I play with sand because all is sand.
I build castles from it despite their inevitable demises.
The wind's abrasions suffers the towers until their moist walls crack.
It's alright because I know the wind well,
It suffers me not.
Others climb intricate stairs upwards,
They pass buckets of sand in haste,
Hoping to beat the wind,
Hoping to beat the tide.
Their castle falls as it should,
And I laugh.
Upside-down buckets and half-buried spades amuse me,
Not upside-down and half-buried humans.
Boys with bowls above their brows scurry.
Only their quick glances and quick whispers peak over the trenches.
Someone captured their flag as is expected,
And I laugh.
The wind ushers the tide to me as if giving it away.
I seem to be the only one to recognize such a charitable act.
Oh well all the more for me.
Footsteps follow my feet toward the hissing,
Until my immersed torso becomes ghostly.
I drown in the frothing deep as was foreseen,
And I laugh.
The Beach
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Convoluted Blathering by Nietzsche's Peachy at 3:40 PM 0 shrieks of tortuted souls
Subjective Image-Concepts: creative writing, poetry
Transcendental Nihilism
Nihilism
Nihilism can not be logically conceptualized, free of paradoxes, without distancing it, as a concept, from the realm of philosophies, ideologies, and "-isms". It is generally understood that all that comprises a philosophy are its premises and whatever conclusions, unique to that philosophy, are affirmed based on those premises. Nihilism, however, lacks such conclusion-making, which has lent to its being perceived as counterintuitive when thought of within the context of ideology.
Thus, nihilism could be said to only make sense as something other than a philosophy. Since most philosophies, generally speaking, deal with absolutes and are blanket systems of thought, applicable in any location at any time, nihilism can be regarded as a strategy; such strategies differ from philosophies in that they are more local and temporal, only significant within the context of their respective place and period. As a strategy, nihilism can take on the form of any ideal, despite how non-nihilistic such ideals may seem from a broader scale, within the context and circumstances it resides in.
Nihilism, as said above, can be summed up as, when thought of as a strategic strain of thought and action rather than an all-encompassing order of beliefs, a simple and concise premise. This premise can be best thought of as Sartre's existence precedes essence, the existential postulate present within many contemporary philosophies, even ones that preceded Sartre's assertions (most of which were in themselves refinements of previously asserted conclusions). One can, for conceptual expedience, refer to this as the nihilistic premise.
This nihilistic premise is much like a force in the same manner that nihilism is like a strategy; a force that, when abutted against the context of established values, particular to a time and place (the most relevant of which being modern day, Western society), is utterly destructive and corrosive to surrounding ontologies. Much like how a joke can debase the seriousness of certain values (making humor an extremely nihilistic facet of expression), the nihilistic premise saps all meaning and intrinsic significance from commonly accepted promulgations.
Since the nihilistic premise so mercilessly attacks foundation and the propositions built on such foundation, it seems rather paradoxical for it to be succeeded by propositions of its own, even if on a temporary basis. When most people think of nihilism, it is the fatalistic nihilistic premise, which, by most standards of logic, inevitably results in infinite regress, that they are ignorantly thinking of. The nihilistic premise, however, is only one aspect of the totality of nihilism. It is also usually the basis for many revolutionary ideals; from the Bolsheviks to the hippies to the punks to Islamic terrorists; revolutionary ideals that have put forth an idealistic conclusion for what is to be built after the dust settles from the debris and rubble of the proverbial revolution. While these sentiments are the usual targets of the nihilistic premise, the nihilistic premise underpins these sentiments temporarily, using them as a means to an end; using them like vehicles to accomplish an overall destruction of other sedentary doctrines of thought.
After all, the ideals that the nihilistic premise fuels are in themselves polemic in nature, provisional upon the relative, entrenched notions and beliefs of that time. This lends to nihilism's context-dependency; the established values of one context are revolutionary values of another context; what the values are is not pertinent, rather it is their opposition to the current ontological hegemony or zeitgeist of that time and place. Thus, the nihilistic premise can be equated to iconoclasm for the sake of iconoclasm or revolution for the sake of revolution.
The way in which the nihilistic premise relates to nihilism is not the same way other premises relate to their respective philosophies, imparting to nihilism being a strategy. Nihilism as a whole is simply the overall pursuit for the destruction of affirmations via surrogate affirmations. In this manner it changes shape and form like a chameleon so as to blend in and sabotage the stability of values and the statue quo. As soon as one revolution succeeds, another one is immediately in the works to subvert the former. So it is to say that the nihilistic premise is the soldier bunkered down in its time and place while the whole of nihilism is the overall war machine that churns infinitely across time and space.
Nihilism seems to thereafter exist as an agent of entropy; as an inevitable force of nature that exists outside the mental frameworks of individuals' consciousnesses. Revolutionaries, after all, do not consciously incite revolution for nihilism's sake; rather it is usually for the petty ideals and sentiments they aspire to manifest into reality. Karl Marx, in all his conclusive folly, was rather accurate in recognizing the long, ongoing discourse of human society and its machine-like continuum of revolutions (i.e., the nihilistic premise); he hoped, however, to stop this meshing of seemingly ceaseless gears with an absolute governmental entity, despite such a government's inescapable lack of any innate, tangible ontology.
Existentialism and Nihilism
Since the beginning of the human discourse of thought and philosophy, the nihilistic premise has, on occasion, arisen from the depths of its subconscious habitat into the conscious realm of awareness. When philosophers began to embrace this premise within their world views, they attempted, in an almost naive fashion, to build a philosophy from it. Kierkegaard is most commonly accredited for being the first of these existentialists.
While there are separations between atheistic (Sartre) and theistic (Kierkegaard) strains of existentialism, Kierkegaard's leap of faith is a fundamental concept in it. Such a concept is a testament to the behavior of the first existentialists, of whom were daring, pioneering individuals and whom eventually grew braver in their nihilistic tendencies in the subsequent generations to the point where they could currently be considered nihilists; they touched upon the hot coals of the nihilistic premise in brief admittance to the subjectivity of all thought and knowledge, only to swiftly pull back in agonizing despair; only to hurriedly cherish subjectivity and false ontology, despite them being mere figments of overactive imaginations.
Existentialism is to philosophy as Marxism is to politics and socio-economics; it is the forced establishment of ontology for its own sake; that is, stability for the sake of stability. Just as Marxism hopes to dam up the flow of revolutionary discourse, existentialism hopes to diagnose and treat the nihilistic premise. It does this by imbuing meaning into meaning; i.e., it recognizes the nihilistic premise and its implications, but attempts to somehow stifle these implications with the leap of faith.
Such a philosophy, being based on the nihilistic premise, is by no means incorrect in its conclusions and is, by some regards, quite commendable in its postulations. There is, however, a simple matter of authenticity. Existentialism proposes a very spontaneous, phenomenological interpretation of the world, emphasizing the importance of the subjective. What disrupts this seemingly carefree outlook is existential angst (which is in itself the conscious recognition of the nihilistic premise).
The way in which this angst is invoked is, most often, through the interaction with other human beings; that is, other, sometimes contentious or oppositional perspectives. Such interaction creates instability within the subjective framework that the mind has built the world upon. When two entirely separate truths compete with one another, they, in turn, make each other somehow less authentic or believable.
After all, when the dialectic of methodical arguing, assuming it is logical and without blind fallaciousness, is done with, both sides are left with nothing more than the realization that neither of the two were right nor wrong (which is, once again, the nihilistic premise coming into view). Suspended disbelief and logical fallacies are the only saviors for subjectivity in this case, making any insightful, logical person a victim of his own intellectual reasoning. To look at your opponent in the face; to see that he sees you the same way you see him is a reminder to your own objectivity.
Sartre quite accurately delineated this in his Being and Nothingness; in it, he elaborates on his idea that "Hell is other people" by putting forth the concept of "the Other". To Sartre, the Other was the rest of the sociological world abutted against the individual with the friction and abrasions between the two being angst. For Sartre, a person is a subject existing within a world of objects. Under this scenario, the entire world of objects exists for the individual subject, giving the subject a sort of possession of the world and the freedom to attribute to it ontology and teleology on a whim. The scenario is, unfortunately, immediately interrupted when another individual subject enters the picture. It is at this point that the two subjects a.) see each other as the objects that they truly are, making them exist for each other, or rather, for the Other, and b.) must share with one another the objective world and, if they are to coexist peacefully, they must also share some values to imbue the objective world with.
It is this realization that we are not alone that makes the values that one withholds less authentic. Much like how a chauvinist objectifies women, the Other objectifies the individual subject, making whatever ontologies that that subject puts forth just another opinionated perspective in the muck of today's melting pot of worthless, disingenuous values. It is analogous to the difference between art and kitsch.
The existentialist's solution to this, at least from a Sartrean view, is somewhat psychiatric in nature; it suggests that one ought to commit much of one's time to overcoming angst, a process of which existentialism believes will never end, as well as surmounting the external pressures of the Other, and making oneself an authentic subject.
Nihilism and existentialism are both founded on the nihilistic premise; both acknowledge the emptiness and nothingness that seems to permeate existence; both are uncompromising in their acknowledgment; that is, they have emerged from the muddy waters of denial that other philosophies continue to splash around in.
However, the fundamental difference, of which is monumental compared to any similarities the two may share, is that existentialism seems incapable of transcending the sphere of the individual; trapped, almost, to catering to a subjective unit of understanding (i.e., the self), of which it practically worships; meanwhile nihilism, in all its openness, could and would operate within any strata of contextual thought, beyond and below the individual self, given that it was allowed. That is to say that existentialism grows sedentary, much like Marxism or humanism, settling, almost stagnantly in the absence of God, with a certain paradigm or sphere of comprehension, with rules, vocabularies, and grammars particular to those spheres (like a board game). (I might add that Sartre himself was a Marxist and humanist.) It settles with such sentiments, not because they are righteous or truthful, but because the human mind requires abstract rules in the game of life to properly function; thus, they exist for their own sake.
Contrarily, nihilism, while doing much of the same value-creation that existentialism does, practices a level of iconoclasm that existentialism never dares to go near. That is, existentialism isn't so much of an antithesis to nihilism, rather it is but one side of it. Existentialism aims to subjectify the individual (Marxism aims to subjectify society, humanism aims to subjectify humanity); nihilism simply aims to subjectify that which objectifies everything else, which often times coincides with existentialism's emphasis on the individual.
Transcendental Nihilism
An example of nihilism's intent, if it could be said that there is one, is its pursuit of authenticity. That is to say that authenticity is, in itself, an extremely flighty and elusive creature, and is very difficult to capture for any length of time within the confines of context. In order to properly witness even just the slightest bit of authenticity requires a great deal of value-destruction; i.e., room needs to be made and useless notions need to be cast aside to get to the deep core that authenticity seems to love to burrow into.
Thus, since authenticity and borderline self-induced solipsism seem to go hand-in-hand, nihilism scarcely tolerates the existence of other individuals, of whom may disrupt whatever subjective order one has managed to construct; at least insofar as those individuals are in disagreeable and contentious terms with said order. This seemingly paranoid backlash against the Other is somewhat analogous to Nietzsche's will to power. Such nomenclature can not be properly translated without a tinge of ambiguity, as was Nietzsche's habit, so that many misinterpret what the will to power is.
Existentialism's self-affirmation, in a sense, could be considered the will to power. It is the overall liquidation of values that did not originate from the self (thus, it is the liquidation of other selves; other individuals; of the Other) in order to make room for values that did originate from the self, inducing authenticity. The nihilistic premise (and, subsequently, nihilism) is simply an instrument used for such a clearing of values (or, as Nietzsche called it, the "re-evaluation of values") and is paramount to the eventual affirmation of existentialism. This, of course, is not how some people have come to view the will to power; some take the "power" aspect of the term quite literally, deriving from it advocacy of blind power-acquisition. It should be noted that the "power" these people are referring to is a phantasmal sociological construct that retains no natural girth outside of society's rigid structure.
What stunts existentialism's strategic utilization of nihilism, particularly the way Nietzsche delineates it, are concepts and attitudes congruent with the Kierkegaardian leap of faith and whatever Marxist, humanistic ideological spawns have sprung forth from it. In this manner, existentialism is wholly without nihilism, making it, if not extremely theistic, then extremely reverential for similar logical fallacies and self-induced blindness that is present within theism. Such existentialists simply conclude that if ignorance is bliss, then they will have nothing to do with the pangs of consciousness and nihilistic awareness.
Existentialists of the opposing breed, however, have come to realize that in order for their sentiments of an ontology-bestowing, value-creating, and freedom-enjoy world to exist, a revolution of sorts is needed. And so, just as all the various flagships of different revolutions withhold the same nihilistic premise deep within their hulls, so too does the existential revolution, or, as I prefer to call it, the meta-revolution. The meta-revolution transcends all other revolutions in that it is fundamentally contained nihilism; that is, nihilism temporarily in a straitjacket. Nihilism has, in this sense, been tamed by the existentialists to serve their own purpose.
It was Nietzsche's belief that such a meta-revolution would be succeeded by a new age of Ubermensche. Of course such notions crossover into the realm of speculative fiction and beyond the limits of reasonable predictions and foresight. It is in an intriguing notion, however, and makes one wonder what is necessary to authenticate oneself and one's values.
Existentialism, within the context of the postmodern condition (of which is plagued by existential angst and the Other), can only exist with an escapist, consumerist mentality. It is unable to properly authenticate itself because to do such would call for nihilism, the meta-revolution, and the will to power to be enacted.
Transcendentalism, a philosophy promulgated by the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, is similar to existentialism in that it emphasizes the intuitive self as being the only true and authentic source for value, ontology, and teleology. It differs, however, in its approach to man's estrangement and angst due to the Other; it prefers to deny the Other, not so much in its existence, but rather, it's validity, thereby eradicating the Other whenever the opportunity arises. Existentialism would simply prefer to stagnate, making as few destructive gestures as possible, coping with and accepting the Other, hoping to authenticate itself even when it is well aware that that is impossible given the circumstances. As a result, transcendentalism characteristically leans towards man's reconciliation with nature through solitude and asceticism.
While existentialism strives to receive empowerment of freedom and responsibility from the nihilistic premise, it could be said that a sort of transcendental nihilism strives to use the nihilistic premise as society's proverbial wrecking ball (i.e., the meta-revolution). Such transcendental nihilists are more grounded in reality in that, while they agree with existentialists in terms of value-creation, they recognize that such value-creation isn't possible (authentically) in such a highly opinion-saturated world.
Thus, realizing that the world is overpopulated, transcendental nihilism can, seemingly cruelly and coldly, put forth ideas that promote disease, famine, and war in hopes of reducing the population. While we humans may have achieved evolutionary supremacy, that is, we have preserved the corporeal self in almost ever facet of plausible danger, we are now in the midst of a new game of survival; the survival of our metaphysical selves. Our subjective selves, the ones we project onto the objective world, is constantly being threatened by the Other, necessitating that we preserve ourselves via obliterative nihilism.
Transcendentalism, generally speaking, suggests the self is not so much the limits and outlines of our physical bodies, but rather, the entire part of the world to which we have grown affinity with. That is, while Platonic philosophies consider the self to exist somehow within the body or mind (i.e., the spirit, the soul, any intangible thing within the corporeal body of flesh), and science, humanism, existentialism, and Marxism simply tack the self onto the materialistic, corporeal body itself, transcendentalism projects the self as far out as possible, albeit before colliding with the projected selves of others, or the Other (in other words, such projection is the will to power). In this way, the corporeal self can be nothing more than an instrumental aggregate, granted an important one, of the whole self, acting as a means to fulfilling a self-made teleological end. The projected self, thus, resembles a narrative or epic story.
Since existentialism can not be asserted authentically presently, the alternative is transcendental nihilism, which resembles existentialism in theory, but differs from it in practice. It embraces the self-projecting will to power; it supports the meta-revolution (thereby supporting all surrogated revolutions); it contemptuously assails the Other, using the nihilistic premise to do such; and it cultivates the eventual recreation of values after said meta-revolution. Perhaps the Ubermensche could result from it after all.
Convoluted Blathering by Nietzsche's Peachy at 3:39 PM 0 shrieks of tortuted souls
Subjective Image-Concepts: essay, philosophy
The Dead and the Dying: Chapter 1, v1.0
"Next."
I took one step forward. I couldn't tell if I was moving over the carpet or if it was moving underneath me. But then again, I guess that's the way things go; the carpet is constantly being pulled out from under you. It's just a matter of whether you notice it or not. Noticing it takes a great deal of apathy; not noticing it takes just the slightest bit of enthusiasm.
"Next."
Consciousness crept up on me. It was sobering. With every long pace I noticed more and more things. Particularly the strange man standing in front of me. He was tall, smelled bad, and had a dark complexion. His long white garments, curly facial hair, and tightly spun turban indicated that he was of Middle-Eastern descent. Somehow, in some way, he looked familiar.
Enthusiasm, to me, is a game played by children to kill time and a game played by adults to kill each other. I like that little proverb. I made it up once when I was making a deposit at the bank. I'm not very fond of banks, at least not since I was killed in one.
"Next."
Then it came to me; that Middle-Eastern man, he was there at the bank too. I started looking around as if awakening from some kind of stupor. I recognized all the people that were in line with me.
As I regained my bearings, the last thing to come to my attention was me. My sensations told my brain that my teeth were arranged differently in my mouth. As I looked at my hands, I saw taught, pink skin; not the arthritic joints that I expected. I felt the top of my head. Instead of a thin, bald scalp, I felt thick, luscious hair. I yanked down my bangs to eye-level and saw the dark brown. I felt my face like some manic blind person. The wrinkles, the dentures, the eye-patch, they were all gone.
"Next."
When I was alive, I was very fond of enthusiastic people. They were very clingy, much like infants are to their mothers. That isn't a very far fetched metaphor, by the way; it takes an infantile sense of awareness to be enthusiastic. I especially liked how they took things seriously. It was almost cute.
I looked down. I was wearing a light-brown, tweed suit with a red tie, something I hadn't worn in over thirty years. Clouds of dust whiffed from my suit as I patted and wiped my sleeves. The lobby itself was filled with misty dust. They say that dust is nothing more than dead skin-cells. Considering how filled that room was with death, I could very well have been wearing my own ashes. That and the ashes of everyone around me. I immediately felt sick.
"Next."
I could tell that the Texan behind me was a very enthusiastic man. He was whispering to whoever stood behind him, though I couldn't make out the majority of the conversation. All I could discern was that he was growing increasingly suspicious of the Middle-Eastern man. He wouldn't stop asking the person behind him if she found the Muslim familiar looking. After she snapped at him for his insistent blathering, he turned to me and asked the same question.
"Hey, fella, were you in that there bank before it blew up, the same one I was in?" His accent was thick.
"Yes, I was." I said. I remember he had been yelling at one of the bank officials for denying him a loan before the explosion. He was so vehement then that his face had turned red. Just then, before his head seemed like it was about to burst like a pimple, the room went up in a ball of flames. I died in a fit of laughter.
"Tell me, friend, does that there man in front of ya look familiar?"
"If I'm not mistaken, he's the one who had the bomb." I distinctly recall seeing the Middle-Eastern man running into the bank, screaming with bulged eyes upon detonation.
"Well, I'll be damned. I wonder what in the Hell he's doin' here?" My love for irony kicked in and stretched a smile across my face. I felt like telling the Texan that in all likelihood, we could be in Hell now. But that would just ruin his day.
"Next."
The Middle-Eastern man was now at the front desk. He was next in line. Some woman with horn-rimmed glasses was attending to him at the desk.
While I had a keen grasp of my surroundings by then, my abilities to realize exactly where I was weren't as clear. Behind me was a long line of people with their heads bowed in boredom. The dust that clouded the room was illuminated by sunlight, which was let in by a stained-glass dome above. The dust was so heavy I could hardly make out the walls. Blurry box-shapes dotted the walls on all four sides.
When I was alive I would always get this strange feeling that everything was obscured in some way. As if haze permeated everywhere. I always thought that I didn't see things as clearly as I should. That for me, to act upon what I saw was useless. After all, what I had seen may not have been real, behind that haziness.
Suddenly, to my left, one of the foggy boxes began lighting up and making obnoxious noises. Coins clattered against metal. That and the high-pitched squeals of a frenzied woman. What was now clear was that I was in the lobby of a hotel-casino. What wasn't clear was whether I was in Heaven or Hell.
"Name?" asked the front-desk lady.
"Farooq Rashid," the Middle-Eastern man replied with the expected peculiar accent. I was now surrounded by silly accents.
"Belief system?" She went about these questions with great boredom, never looking up at the man. Instead, she simply looked down, smacking on gum, checking things off on a list.
"Eh, excuse me?"
"Religion--what religion do you belong to?"
"Oh... I a-am a warrior o-o-of Allah," he stuttered. For being a suicide bomber, he had quite a timid demeanor.
"I'll put down Islam."
While this little interview was going on the Texan stepped out of line from behind me and began striding up to the desk, adjusting his belt even higher up his pudgy torso.
"Excuse me ma'am, but I think there's been a mistake. Ya see, this here fella ought to be somewhere else, if ya know what I mean." He was quite unafraid of making a scene, much like at the bank.
"Sir, I will be sure to attend to your grievances, whatever they may be, but I'm going to have to ask you to wait your turn," she said. Despite her obvious professional tone, she hiked up a brow as soon as the Texan approached. She couldn't help but be amused. Neither could I.
"Now, look here lady, this person is responsible for killin' the majority of the people in this here line, includin' me. It's 'cause of him that I ain't gonna be able to see my wife and two daughters. Now you tell me why Peter let this son-of-a-bitch walk through the Pearly Gates. I demand some answers, damn it." His polite intrusion imploded into another red-faced episode.
In all honesty, I didn't care who killed me nor how. I was dead and there was, as far as I was informed, nothing that I could do about it. Being angry with my murderer for killing me was, in my opinion, equivalent to being mad at my parents for conceiving me. I didn't ask to be blown to smithereens but then again I didn't ask to be born either.
People just love to think that they actually own their lives.
"Sir, you need to calm down. This is a non-denominational afterlife, we do not discriminate against any particular religions or actions. This man is entitled to paradise just as much as you are. Now, would you please get back in line?"
"Unbelievable. This ain't no Heaven. Dear Lord, I must be in Hell. The Heaven I know would never allow some crazy sand-monkey into God's Kingdom," he said as he derisively glared at the Muslim.
The Middle-Eastern man must have suddenly grown a pair because he reacted with more hypertension than the Texan. With squinted eyes, he wagged his finger and began yelling. "What do you know of God or Heaven, you despicable swine? It is you who deserves a Hellish fate, not I."
Then, with absolutely no warning, punches began flying. The line behind me bunched into a tiny crowd. All around me were slack-jaw cows watching a bull-fight. The best way to affirm one's own masculinity without taking any punches is to watch two other dudes slug it out.
Neither man seemed concerned about being barraged by walloping smacks; it was like two nations exchanging homing missile bombardments with little regard for any defensive measures. Then again, why should they care about being hurt? They were already dead.
I must say, during the escapade, I was grinning the whole time. I found immense enjoyment out of the whole thing. I always had. Out of all the emotions one can feel, amusement was the one that rung with me the most. Amusement of other people's fights, of other people's fears, of other people's futilities, of other people in general. It's the same principle that reality shows are built on, I guess.
If you stick a rat into a maze that's been ladened with the scent of cheese, it will mistake the walls for food and start eating it.
Amidst the tussle, bellhops and other hotel-staff rushed onto the scene to break up the fight. They pried the two away from one another and carried them off in opposite directions. It took a few minutes of kicking and screaming profanities for them to finally tire.
Eventually things calmed down. Once again, the dust settled and we resumed our checking-in. I was next.
"Name?"
"Melvin Zimmern," I replied.
"Belief system?"
"Atheist." Although to what extent atheism was an actual belief system I was unsure of. What's worse was that I was an atheist in Heaven, which sort of put a damper on things.
"How did you you become retired?"
"Retired?"
Having worked as a freelance photographer during my lifetime, I did little to nothing in terms of retirement. In fact, up until my death, I was still working for various magazines and newspapers. I was also in the midst of declaring my second bankruptcy.
Society without bankruptcy is like religion without Hell.
"We here prefer to use the term 'retired' instead of 'dead' or 'deceased'. It's less psychologically intrusive to the guests." Considering that I had been through the same process many times before, I couldn't help but feel like I was checking into rehab all over again.
If life is an ongoing traumatic experience, then Heaven is just another Betty-Ford Clinic.
"I died in the bank bombing. With the others. Um, may I ask why Heaven is a casino?" I was positive I knew why, but I had to hear it for myself.
"Well, where do most living people go when they 'retire'?"
Snowbirds flocking south for the Winter. When I was young I imagined that old people were actual birds because of that terminology. I was afraid that at any instant my grandmother would suddenly grow a beak and begin pecking me with it.
"Here are your keys, and this is Dudley," she said, gesturing to the bellhop standing next to the desk. I didn't notice him earlier. "He will escort you to your room."
Straight, stringy hair draped over his pimpled face from beneath his little cap. He stood and stared like a vacant dummy. He looked exactly like how I felt: high.
I had the curiosity to ask why I'd need a room if I was dead, but I didn't. Why ask questions when the answers almost never meet your expectations? Or worse, when there are no answers.
Now, this may sound strange, but I find that crash-test-dummies don't get nearly as much respect as they deserve. Imagine if you were being bombarded against a brick wall in an oversized SUV day after day. It's as if you were the one responsible for the lives that could've been lost in each crash. It is put upon you to somehow make up for any wrecks that could happen in the future. All is saved because of a mannequin's sacrifices.
Dudley was always hunched over when he walked. And bow-legged. Sort of like a monkey. A blond stoner-monkey dressed up as a bellhop. He wasn't very boisterous in how he talked though he did get lost in his own ramblings, usually before stopping to ask, "Wait, what was I talking about?" I in no way found him annoying; I would've otherwise dreaded the notion of someone who liked to chit-chat, so for me this was just fine.
At least when someone is high, you know it's going to be an interesting conversation.
Society reveres dummies. They are our witchdoctors. We charge them with bad mojo and slam them into Toyotas Corolas over and over again. We do this to shake away the evil spirits. To purge away the impure energies. To cleanse the unwanted karma. Uncivilized tribes have been using the same practices for centuries with sacrificial lambs and boars. And people think we're civilized.
"So are you an angel or something?" I asked this sort of rhetorically; I knew 'angel' was far from the right terminology but for all I knew there very well may not have been a 'right terminology' in the first place. I ask a lot of rhetorical questions. Sometimes I think I live rhetorically. Or should I say lived?
"Not really, dude, more like a guide or counselor or what have you. We're just here to help you with whatever needs you may have during your stay."
"Stay?"
"Yeah, stay."
"That sort of implies that this is all... temporary."
"What would give you that idea?" he said, prying away at his nostril with his one of his pinkies.
We aren't civilized; there is no such thing. Our sticks and rocks may have evolved into levers and buttons but these tools all fulfill the same functions. Where we once chose a virgin from the tribe to be adorned with jewelry and attention, led to the top of the pyramid, and slaughtered before ripping her still-beating heart out, we now build up celebrities with tabloids and newspapers and alienate them with cameras from every angle until they eventually self-destruct.
As soon as the untalented pop-star releases her third sex tape and overdoses for the last time on exorbitant amounts of prescription drugs concocted with alcohol, we rejoice. Celebrities are a different breed of crash -test-dummies. It is when we watch them crash and burn that we are truly glad that we are not them. It makes our reality seem more real.
"Well, here we are. Suite Number 45. Remember that number, man. It sucks getting lost here." He sifted through a ring of keys. The suite door was reddish like all the others in the hallway. Somehow the loud carpet in the lobby followed me.
The door swung open. Sand began pouring in from the room, though to what extent it was actually a room was obscured to me by the grains of sand playing around in my eyeballs. Small gusts of wind swirled pools of sand around our feet. Beyond the rolling dunes, I could see a blue sky.
"What the fuck is this?" I so politely inquired.
"This is your psyche." He raised his eyebrows and bit his bottom lip. "Pretty trippy, huh?"
"My psyche?"
"Yeah, see, when you die you get your own little universe to play with. Everything inside of that room is made up of your unconscious thoughts, your dreams, your wishes, crap like that. So you can control anything you want in it, fulfill whatever weird fetishes and fantasies you may have." Something told me he wanted one for himself. "Anytime you want to leave to socialize and mingle or what have you with the other residents, you just... well, leave."
"So do we go in there?"
"Well, I don't have to but I always enjoy seeing these things. Just invite me in, bro."
"After you, then." I'm not afraid of going into unknown places all alone but my instincts sure as hell are. The way I see it, if millions of years of evolution is telling you not to do something, you probably shouldn't do it.
Heroes are just dull-witted pricks who are willing to do something if it'll get them laid in the end.
After walking out into a seemingly endless field of sun-baked sand, comfort immediately ceases. What little wind there was was sure to somehow smack me in the face with dirt every chance it got. Using my palm as a visor I surveyed the horizon, expecting little, perceiving little.
"Well this is pretty baron," said Dudley. Behind him, the door pierced through the desert like a rectangular cookie cutout. The door, Dudley and I were the only things casting shadows.
"I'm assuming it isn't usually like this," I said.
"Well, man, everybody's psyche is different. I've seen way weirder. Actually, by comparison, this is pretty boring."
"I can do whatever I want here?"
"Well, yeah, technically. It reflects what you're in the mood for at the time, unconsciously. You can't just ask it to whip you up some Diet Coke if you're not really wanting it."
Whoever said that Coca Cola was the real thing must have also thought that polyester came from an animal.
"So this is what I'm in the mood for?"
"Apparently. You're one hell of an interesting guy, dude," he said while pulling out a brown paper-rolled joint, "You don't mind do you?"
Convoluted Blathering by Nietzsche's Peachy at 3:37 PM 0 shrieks of tortuted souls
Subjective Image-Concepts: creative writing, fiction
The beginnings of what could be a trivial, dead-end enterprise or a satisfying project, let's see where this blog takes us.
Convoluted Blathering by Nietzsche's Peachy at 3:06 PM 0 shrieks of tortuted souls