Know my feelings

And you might

Sense my plans

Meagre Legacy

Download my novel here.

Alternate link: click here.

Short Stories

Download my short stories here.

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Poetry

Download my poetry here.

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Another Day

"We all need to escape. The hours are long and need to be filled somehow until our death. And there's just not enough glory and excitement to go around. Things quickly get drab and deadly. We awaken in the morning, kick our feet out from under our sheets, place them on the floor and think, ah, shit, what now?"

--Charles Bukowski

Civilisation

Civilisation: a collection of self-centred human beings of an endless variety of races, persuasions, nationalities, mental states and cognitive and other abiltities dominating all other earthly species and constantly trying both not to speak their minds among others of their kind and resist their urges and instincts in an attempt to peacefully coexist in close proximity to others of their own species (i.e. tiptoeing around others), nearly every one of them easily offended, hurt and/or scared (but denying this) and all of them ultimately selfish, consequently resembling a time bomb impossible to defuse but hidden away in an attempt to feign ignorance about its existence and hoping in vain this will prevent it from exploding.

It's very good!

I dread the "How do you like it?" question at the dinner table. There's only one acceptable answer, which means it is hollow and utterly meaningless, which means the question should not be asked.

Alone With Everybody

the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

Bad company

I will take loneliness over bad company any day.

Insomnia

When your hear the birds begin to sing, you know beyond a doubt you have been seeking sleep and failing for far too long.

Trivialities

Obsess over trivialities, and you will live your life in their service.

Pain

There is nothing more private than a man's pain. None other can judge it.

Virginity

Taking virginity is hyped. I've never liked it. It is boring as hell.

Wisdom

Wisdom, on the one hand, seems the most important thing in life. But aren't wisdom and happiness mutually exclusive, I wonder?

Bureaucracy VI

Take this, bureaucracy!

"Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves richer - except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs. Perhaps this was partly because there were so many pigs and so many dogs. It was not that these creatures did not work, after their fashion. There was, as Squealer never tired of explaining, endless work in the supervision and organisation of the farm. Much of this work was of a kind that the other animals were too ignorant to understand.

Stupidity

Every single day, human stupidity amazes me anew. There is truly no end to it.

Einstein comes to mind:


"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
--Albert Einstein

Success

There is something seriously wrong with our definition of success. I think it is the cause of a great many problems in our society.

Some definitions:
1. The gaining of fame or prosperity;
2. The attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like.

“It has always seemed strange to me... the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”
-- John Steinbeck

Be kind, be generous, be open, be honest, be understanding and feeling, and fail in this wretched society. Goodness is not rewarded. 

Uniqueness

Not only is everyone unique, but everyone becomes more unique the longer they live.

Bukowski, My Hero

"The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidates who reminded them most of themselves. I had no interests. I had no interest in anything. I had no idea how I was going to escape. At least the others had some taste for life. They seemed to understand something that I didn't understand. Maybe I was lacking. It was possible. I often felt inferior. I just wanted to get away from them. But there was no place to go."

Anticipation is its own reward

“A relationship is the price you pay for the anticipation of it.”
--Robert Sapolsky

Indiscriminate punishment

Make one serious mistake, in the eyes of the law, and it’s all over. It is of no consequence how you have lived your life, whether you have lived it in the service of others, of God, if you engaged in volunteer work every week, or if you were always there for a friend in need. It doesn’t matter if you helped old ladies cross the street, if you prayed from dusk till dawn (especially not this), or if you worked with crippled children out of the good of your heart. It is of no consequence if you loved, or if you made numerous sacrifices to raise children. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never been wronged or if you’ve been betrayed at every turn. None of it matters if in a flash of rage you take a life. You will be a common criminal that must pay with all the rest of them. Society does not reward doing good. It only indiscriminately punishes crimes that can be measured in physical trauma or currency.

Fathers

Your father teaches you at least one thing, even if it's just never to be like him.

Reality

It is amazing and frightening, the things we are willing to believe in, the substances we are willing to imbibe, the activities we are willing to engage in, just to distract ourselves and flee from the reality that scares us more than we are willing to admit.

But this does not pertain to you, of course.

Self-assurance

O, the lengths we will go to to protect our façade of self-assurance, to hide our fear... Anything not to show weakness to the countless vultures of our world that would feast upon our flesh if given half a chance.

Pain below the surface

It is not such a difficult thing to see the pain just below the surface of every person you know better than superficially. The only reason it is not evident in every single person you lay your eyes on is because the mask the whole world wears shields the wearer from casually inquisitive gazes.

Life experience

Even just a year of life experience can make such a difference... Respect your elders. Except when they do nothing but watch TV all day. Then, pity them.

Bullshit

Love

After blessed, obsessive, blinding, anaesthetic, helpless infatuation, choose how to proceed. Love is a choice.

Tell me more

The masses listen to those who have first proven themselves doing something entirely non-related to what they have to say.

Booze

When you run out of the booze of your choice, anything will do.

Pampering

Girls that need constant pampering are like big children not yet ready to part with their diapers. 

Female beauty

Female beauty is almost pure coincidence. Of course women born beautiful also have to take care of themselves, but it's not something you have to try for, and therefore nothing to be admired. Curse you, testosterone, for making desirable something that requires almost no effort, and is therefore not to be admired at all.

Ignorance

Do not discrimitate; there are ignorant fools everywhere.

Routine

People can do without endless, mind-deadening routine like they can without salt on their food.

Family and friends

Family will care for you, but they will never be interested in you like a true friend will.

The more powerful gender

There are no laws against the violence that women do unto men. Women know exactly where it will hurt the most, and that they will get away with whatever psychological pain they inflict upon those of the other gender. Men are told to "man up and take it". If they fail to, and reciprocate, it is them that will be punished. Women have the law on their side, and it makes them the more powerful gender. Their deviousness will always beat man's strength of arm. Especially when that arm is pinned down by legislation. In earlier times, women might have been the silent force guiding men, but in modern society, women reign over men with impunity.

Speeding

Thou shalt not kill, maim, steal, rape, kidnap, traffic in drugs or women, commit treason or speed 5 km/h, or the law will descend upon your unworthy soul!

E-mail

E-mail is very convenient. An incredible invention. Fast and free. It's just that people often seem to become retarted when reading theirs, suddenly forgetting the location of the reply button.

Drunks II

There are few persons I don't like better drunk than sober - as long as they don't drive me home. 

At war with itself

The human race is at war with itself, every day. The intellectuals are losing.

Independent thought

Don't watch the news! Don't read the papers! Then, maybe, just maybe, we will again be capable of independent thought.

Doing good

Do not kid yourself. Doing 'good' because you feel it as an obligation, because you are forced to by persons, rules or laws, or because it makes you feel better about yourself, as if it will undo the wrongs you have committed, is not doing good at all. Pretending to be better than you are actually makes you a worse person, not the other way around.

Altruism is a myth.

Drunks

I have an odd kind of respect for a man drunk - in his state he has reverted to his true self: not guarding his tongue every second, not playing a part, not saying what people want to hear, but actually, blissfully, being himself. Unlike his sober brethren, he is real. I think maybe I wish we were all like that, all the time.

"But everybody does it!"

Being used to something does not make it right.

Standing up for yourself

If out of a desire to avoid external conflict you lose your self-respect, the resulting internal conflict will be much more serious.

Wealth II

You will know you are too wealthy for your own good when you stop looking at price tags and just buy whatever takes your fancy that you guess must be somewhere within your price range.

If you feel the above statement is false, this confirms you have indeed been corrupted by your wealth.

Wealth

The wealthier you get, the less value your purchases will hold for you.

The child in you

The moment you lose the last of the child in you is the moment your soul dies.