Nietzsche's Peachy

The Anquish of an Instrument

2008-10-17T19:11:00.004-07:00

No. I'm not allowing it. I'm not going to allow myself to become flattened. I'm not going to permit you from smearing me into the idle background of your painting.

Paint the world however you want, just don't use me as the brush.

Don't smudge my existence into a tiny blotch. Into a quiet bystander. Into the compliant little man.

You have Howitzers. I have grocery bags. I'm expected to continue walking. You're expected to continue bludgeoning. Through this process, we're both instruments. Cogs. Tools creating other tools. You and I, we're just part of an endless pedigree of toolmaking that will undoubtedly go on forever.

You're the hammer.

I'm the nail.

But not any more. I'm bent. I'm crooked. I'm fucking tarnished to shit and no matter how hard you hit, you'll never supplant me. Not so long as I take these breaths and stand this ground, I won't be a part of your ugly construction.

Yeah, I know, I'm done for.
I'm going to become an itch on your side that will barely even affect you. That will be quelled with one quick scratch of the skin.

But maybe, just maybe, somewhere out there in the sea of docile faces, there will be someone who'll see me. Who'll remember me. Who'll spread the irritation so that the next thing you know, you're covered in a vile rash of contempt.

Skyscape, Part 3, v1.0

2008-09-10T15:17:00.002-07:00

The door opens to reveal a magnificent sight. The guard nudges me inside though there isn't much need for it given that the beautiful sights, sounds, smells, feelings, and even tastes laid before me all compel me forward.

Inside is a beautiful and elaborate garden. Ahead of me is a tranquil pond that reflects the gorgeous greenery surrounding it. I look behind me and see that the guard has closed the door, which is handless from the inside and is sealed against the rest of the wall.

I look at where the green, stone wall goes and see that it extends in to a gradual curve, completely circumnavigating the massive courtyard. Above me, there is no roof to speak of, but there is a shimmering canopy of vegetation that allows small beams of sunlight to gleam through the misty and peaceful atmosphere. Little birds hop back and forth in the trees, singing and playing with one another. An assortment of butterflies flutter and oscillate throughout the garden, making it seem as though it were fidgeting with inhibited anxiety.

Just like me.

I take a few steps forward and continue observing this place. Suddenly, I notice a strange shadowy figure looming beside the pool. I'm surprised I didn't notice it before. It is obscured by shrubbery so I press on to get a better look.

As I move forward and become immersed into the now foul smelling mist, I become somewhat lightheaded. The mixture of fluttering butterflies and flickering leaves seem to pulsate along with my heartbeat now. I have a hard time focusing and am fixated on the ghost figure who is drifting towards me.

Or am I drifting towards it?

Either way, it gets closer. I get a clear view of it, and cannot believe what I'm seeing. It is a hunch-backed phantom that is almost seven feet tall, clad in a dark-gray cloak, and looks too solid to be a ghost. Rather it looks like a shadowy, phantasmal wraith.

Despite everything I see, it is what I hear that haunts me the most. It breathes. A shallow, sickly concoction of inhalation and exhalation.

But the worse thing of all, it talks.

A "Hello, my angel." whispers out of its pitch-black void of a face.

I stay silent.

"My angel, you have finally crossed over to the other side. Allow me to show you your new abode." He puts forth a gray, skeletal hand and against what remains of my volition, my hand compulsively gravitates into his. His long fingers wrap around my relatively puny wrist. It's neither warm nor cold; instead, I feel as though I'm holding hands with air.

Where the hell am I?

"This is heaven." How did he know what I was thinking? Can he read minds? Or did I just say that out loud? I feel so disoriented, so numb and detached from my body.

"My angel, this is the Otherrealm. The one that the great Nihil created for the people in the Skyrealm to descend into."

No, it can't be. Malakai always told me this wasn't real.

"Oh, but it is. Your friend is a misguided soul. He has lost his faith. Luckily, you kept some of yours."
So, I'm dead?

"Yes, but you have been redeemed for most of your sins. After all, you did brave the Abyss and for most of your life, you led a pious path."

He glides, I glide; we both glide slowly through the botanical courtyard as he talks.

Skyscape, Part 2, v1.0

2008-09-10T15:15:00.001-07:00

The top deck palpitated with footsteps and the blurry crowd prattled on and on into an intensely unsatisfying hum. The colossal airship seemed so jerry-rigged and crudely tied together in the twilight sun, that it almost seemed to fall apart and decay like the clouds surrounding it.

A strange man stood at the edge of the deck, staring off into a billowy nothingness as he shifted his weight and leaned against the rusted side railing. He was puffing on a cigar, intentionally ostracizing himself from the throng of visitors. His aviator goggles gleamed fiercely against the pink and red sky. The man wore a brown leather vest that insulated a muscular torso which was crowned by a plumed collar that shimmered in the breeze like an aquiline creature ruffling its feathers.

Pilots from all corners of Skyscape were congregated into tiny groups, telling tall tales and sharing unheard news. All sorts of planes and aircraft of varying size, make, and model gathered at the end of the landing strip. It seemed as if they too were in their own little social structures, sharing amongst themselves the same silent conversations as their owners, bickering about their pilots' mechanical failures and miscalculations.

He was completely bald except for long sideburns that stormed down either cheek. Tattoos emblazoned across his arms in dark green ink, spiraling into symbolic swirls and shapes. Leather gloves were strapped around either palm as each of his fingers emerged from fingerless openings. He was harnessed in to a pair of baggy, denim pants as steel-toed boots crawled up either shin, buckle by buckle. He coolly lifted up his goggles to reveal a squat face. Wrinkles and sinewy tissue converged towards a sternly furrowed brow. He had beady eyes and a large nose that tapered into a pair of wide, flaring nostrils. Thin lips suckled the dirt-brown cigar and tightly hugged a set of grinning teeth. This phalanx of molars and canines defended a long lashing tongue that affectionately tasted the tobacco.

Skyscape, Part 1, v1.0

2008-09-10T15:09:00.001-07:00

How sheep-like was I to have fallen for such crap? Who was Malakai to just suddenly whisk me away from my comfortable teddy bear and replace it with a dirty rifle? To tell me that everything I held so dearly was simply trivial; something to be forgotten.

He told me to not fall for what anyone had to say, no matter how convincing their answers may be. And yet, I went on, like the buffoon that I was, falling for those very words. Like some sort of naive little girl who was being seduced by the devil himself.

I feel like such a fool now.

I know Malakai didn't mean any wrong, but how can you preach against preaching? How can you just tell someone to abandon everything they ever loved or ever knew and not offer something to replace it with? It's pure rape, I tell you. Rape. Babies never ask to be born, but they are. So, why strip them of everything that would at least soften the harshness of this ugly world only to leave them to fend for themselves?

It's just evil.

For all I care, Malakai was the naive one--naive for having done that to me. He was too caught up in his own ideas, and went about preaching them like the messiah. Sure, he had wondrous, almost genius things to say, but he was still a slave to his own thoughts nonetheless.

That's what made him crack. He could no longer bear the weight of his own ideals; they were just too self-destructive. To adhere to them would also mean to reject them. I'm sure this wasn't at first apparent to him, but as he went on refining his answers, affirming his views--newer, more paradoxical questions began to arise. And you can't answer questions with questions.

It's hard to believe in much of anything while being aware of your surroundings. When you're aware of your surroundings, delusions aren't as vivid. And when you're not delusional, apathy ensues. Let me tell you, Malakai was the most lucid man I've ever known.

It was sanity, not insanity, that killed him.

He died in the name of something that he was barely starting to only half-believe in. Oh sure, in the beginning he was as vehement as the best of them. But as time went on, his apprehensions grew. His exhibitions became inhibitions.

He began to question himself.

But that was later on in his life. When I met him, he was just an over-opinionated bald guy. I was the bartender. He was the drunk going on philosophical tirade.

As I Sit Burning

2008-08-30T13:13:00.008-07:00

The moment I was born is the moment I began dying. Dying to live; living to die. Everything, everyone. Even the skin particles that flake off and ultimately become dust. Even they'll die too. Some day.

Like a flash in the pan. Here one moment, gone the next. Don't blink because you'll probably miss it. So I just stapled my eyes open.

I'm in agony right now. But I'm not moving an inch. If trees can do it, so can I, right? They burn like all of us do. Except they don't run around, screaming at the top of their lungs. Don't bump into others and ignite them into a ball of flames. Don't destroy everything they touch.

Just fucking stop already.

Dropping and rolling are optional. Nothing can retard this process. So just let it take its course. There's no stopping it.

In truth, if you put something under enough pressure, combustion is bound to happen. All you need is a little oxygen. A little fuel. A little spark. That seems to be everything the Earth provides us. That seems to be our ingredients; our recipe. That seems to be our destiny.

Shhh. Just stay still. And burn.

The Tyranny of the Majority

2008-08-17T16:24:00.002-07:00

In the Democracy in America, it can best be said that Alexis de Tocqueville's overall thesis was the moral dilemma that democracy, in all its self-righteous servitude to the majority, could bring. As a sort of cautionary tale, he promulgates the notions of soft despotism; that is, he entertains the idea that even though the values of egalitarianism, freedom, and democracy are so readily heralded by certain peoples and nations (particularly America), such ideals are not in themselves immune from the propagation of oppression. He felt America to be most threatened by this sociological phenomena, particularly due to its capricious culture and frontier-oriented mentality.

For Tocqueville, the (then) current trends in America were diluting the sort of elitist, landowning system of aristocracy that abutted European society. He observed that the vast availability of land, and thus money, power, and political presence, allowed for a middling mediocrity to take place. As such, the bell curve of the majority would rule with an iron fist, marginalizing minorities to an extent no too dissimilar from what was common in monarchies and dictatorships. Tocqueville saw such tyranny to be even worse than monarchies, however, because certain minorities suffering from oppression of the majority would have no one to appeal their grievances to; public opinion sways the majority, the majority sways legislation, execution, and jurisprudence, thus, caught up in its moral zeitgeist, the majority would inevitably dominate with less mercy than a king.

One example of how this applied to the United States is how the nation's legislature was organized in such a way so as to limit the terms of the representatives of both Houses of Congress. This satisfied the eager "daily passions of their constituents", further bolstering the authority of the many. Tocqueville also points out that the American electors "choose a delegate ... and impose upon him a number positive obligations which he is pledged to fulfil. ..." In this way, it seems as though "the majority of the [American] populace held its deliberations in the market place. ..." From this degree of political expedience, he thought the government to be the surrogate of the majority's agenda, allowing for near-immediate reactions to the agendas of others.

Another example of America's prodigious majority is how all parties therein fully submit to the rights and even whims of the majority. Therefore, the majority surmounts a somewhat luxurious seat of power, exercising its authority and moral influence to subvert any minority-based parties of which would otherwise prove to be a threat or an obstacle in the progression of the majority's status quo. As a result, all three branches of the United States, which in themselves are supposed to act as checks and balances of one another, are heavily outweighed by the majority's impact on society. The implications of what the majority can do to the culture, diplomatic disposition, executive ordinance, legislation, and judicial partiality in America is undeniable. Finally, from this discourse of majority-rule, Tocqueville pleadingly questioned, "When an individual or party is wronged in the United States, to whom can he apply for redress? ..." Being that all preexisting institutions and governmental agencies are but minions of the predominant populace, the afflictions and injustices bestowed upon a minority by such a predominant populace cannot be properly reproached--at least until the prevalent opinion of the majority is swayed in the minority's favor.

In his Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville conveyed to the world that its ardent reverence for democratic forms of governance should not go without careful providence. To blindly invest faith into a single ideology, no matter how just or righteous it may seem at the time, invariably leads to the same oppression and resentment from which democracy was conceived. Instead, power should be methodically relegated to trustworthy entities and agencies, permitting no one, not even the majority, to ascend the throne.

The Dead and the Dying: Chapter 2, v1.0

2008-08-13T14:58:00.021-07:00

Different books incinerate in different ways. For instance, due to the thin paper of the Bible, it burns at a fairly rapid pace. Large coffee table books, on the other hand, char at a much slower rate. Opening the books and fanning out the pages allows for more surface area, and thus more expedient cremation. I prefer watching them burn slowly; it soothes me.

Burn hundreds of history books and scientific theses and it's an act of oppression; burn a couple dozen self-help books and it's a spiritually liberating experience.

"There was a whole box we had forgotten," Cindy said, awkwardly carrying a heavy packaging crate filled with paperbacks and hardcovers. She eyed me, annoyed. She hoped that I would lend a gentlemanly hand. I just love the face of someone with unmet expectations.

Expectations make the world less surprising. Things become dull and trite. With enough expectations, everything begins to resemble a Bob Ross painting. Happy trees under happy clouds with happy fence posts. Landscapes of alleged beauty.

"Here." She plopped the box of literary fuel next to me. She expected me to feed the fire like I was some sort of zookeeper feeding a lion. The chip on her shoulder made her somewhat cockeyed as she sat in the lawn chair next to my sister. She wore facial expressions like masks and put on a concerned furrow, showing a degree of pity that other psychiatrists might deem unprofessional. Because of the botulin that swirled beneath her skin, it gleamed like it were made of plastic.

"Hurry up with those things, I want to get the hell out of here," she said half to me and half to the fire. Her spindly legs crossed one another as her spindly fingers scrabbled for a cigarette. A fifty-year-old spoiled brat.

You become a very dizzy person when it seems as though the world is revolving around you.

People with expectations hope to build a society that is reverential of peace and order. They actually expect to have the right to live, as if that were even their decision to make. They draft a constitution, pay taxes, vote, work, buy shit, cram that shit down their children's throats, and eat heart-fucking-healthy Cheerios in hopes of fulfilling their expectations of perfection.

At least when your kid is a fat-ass, you know he won't slip through the cracks.

"Cindy, don't start. I hate it when you two fight."

"Honey, it's because of the likes of him that you haven't been able to properly adapt to the world. That's why after tonight, communication with him stops. We talked about this, remember?" I must've been invisible because she made little to no effort to whisper her statement or divert her eyes from me. I said nothing. I had said enough already.

"That's just temporary, right?"

It was then that I saw the most strained and contrived nod in my life.

White Fang, The Mantras of Me, A History of France by G. W. Kitchin, Mommy and Daddy's Special Hug: How to Talk to Your Child About Sex by Helen Back, Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, The Satanic Bible, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, My Teacher is an Alien by Barb Dwyer, and stacks of hardcover books about drawing the female figure were slow to cook, probably from their weightiness. They cringed and curled, as if trying to recede away from the orange fire.

An entire scaffolding of starlight hung over the Arizona desert with no one to cast a spotlight on to. The crackling inferno and chirping crickets both seemed to taunt my sister. She simply simply sat there, staring somewhere beyond the flames like she always did. Breathing in the smell of her burning children.

Because of the glossy pages of some of the coffee table books and the ink-laden pages of the various photography books, a nauseating scent can permeate the air. Some of the thicker paperbacks that are bound heavily by glue also exude a distinct smell. Coupled with the ink, it can cause a strange taste to formulate in the back of your throat.

"Tell me, sweetie, how do you feel right now?" She always called her sweetie. I hated that.

Retinas burn from gazing at the white Sun, moths fry from their attraction to light bulbs, men lust for a few precious seconds of vaginal penetration. Truthfully, we all yearn to go back to the nothingness we came from.

"Like something crawled up inside me and died."

The Joy of Sex, Sun Tzu's the Art of War, a compilation of Garfield comics, Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea, The Better Gender: A Book on Female Supremacy by Samantha Holland, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, The Sword of Shannara, Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and his lesser known Fantastic Mr. Fox, What Curls My Toes: the Autobiography of the Woman Who Orgasms 125 Times a Day, and a coverless chapter book were quick to burn. While wimpy and thin, they were also sophisticated, civilized books. Castaways frightened by an onslaught of inflamed primitives.

"'Books to the ceiling, books to the sky, my pile of books is a mile high. How I love them. How I need them. I'll have a long beard by the time I read them,'" my sister sorrowfully recited. She was quivering underneath her crochet coat. Whether it was from the cold breeze or from her crying, I couldn't tell. Poor Velouria.

I smacked my lips and cleared my throat to try to rid myself of the taste. But the back of my tongue just continued to writhe in a sauna of tartness. It felt almost as if I were attempting to swallow the words of Jack Kerouac himself. As if Kurt Vonnegut were force feeding me sour and spoiled words of an unpublished piece.

Cindy consoled my sister with a somewhat patronizing arm around the shoulders. The only thing to console my shivers was the fire. It never patronized me. It was never reluctant to show affection. If anything, its whipping tongues reached for me to come closer. I guess books didn't seem to fully quench its appetite.

"I feel like I'm going to be sick."

"You remember what to do when you feel anxiety, right? Just take a deep breath, close your eyes, count backwards from ten, and exhale." Velouria obeyed Cindy's instructions. The witch was fattening up her meal.

Curious George Goes to the Circus, Thomas Paine's Common Sense, the entire catalog of Penthouse circa 1989, Short Stories by Short Authors, Raw: a Vegan's Guide to Cooking by Seth Poole, Self Analysis by L. Ron Hubbard, and a survival pamphlet on how to start campfires were fastest to twist and turn black. Hellfire and brimstone smote the pornography and children's books, leaving a sort of flyleaf excrement. The survival pamphlet was opened to a page about what to feed the campfire with.

After a while, I became somewhat lightheaded from the glue and ink. In a way, I felt like there was a second bonfire going on in my head. Just as I chucked fuel into the flames, book-by-book, I felt as though I were fueling some other monster in my brain, neuron-by-neuron.

Velouria began to weep. Seeing the last of her books die must've been shocking. She nestled against Cindy's chest as Cindy patted and shushed her, never letting go of her cigarette. At various times, her red hair would seemingly blend into the fire. She was certainly camouflaged for an eternal afterlife in Hell.

Sick of huffing the last sentences of Benjamin Franklin, I went to the truck to load up the remaining empty crates and cardboard boxes. The desert grounds seemed to slither with life. Coyotes could be heard in the distance. Countless bushes and cacti dotted the surrounding hills, sheltering an unimaginable number of snakes, scorpions, and lizards.

It was in this setting that I felt calm.

Animals take comfort in bleak darkness; only humans scramble for torchlights and matchsticks. We spend precious calories, hours, and gems on refueling them. Stacking firewood, drilling for oil, splitting atoms, all to perpetuate the safety and security of the fire. To keep alive something that will inevitably die.

I sat in the cab of the truck, in the stillness, in the darkness, almost reveling in it like any other wild animal would. Like any other self-respecting human wouldn't. I waited. Growing impatient, I tried to see why Cindy and my sister hadn't yet extinguished the flames.

Cavemen who obsessed over the campfire's maintenance became evolutionary successes. Cavemen who lingered in the darkness became meals. While basking in the campfire's luminescence, with bellies filled and content, these early humans would spend their evenings devising new forms of entertainment. Dancing, music, language, art, cooking, all originated by the fireside.

Sometimes one must befriend one destructive force in order to escape another.

Now, if I were like any other person, fearful of having shattered expectations and crushed preconceived notions, I would have been horrified by what I saw. I will even admit, certain deeprooted instincts were somewhat irritated by the sight. The two pairs of lips, one tear-moistened, enclosing, interlocking from behind the orgy of licking fire. I swear I even saw the whites of Cindy's eyes glare at me for an instant.

Prometheus gave man fire so I could bear witness to this shit?

Flash.

Earlier that day, I was taking photos of and cataloging every book in Velouria's collection. She was obsessive-compulsive from the day we came out of mom. Even when we were being born, she was clinging on to mom's uterus in utter fear. Needless to say, I was the first to pop out of that hell-hole. I sometimes wonder if I smelled like cigarettes and cheap liquor when the doctor pulled me out.

Flash.

I'm not totally sure why I became a photographer. Then again, no one really knows why anyone does anything. I suppose I had some urge, a drive, when I was younger, to capture images as they are as opposed to painting them as they ought to be. No interpretation involved. No idealization. Just reality.

Cindy monitored every moment of that day. She was like some sort of matriarchal midwife. At times, it seemed like her role as a watchful psychiatrist changed into that of a control freak. It was rather ironic that she was so obsessed with treating my sister's own obsessions. Of course, that was before I knew of their little affair.

Flash.

Sometimes I fancied myself as some sort of forensic documenter. Photographing the deceased remains of the world as if it were going to be used as evidence in court someday. As if the decaying remnants of this Universe could somehow be justified. I hoped to prove to some unknown, cosmic jury that a crime had taken place. Existence.

The whole room was empty besides the bookshelves that lined the piss-yellow walls. Even they were growing empty as Velouria and I gutted them of their treasured literature. We constructed tiny mountains of the books we had already taken pictures of, while a small train of the ones we had just picked off the shelves waited for their closeups on the hard wood floor.

Flash. New roll of film.

"After tonight, you're going to feel like a new woman." Cindy leaned against the door's threshold, crossed arms, white turtle-neck, that unusually wide mouth that always made her seem like she was grinning, even when she wasn't.

"I just don't understand why we have to burn them," my sister murmured with a transfixed shake of her head. The tears hadn't arrived yet.

Flash.

My sister would become a zombie when she felt anxious. She'd freeze. Her eyes would simply glare at something a million miles away and she'd stop listening to what you were saying. It was her defense mechanism; if a threatening gesture passed her by, she'd immediately clam up. I guess the logic behind it was if you're going to become dead, you might as well become the living dead.

I sometimes wondered what far away place she was staring at.

"In many cultures, cremation symbolizes the overall consummation of one's life. These were once objects of your worship; they deserve a proper sending-off." Cindy knelt next to us, never once lifting one of her well-manicured fingers to help us sift through the heaps of text. Never once looking at me. "Or maybe you'd prefer a burial?"

Flash.

"She'd probably just dig them up," I said as if my sister was deaf. In a way, in her state of mind, she was.

Cindy stood back up. As if her nostrils were cross hairs; like the bridge of her nose were sights on a gun, she glared down at me. My sister continued to stack books like an autistic simpleton.

"You know, Melvin, as Velouria's psychiatrist, it is my job to pinpoint all the factors in her life that are responsible for her behavior. It's like cancer; sometimes it's spurred on by a tumor, but after a certain point, not even removing that tumor will do away with the disease; sometimes you have to cut off an arm or leg." She rummaged through her pockets, lit a cigarette, exhaled smoke and resumed.

"There is really no one culprit here, you see; it's just a mixture of many things that eat away at her mind. But I have to say, from what I've observed, from what I've heard, I consider you to be the most fucking cancerous, malignant tumor in her life." With squinted eyes, she pointed at me, accused me with the tip of her cigarette as she said this.

"That's why, as a part of her treatment, she will no longer have contact with you. From this day forward. We've discussed it and we both agree that it's for the better." Velouria awoke from her deep gaze and looked up at her with worry.

"It's temporary, of course. Until she gets better," Cindy said as a reluctant promise.

Flash.

I looked up at her gaping nostrils and smirked. She moved to the fireplace and rested her elbow on the mantle to breathe more fire. Returning to her happy place, like some robot librarian, Velouria just continued foraging for more books from the starving bookshelves that surrounded us. I treated my sister like she was deaf because she so often acted like she was deaf.

She hummed that same stupid fucking song she always hummed. I remember it pretty well. When dad was kicking mom's ass she would just stand there and hum. When dad was on top of her, she'd just lay there and hum. Even when I pulled the trigger with my thirteen-year-old fingers and blew his fucking head off, she just sat there and hummed.

I suppose if you hum loud enough, you can ignore anything.

Cindy, you're a cunt. You know it, I know it. The problem is, I'm afraid my little sister here doesn't know it. I'm afraid that, once again, she is going to cling on to a stronger person than herself and call it love or friendship. I'm afraid that you're going to manipulate her and twist her until you get what you want out of her, whatever it may be. And yet, people have called me a heartless brother because I treat her with a little dignity and respect, because I don't pity her. In the end, I'll be the only one that hasn't hurt her. At least, that's what I wanted to say. But I didn't. I just kept silent, continued smiling and shook my head.

"You actually think what you did didn't hurt her?" She must've read my mind. My grin had melted away. That's when I kept silent for the rest of the night.

Velouria would eventually snap out of it. She always did. With a little bit of time she'd return. She'd hug me and cry and thank me and cry some more. Dad's brains clinging to the wall. She'd even tell me on occasions that the only reason why she'd return, why she'd come back, is because of me. Otherwise, she said, she'd just stay in that humming abyss forever.

Flash. I don't know why, I'm not sure what compelled me to do this, but I took a picture of Cindy; of her slouched, bony form, resting against the brick fire-pit. Of Satan's queen. I suppose, I wanted that photo for some future date. I knew it would come in handy, it had to. Somehow, someway, when something is framed differently, when an image is captured in just the right light, the true beast within everyone comes out. Maybe Velouria would see this picture and realize. A crime had taken place and it was Cindy.

But poor Velouria just kept on with her business. Ignoring us. Humming.

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Now playing: Pixies - Is She Weird
via FoxyTunes

On Infinity and Perpetuation

2008-08-12T12:35:00.002-07:00

Infinity

Infinity is not necessarily the perfect word to describe that which it refers to; after all, it is but a word and as such it is in itself finite. It can only be thought of via proxy, in purely hyperbolic terms. But still, we finite minds with our finite languages, both of which are vastly incapable of comprehending infinity, must make due with such inconsistencies and impart some referential conceptualizations to the vast unknown in order to acknowledge its existence.

Infinity, thus, can best be described within the confines of language as that which contrasts to everything that is finite. It is the abysmal expanse of time and space that is unquantifiable. It marches in dimensions and, possibly, universes apart from those which we have grown accustomed to. To truly understand infinity with such departures from the finite frameworks we have so feebly constructed, we must evaluate finiteness itself.

Finiteness is, bluntly put, a delusion. It is a product of conscious entities (of whom are in themselves perceptively finite) that have been evolutionarily manufactured to quantify surrounding infinity. To properly conceive of this, one might think of an apple. If one were to cut the apple in half, it would cease being a whole finite apple and transform into two finite half-apples. One could thereafter cut these halves into subsequent fourths and those fourths into subsequent eighths, ad infinitum. Such a continuum of transformations are purely renditions of the mind. Every finite conception of a fraction dissolves into infinite regress; into fractals.

So in this manner, everything can either be broken down into infinity, or compiled together into infinity, making any and all finite concepts, values, and demarcations solely contingent upon the contexts (i.e., the subjective, mental templates we frame the world within) from which they derive. As a result, since we are finite image-concepts in the same way that staplers are, we too are provisional and defined by the socially constructed contexts we exist in.

Being fully animate objects, we harbor one thing inanimate objects lack: consciousness. Even so, we are profoundly limited in our degree of consciousness, much in the same way angles are limited in their degrees. Some angles are more obtuse or more acute than others; some consciousnesses are more aware and project a wider scope of cognizance than others. Like the vertex of an angle, a consciousness acts as point in time and space. Such perspectives are characterized by, not only the limitations of its encompassing perceptive abilities, but also the limitations of the very locality in space-time from which its awareness emanates.

Thus, we can imagine ourselves as tiny angular entities moving about within our contextual social and physical dimensions. Such dimensions are just stratas of perception, acting as another limitation of our awareness. Since other cognitive creatures such as alligators and ants work in much more acute levels of interaction, they are less conscious than us. This lower level of consciousness can be differentiated as a separate magnitude of sentience.

So our finiteness is defined by our very juxtaposition to infinity itself. But since infinity is a value that is unknowable (∞), and since the finite (x) is a reciprocal of infinity, the finite's ontology, and its very condition of finiteness can never be properly established as so long as infinity remains infinite (x/∞ is an unsolvable equation.). Since cavemen who would collapse into infinite regressive tangents were not particularly conducive to evolution, we evolved an extraordinary talent for adhering to self-induced delusions, to suspend ourselves in a finite and, more importantly, a pliable world. God is a perfect example of this. Given that it is much easier to delineate a value for a finite object if it reciprocates a known value, i.e., a context, then God is a convenient way of condensing infinity into finiteness, simply making it into the context to end all contexts.

As a comparative allegory, one might imagine a man sitting atop a hill, in front of and facing a tree. Being a finite object and utterly insulated by his own perspective, the man is limited in how much of the tree he is able to observe. Located on one side of it, he would never be able to witness the opposite angle of the tree unless he were to abandon his current post and, resultantly, his current point-of-view. Not only that, but as he gazes about he notices that every single finite object that surrounds him, including the tree, in some obscures his vision. Were it that he were blessed with even the slightest magnitude of omniscience, he would be able to perceive through the sediments and layers of obscuring finite objects, into the void of infinity. But since he withholds no such powers, he simply resorts to living in a world that is staged by obfuscating finite objects, regressing into the idiomatic contexts that accompany such an inundated world.

Perpetuation

Because evolution was, for all intensive purposes, the first proprietor of teleology, it is imperative to understand its overall goals. As cellular bodies coagulated into larger and more complex organisms, autonomy so too grew in magnitude (after all, a single-celled amoeba is autonomous in as much as a kangaroo is, even though some of the cells that comprise a kangaroo may be larger than the amoeba). This autonomy is characterized by a simple clustering of self-proliferating DNA; a primordial, finite unit of 'self', if you will. It is evolution's intent to breed successful species of reproducing, finite, autonomous organisms. This is perpetuation.

Perpetuation is probably the most basic and foundational instincts in evolution's instinctual repertoire. It pervades all living creatures and is paramount to the existence of all subsequent generations reproduced in any given species. Perpetuation underpins every animal's psyche, every plant's cellular structure, and every bacteria's DNA. In truth, it is the reflection of Nietzsche's will to power when applied to living organisms (while the will to power itself encompasses all of finite existence itself, inanimate objects and animate objects included).

Being such a fundamental functionality of evolution, pretty much all creatures can owe whatever psychological predispositions they possess to the perpetual affirmation. As a result, it is not only the drive to procreate and self-perpetuate one's genes, but also the drive to perpetuate that which is conducive to such self-perpetuation. This includes whatever social structures, however complex, certain species formulate (this, of course, includes us) and the development of various behaviors and tendencies (some of which solidify into instincts unto themselves). In the same way that fishes can, and have in the past, spawn legs to adapt to a terrestrial environment, so too can an animal's mind spawn new cognitive processes to adapt to unfamiliar environments.

The way in which this applies to the human species is particularly complex. While simpler, more finite, less conscious creatures are fairly direct in their manifestation of perpetuation (i.e., simple procreation), we perpetuate extremely abstract and subjective concepts as well as objects as well as ourselves/genes.

One might imagine a caveman who is maniacally searching for firewood to fuel a campfire. For him, his very survival (and, thus, his potential to self-perpetuation) is contingent upon the perpetuation of the fire; as soon as the fire goes out, a pack of hungry wolves will converge upon him from the darkness. In this way, the caveman becomes obsessed with fueling/perpetuating the flames.

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Text

2008-08-06T18:36:00.003-07:00

The cursor blinks incessantly,
Waiting,
Hoping to scribble letters against a blank void;
A blank void it can't help but hate.

With grand fury, the cursor spews and spawns.
A breathless pitter-patter of letters and semicolons,
Soldiers in the war between the lines.

Line for line,
Gutter after gutter,
The blank world imbues,
Injects,
Incriminates.

The dotted i's,
The crossed t's,
The hole-perforated e's,
The grinning u's,
All taunts at a maddening cursor.

More and faster,
It spreads its children over the screen,
Like spilled alphabet soup.
It even plunders the helpless margins.

It machine-guns credit reports,
Sports articles,
Lol's,
Erotic literature,
This poem,
All an attempt to defy a vacuous enemy.

A sea of a new color takes hold.
Defiance becomes authority.
And all that remains of the blank void,
All that survived,
Is tiny line of pixelation.

It quivers in its defeat,
A strenuous palpitation,
Until,
Like nothing ever happened,
It blinks.

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The Dark Knight: Movie Review

2008-07-29T13:33:00.013-07:00

Mythologies, legends, and archetypes have been cultivated by every known society since the beginning of human history, serving as the heroes, villains, and dreamscapes for a certain people in their time and place. It could be said that the proverbial Odin or Zeus of our day is the Dark Knight himself, Batman. Likewise, the insidious Loki can be portrayed by the equally insidious Joker. All the while, the stage upon which the satyrs performed is by today's measure film canisters and comic book shelves.

So in order for anyone to properly project these gods of our time onto the silver screen without scuffing their good name, one must dig deeply into society's collective psyche; to excavate for whatever cultural nerve it is that these mythos tickle. Sometimes, however, society moves in a new direction and so too does the stigmata. Where the over-the-top, Gothic aesthetics of Tim Burton and the borderline campy, neon-inundated visuals of Joel Schumacher once twinged that old familiar appeal, we, as a Batman-loving audience, have matured; and a mature Batman movie is what we needed.

2005's Batman Begins delivered with a sucker-punch impact only Chris Nolan could pull off. His mythical directing style and Christian Bale's flawless performance gave way for a new hope, a new found optimism, if you will. We knew all too well that that was but a mere entrée, preceding the oh-so-delicious main course to come. This summer's The Dark Knight was emancipated upon the world like a tidal wave. Powered by a nuclear-reactor of media hype, jizz-my-shorts-anticipation, and the unfortunate and untimely death of Heath Ledger, the crater left by this film is still giving off smoke.

With a runtime of about 152 minutes, this flick reaches some pretty epic proportions. Chris Nolan, along with his brother Jonathon, did what he knows best here and totally geared up his ultra thematic screenwriting; while the previous Batman centered around the concepts of fear and justice, The Dark Knight completely surrounds the ideas of corruption, control, and chaos, and how they are intertwined with one another in a scummy Gotham backdrop.

Visually speaking, the movie is nothing short of stunning; Nolan fully delivers the same beige-tinted, twilight aesthetic he tantalized us with in the last film. The musical score has also been bolstered with a tension-mounting siren that has been interspersed throughout the more captivating scenes to keep your molars in a churning rhythm. Another happy addition to the series is the alterations made in ol' Batty's suit; it has been accommodated to allow for his neck to actually move which was, in past films, a rather bothersome distraction.

Christian Bale's performance was superb as was expected from his last venture as the caped crusader. Unlike Kilmer, Clooney, and Keaton, he manages to keep Bruce Wayne's feet firmly grounded in reality, making him seem rather goal-oriented and entrepreneurial. This contrasts with Batman's past portrayals as a so-what costume-clad fool, prancing about with no real long term foresight. In this, Bruce Wayne is quick to drop the whole Batman charade at the first sign of Gotham not needing him. To him, Batman is just a necessary evil. One thing that irked me with Bale's acting here is his incessant use of a far-flung, Menthol-rasped voice for Batman, which didn't seem as profound in the last movie.

While it's easy for the deaths of actors in Hollywood to incite whirlwinds of too much hype and exaggeration, Heath Ledger offered a performance that climbed above even the highest of expectations, including my own. Ledger seemingly lived out the life of the lazy-eyed, lip-smacking, serial-killer clown, rendering even Jack Nicholson's lively take on the role into a mere impersonation. The movie never elaborates on the Joker's back story, something Hollywood seems all too obsessed with doing these days. I won't go into too much detail so as not to spoil a glorious rendition that must be witnessed first-hand, but I will say that Ledger could have lived to be one-hundred-years-old and this performance still would have outlived him.

Of course, we can't ignore the supporting cast. I certainly didn't miss Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawe; Maggie Gyllenhaal sweeps through the movie as somewhat of a breath fresh air. Aaron Eckhart plays a vivacious Harvey Dent, conjuring up the same politician's smile he did in Thank You for Smoking. Michael Caine returns as the ever-venerable Alfred Pennyworth, dutifully injecting the character with dimension and likability. While Morgan Freeman's Lucius Fox, alongside Alfred, acted as a voice of reason and conscience to Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins, I feel that his overall presence here isn't as necessary and has become more of a filler. Gary Oldman continues his role as James Gordon who is a pivotal character in the story arc despite being somewhat forgettable in Oldman's performance.

In truth, I think there are two major things this movie owes its success to: a plot line that encompasses a modern day epic tale of mythology, reverential to the iconography and symbolism that Batman withholds; and the clear-sighted understanding of what the Batman-audience has grown into over the years, never pandering to us kitschy nostalgia or force-feeding us a dimwitted story. This is certainly no kids movie and I felt myself having to suspend less disbelief than I predicted. It's characters, setting, and events were totally believable and seem particularly reflective of the sort of world we currently live in. While Heath Ledger's performance is the sort of smack in the face we've been waiting for, he by no means "stole" any of the scenes, let alone the movie. Even without him, I feel that this film would have still prospered. In the end, however, this movie is simply a juggernaut, a colossal converging of amazing talents that aimed to produce a truly sublime cinematic experience.

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I, Shield

2008-07-22T13:01:00.007-07:00

I feel weird. Bullets and Molotov cocktails once whizzed by my metal frame, now I'm a pillow for the tear-moistened cheek of a crying woman.

I shield soldiers, soldiers shield society, society shields this woman, and somehow I'm supposed to feel consolation in that.

I don't.

I simply barricade. I simply demarcate imaginary lines that wouldn't exist if man didn't exist. I make delusions into reality.

And how do you suppose I feel about this? It doesn't really matter because I'm just another inanimate object. But, you know, people forget that they too were once inanimate clumps and they will one day return to inanimate clumps.

Just once I'd like to switch effacements; to embrace that poor woman the same way she embraces me. Instead, I'm forced to impart unquestioning armament to this man who probably has less thoughts than I do.

From the corporals to the corporeal, all is an attrition between the dead and the dying.

Funny Games: Movie Review

2008-07-20T16:20:00.012-07:00

Sometimes there comes a movie that doesn't behave as other movies do. Instead of accentuating the standard plots, themes, and events that is expected by most, it simply portrays a sequence of happenings. It just is. Funny Games is one such film.

Funny Games is a verbatim remake of the 1997 Austrian movie of the same name, and tells the tale of a small upper-class family and the two oddball characters they encounter while vacationing at their beautiful and yet eerily isolated summer villa. From there the sadism ensues, what with the sort of sick and twisted, devil-may-care house invasion that rivals even that of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange in its disturbing depictions.

The gore is surprisingly minimal in this horror flick, with a more acute emphasis on the premise of house guests who won't leave. It begins somewhat slow but immediately picks up as soon as the two adolescent villains make their appearance. From then on it takes you on a pretty vigorous ride which to my irritation is stopped short somewhat awkwardly by excessive indie-experimentation.

I'm not sure what exactly the writers were trying to do but they certainly managed to be far more ballsy than any dimwitted Hollywood joint that panders to its audience like it was constituted of infants, which is something I like. However, these movie-makers go a bit far in their transgressions; they fail to realize the difference between teasingly disregarding the audience's preconceived notions and being downright mean. Making allusions that simply result in red herrings and dishing out exhilarating tension that only leads to anticlimax isn't even the kind of slap in the face Tarantino would dare.

It's rather obvious these guys were trying to imitate Tarantino, utilizing extremely long-lasting camera shots that would make even the most patient of individuals piss their pants in anticipation. I felt like a crack junkie, yearning for the next scene's arrival like it were my next fix. There was no musical score to speak of (aside from off-the-wall heavy metal used in the credits and one of the chase scenes) which certainly added to the minimalist, teeth-grinding tension.

Naomi Watts proved her acting skills here, completely stealing many of the scenes even when wearing nothing but a bloodied, vomit-covered cardigan vest and looking her worst. Meanwhile Tim Roth, respectable in his own right, was somewhat forgettable with his more stoic approach to his role. What scenes Watts didn't take, Michael Pitt was sure to hijack along with the family as he plays the sinister golfer that coordinates the night's heinous, aristocratic delinquency; at times sharing his satisfaction by addressing the audience with an evil wink or rhetorical question.

While it seems that this movie was trying to achieve an unapologetically, unprecedented level of sadism, not only to its protagonists, but to its audience as well, I think it paid a heavy price in doing so. Near the end, all that can be felt is aggravation as it seems that the writers were gleefully tantalizing you the whole time with worse tortures than the characters went through. Next time they should just keep the cruelty behind the fourth wall.

Scar Tissue

2008-07-20T12:46:00.010-07:00

Much has been lost along with the blood. But the skin, we forget about the skin--the skin that wraps our torsos, the skin that strangulates our necks, the skin that gloves our hands is irreplaceable. Such flesh is precious and unmarred at birth.

Until afflicted.

Until abrasions scoop away its mass, until time stretches it into thin oblivion, until knives, bullets, blades, and nails reveal what it so vigorously attaches itself to.

It becomes scar tissue. Sinewy, lithe formations that are vastly inferior to its predecessors just as cellophane is inferior to Kevlar. Bubbled up to cover the unclothed spots, even though it neither keeps its contents warm nor protected.

Opaque like palpitating geckos and frogs.

It adds up too.

Little by little it germinates exteriors like a mossy glaze, transforming into reptilian monstrosities. It devolves. A new Jurassic epoch on its way, being rendered by the monotonous accumulation of fatty skin scuffs. Silky decadence suspended briefly turns to paleolithic dinosaur leather bred to survive the vicissitudes.

Spoiled milk spilled with tears.

Hello, Gun

2008-07-10T16:48:00.008-07:00

Hello, gun, my old friend. I see you're at your old tricks again.

You seem as indifferent as usual. Almost complacent really, especially in the face of what is to come. When he pulls the trigger. When the trigger releases the hammer. When the hammer slams face first into the primer. The bullet spiraling down the grooved cave, heading towards the light at the end of the tunnel until...

Birth. Life. Death. All in the same moment.

Tell me, gun, how does it feel? How does it feel to be handled by a person with such exactitude; with such confidence? What's it like to mother a race of hollow-tipped children who's only fate is to become mere shells of their former selves?

I guess I should ask the same thing to the man who shot me.

After all, isn't there a cause, a creed, somewhere out there that is pulling his trigger the same way he is pulling yours? In the end it seems to be a complex contraption with a simple purpose. The politician rants, the fists fly into the air, the screams bellow.

The trigger pulls.

The hammer falls.

The bullet spirals.

My body hemorrhages.

And I, gun, what of I? I am born, I live, and I die, all in a split second.

The Beach

2008-06-22T15:40:00.003-07:00

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.

Transcendental Nihilism

2008-06-22T15:39:00.012-07:00

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.

The Dead and the Dying: Chapter 1, v1.0

2008-06-22T15:37:00.056-07:00

"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?"

2008-06-22T15:06:00.000-07:00

The beginnings of what could be a trivial, dead-end enterprise or a satisfying project, let's see where this blog takes us.