Least Aware

Perhaps the word comes to mind more often than it should, but vanity is appealing because it is visceral. It's so visceral that I can't even touch it with the tongue that I speak with, or the hands that I type with, or the feet that I walk with. I suspect that vanity is buried beneath everything we know to be evil but believe to be good. Our belief has buried vanity. It's not that we've even buried the evil of vanity, we've just buried the truth of our actions. But we don't see the truth because we believe that the truth doesn't want us to believe what we ought to. With the loss of truth comes the loss of ... I don't know how to talk about the truth.

Isn't it funny how we're all so black and white? We're comics, or at least, we try to be comics. That's what makes a good man in the 21st century, humor and cheer. An abode of delight and distraction. It's not often that I think about laughter. It's never made sense to me nor has it not made sense to me. Why should I feel pressure to be funny? The closest thing to laughter is either heavy breathing or asphyxia. Is laughter an in-situation veneer for future mourning?

It's interesting how we mature so that we can reach such "beloved destinations," yet when we make it to these places we become children again. I'm not sure if I'm simply jealous of the romantics or if I'm just unimpressed? Observantly speaking, when people engage in romantic moments they become so very juvenile; juvenile in a way that they cannot be when they are on their own. The regress, the oddity, the naivety ... maybe if I keep writing I'll never worry about romantic relationships again? Real romance is even worse than Harlequin. And why do outsiders feel so inclined as to love the lovers? Lovers don't need love like the healthy don't need doctors, and like the anxious don't need fear, and like the depressed don't need gloom, and like the snakes don't need scales, and like the birds don't need feathers, and like the poor don't need less. 

It's frightening when you see the purpose of your existence. Being without purpose might be unsatisfying, but seeing your purpose is overwhelming. When you can only think of one thing that seems meaningful, one thing that will bring you joy, and it turns out that it's something that you don't even really want.

It seems so foolish to me that tolerance is thought of as being "progressive." From my understanding, tolerance is used to try and escape the scenarios of being offended or offending others, yet it's this constant feeding of downright offense. We become trolls with tangled hair and grubby hands, as we feed both ourselves and others with the ugliness that we call "tolerance."

Do humans crave tragedy? Do humans crave that which is epic? Do humans crave terror? Do humans crave horror? It's very honorable that we sit in front of TVs and watch people being killed with machine guns. It's very honorable that we enjoy ideations of pain, or worse yet, actual pain. It's very honorable that we laugh at jokes that God probably finds abominable. "Oh, but those television shows and movies, they're just fictional. It's all in good fun." Is fiction more important than ethics?

And here I am, a bourgeois character sitting behind a keyboard, likely writing about things that I don't have enough knowledge or piety to write about. But, at the very least, I am aware of that.

Margaret Atwood, you were right.