On Society and the Most Beautiful Thing in the World

Hey world. HEY! I’m talking to you! You got some explaining to do my friend. What’s that you say? I’m not your friend? Don’t you see something wrong with that? … Hey, hey! Pay attention for a second. Should you not be my friend? Should you not be everyone’s friend?

And while you’re thinking about that, I have something to say.

I can stand a few things. Take a look at my life and see that it’s, all things considered, pretty nice. I’ll give you that much. And so far as I can see, for most people, basic needs-wise, you do a pretty good job. But when it comes to really taking care of people, really going the whole nine yards for the intrinsic good, you’re for shit. I got a bone to pick, and I’ll tell ya which one.

Do you know that feeling you get when you know somebody, or you just met them, or the feeling suddenly comes upon you when this person you’re interaction with, this human being, through all layers of psychosis and fear and anxiety, trepidation and introversion, and self-loathing and other-loathing, and all those mental bits and pieces of junk floating around; you know that feeling when you actually “see” or are “touched” or you “feel”; that is, okay, there’s this person, right, and you’ve already washed your mind of the spiritual and you know that we’re all made up of these natural processes and the soul is a just a fuzzy word that makes people feel good, and you’re thinking, ” What more is there to any of this?” and you start to think that the whole world is just this amalgam of delusion, even when you examine yourself, which inevitably results in a perpetual feedback loop that crashes and restarts, not unlike what is to be expected if a machine attempted the same thing, and there’s little else for any of us besides this tiny corner of the universe, where it’s impossible to place any empirical significance (besides the fact of observation, though how that makes significance is a very murky concept, too murky for deductive reasoning, and more than likely results in the same perpetual feedback loop that brings the introverted human mind to its knees in the first place, but now on a species-wide scale), where others’ death is ever-present and yours inevitable, where the best deeds and greatest acts go unrewarded, while the worst are praised, where character makes one an outcast and the masses are most disgustingly unwashed, figuratively, and approval is entirely dependent on those wretched creatures; you know, when you see the world “as is” and it’s revolting? When you get all caught up in that; and then as you see it and you’re trying to make sense of how to spend your life in this dismal place, and you’re making plans to let go all hope and let cynicism take hold and you don’t see any hope for a damn thing and sending the whole Comedy to hell would be a good deed in and of itself? You know?

But then there’s this person, right? And you’re trying to figure it out because there’s something else there behind the scenes, behind all the trappings and quirks and nervousness and circus and all that, behind the fireworks, because when you squint you can see someone lighting them off. You can see, you feel there’s someone or something else there, there’s something else going on, and then you squint further, and you pull out binoculars and you shield your peripherals, and you listen for when that person says something. Because whatever that is, whatever that feeling is, whatever it is going on behind the scenes, shut up on the other side of the facade, you don’t know, you can’t put your finger on it to place it in some category, and it’s not showing up in any controlled experiments, and it’s woefully absent from most people, and there’s no qualification, there’s no adjective you can assign to it, you can hardly say any single thing with certainty. Nothing at all, but… beautiful.

It’s the most beautiful thing on this earth. And I think the word they use is “soul”, and it’s a pretty good one. I have to consider myself lucky, ultimately, to have seen one, and hope’s worth to see one again. It’s been a joy, and it always will be. And if I could do it justice in words, I would, but there’s little to be said for what one can only experience. This thing, which is so beautiful as indescribable, this thing so fucking opulent as to make the Pope blush, this thing which may be our greatest gift and asset in this world. This thing, modern world, you trample and spit on. You tear it limb from limb and throw into the river. This thing you hate with all your might. This thing which the enlightened seek you work against, you subdue, you destroy, you ransack and leave naked and ragged and broken in your wake. And the more beautiful it is, the less mercy you display. And as much as I wish it were that simple, that there was ONLY the massive machine that churned us through and spit us out, that those neorational, soulless institutions and systems we’ve created; if it were only them, it could be helped. We could work to understand the unknown machines, change them to better suit us, to bring the best out of us, to ensure happy and active and harmonious lives; we could rewrite the laws and adjust our policies and lift animalistic conditions of labor and struggle for survival, but no. It is not so simple. For the most beautiful souls are not destroyed by the machines or the systems, they are mercilessly gutted by the “family” about them. They are murdered by their fellow man, and in close proximity. Not as of a bomb dropped from a plane, nor an arrow fired on the battlefield, or even shot with a pistol on the streets. They keep in close confidence for years, slide up on the victim unsuspecting, and stab them in the back.

So, fuck you modern world, and fuck you jealous, spiteful, arrogant, twisted, bitter, cynical, hateful, nihilistic, materialistic, usurping, subduing, dubious, underhanded snakes and destroyers of the most beautiful thing in the world.