An old rant I found...
...not that anyone is reading it, but what the hell. I haven't really vented at how I feel about life in general in oh, a couple of days, so here is an old one. The file dates back to when my life was much worse... But at the same time, it only reappeared in my hands because of my fiance digging around her parents' place. Here goes.
"A Rant" (file dated 8/20/2002.) - I feel dumb reading how bad this is, but eh, maybe someone else will derive pleasure from it.
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A Rant
Realism is a double edged sword. I’ve only recently begun to give credence to this fact. For one, I hate sheep. And by saying so, I’m referring to all of those individuals who blindly follow whoever seems to be the best leader at the given moment, without first considering if /they/ might be that leader. But on the other side of the coin, I love them. These desperately moldable individuals cry out in any situation where they’re like deer in headlights, offering props to those who offer to pull them clear. I’m one such individual; I have a tendency (albeit not altogether one which is moral to the few that notice) to take advantage of those less intelligent than myself to further my own goals.
However, I’ve begun to think nature left a narrow gap for those with similar views to slither clear of disasters, and to out-survive all but the most fanatically optimistic leaders, and their flocks. Over time, since puberty kicked in when I was 11 years old, I’ve had hundreds of dreams. A majority of these dreams have contained primal essences of what it is to be human. Some of them were of running through a wooded valley, chasing a stag with only a knife in my hands, and my skin to protect me. Others were recreations of events that never occurred, showing me how easily in some situations it would be to pull a punch before it connects with my best friends face; forcing me on occasion to realize things like 1) the ability to enjoy violence, or 2) a chase fueled only by adrenaline…
I’m beginning to see the world in this new light, and coming to realize that humanity has it in inside to be so much more than intellectually brilliant herbivores. Wolves coexist among each other, the strong leading the weak through their lives and relying on one another. This happens because flaws are recognized, not because of inferiority complexes, or the laziness which is pervading /our/ culture.
I lead because I have the initiative to do so, and I lead because I want meat. I want the fruits, the core of existence. I want to taste the strong coppery flavor of the lifeblood, like ambrosia. I want to bathe in the spoils of war. But alas… followers these days are sheep. In times past heroes gathered around the strongest, in order to survive. Stories that through time became legends, started as one strong individual gathering those that were useful, around a cause that needed war.
With the advent of television, we became more intelligent. We began to more perfectly share information (and later we perfected it entirely, online). But at the same time, we became less likely to get up out of a chair we’ve been sitting in for 6 hours. We no longer get bored of sitting down. We aren’t forced to /find/ something to do. We aren’t forced to be physically active. And traditions, thousands of years of them, are going to waste.
These days, the causes are things like ‘civil rights’, or pro-life, or anti-corporal-punishment. Where have the days gone of fighting to survive on a daily basis? Or having to become better in order to simply eat? Humanity crawled up out of some cesspit of stupidity only to become lax and happy with what we’ve made. Nobody tries now. People aren’t striving forward for goals that are ephemeral and impossible. With giving up on “what’s not important” and trying to be nice, and happy, and perfectly co-existent, we’ve taken away one of the key parts of who we are.
People, as a whole, now graze in fields of pre-processed food, and hunt /only/ for our vices. We’ve become so lax in maintaining our culture /as/ animals, and spent so much time trying to re-examine our /past/ glories, that we are starting to forget what we still /are/. This means that as further time passes, we’ll focus more on what we can’t let our children listen to because somebody with larger proverbial balls is telling us it’s bad, and we’ll fight only when someone /tells/ us we have an enemy.
We go to war, we kill, we destroy, we maim, we slap a bill on the target and we go home. In the meantime, since we don’t /care/ about changing what we /have/, we don’t strive forward, we don’t abolish things that are holding us back… People continue to graze on what we have, forgetting their dreams, relying on others to tell them what to do.
I say abolish those things that hold us back. I say let people whom can’t defend themselves try… And if they fail, they will die. Why? It’ll be because they couldn’t. Not because they didn’t try, but that they instead let others decide for them.
I’m a leader, I’m manipulative, and I’m destructive. I like fatty foods, a drink that burns me up, and music that gives me the urge to break things. I like sex, and I like violence, and I like the ego-driven feeling of power over another creature because I got the better of it. If you killed me, because you were a better survivor, I would applaud you from the afterlife for getting the better of me. I refuse to lose my dreams of running naked through the woods with a knife, or just my bare hands, chasing a creature that is barely faster than me, both of us terrified of the hunt, and exhilarated by the knowledge that one of us is going to die.
In our culture, most of us think that murder is wrong, and that drugs are bad, and that to be a good person we are required to avoid doing anything that might harm our fellow man or woman. In the marathon of our existence, I think the running is what is important. People have spent the last twenty-to-forty years stopping to smell the roses. We’re examining what we’ve done, or what our “enemies” have done, and the possible terrors that might come at us. Biological warfare is possible, nuclear warfare is possible, but so is boredom. I think the most damage that could happen is for the creature being chased to stop running and wonder how it is going to die, and if it should find a Bush to hide in; instead of just running ahead to see what’s on the other side of the next copse of trees.
These are rules to live by:
1. Rely on what /you/ can do to survive.
2. Eat when you are hungry.
3. Screw when you need to.
4. Never let the dreams stop, and revel in the nightmares.
You want to be a patriot? Beat up a crack dealer. You want to help people? Create jobs. You want to change the world? Spend fifty seconds telling someone why it is they feel like they hate themselves. It’s because they do. It’s because they aren’t being who they were meant to be. Tell people to be what they can, not what they’re told to be. The best chance at survival for all of us now is to begin thinking about ourselves first, our loved ones second, and saying to Hell with anyone that would slow us down in our fight to evolve into whatever might come next.
If you let your dreams get too far ahead of you, you’ll never catch them… and you’ll never feed your mind. Much less your soul.
"A Rant" (file dated 8/20/2002.) - I feel dumb reading how bad this is, but eh, maybe someone else will derive pleasure from it.
--------------------------------
A Rant
Realism is a double edged sword. I’ve only recently begun to give credence to this fact. For one, I hate sheep. And by saying so, I’m referring to all of those individuals who blindly follow whoever seems to be the best leader at the given moment, without first considering if /they/ might be that leader. But on the other side of the coin, I love them. These desperately moldable individuals cry out in any situation where they’re like deer in headlights, offering props to those who offer to pull them clear. I’m one such individual; I have a tendency (albeit not altogether one which is moral to the few that notice) to take advantage of those less intelligent than myself to further my own goals.
However, I’ve begun to think nature left a narrow gap for those with similar views to slither clear of disasters, and to out-survive all but the most fanatically optimistic leaders, and their flocks. Over time, since puberty kicked in when I was 11 years old, I’ve had hundreds of dreams. A majority of these dreams have contained primal essences of what it is to be human. Some of them were of running through a wooded valley, chasing a stag with only a knife in my hands, and my skin to protect me. Others were recreations of events that never occurred, showing me how easily in some situations it would be to pull a punch before it connects with my best friends face; forcing me on occasion to realize things like 1) the ability to enjoy violence, or 2) a chase fueled only by adrenaline…
I’m beginning to see the world in this new light, and coming to realize that humanity has it in inside to be so much more than intellectually brilliant herbivores. Wolves coexist among each other, the strong leading the weak through their lives and relying on one another. This happens because flaws are recognized, not because of inferiority complexes, or the laziness which is pervading /our/ culture.
I lead because I have the initiative to do so, and I lead because I want meat. I want the fruits, the core of existence. I want to taste the strong coppery flavor of the lifeblood, like ambrosia. I want to bathe in the spoils of war. But alas… followers these days are sheep. In times past heroes gathered around the strongest, in order to survive. Stories that through time became legends, started as one strong individual gathering those that were useful, around a cause that needed war.
With the advent of television, we became more intelligent. We began to more perfectly share information (and later we perfected it entirely, online). But at the same time, we became less likely to get up out of a chair we’ve been sitting in for 6 hours. We no longer get bored of sitting down. We aren’t forced to /find/ something to do. We aren’t forced to be physically active. And traditions, thousands of years of them, are going to waste.
These days, the causes are things like ‘civil rights’, or pro-life, or anti-corporal-punishment. Where have the days gone of fighting to survive on a daily basis? Or having to become better in order to simply eat? Humanity crawled up out of some cesspit of stupidity only to become lax and happy with what we’ve made. Nobody tries now. People aren’t striving forward for goals that are ephemeral and impossible. With giving up on “what’s not important” and trying to be nice, and happy, and perfectly co-existent, we’ve taken away one of the key parts of who we are.
People, as a whole, now graze in fields of pre-processed food, and hunt /only/ for our vices. We’ve become so lax in maintaining our culture /as/ animals, and spent so much time trying to re-examine our /past/ glories, that we are starting to forget what we still /are/. This means that as further time passes, we’ll focus more on what we can’t let our children listen to because somebody with larger proverbial balls is telling us it’s bad, and we’ll fight only when someone /tells/ us we have an enemy.
We go to war, we kill, we destroy, we maim, we slap a bill on the target and we go home. In the meantime, since we don’t /care/ about changing what we /have/, we don’t strive forward, we don’t abolish things that are holding us back… People continue to graze on what we have, forgetting their dreams, relying on others to tell them what to do.
I say abolish those things that hold us back. I say let people whom can’t defend themselves try… And if they fail, they will die. Why? It’ll be because they couldn’t. Not because they didn’t try, but that they instead let others decide for them.
I’m a leader, I’m manipulative, and I’m destructive. I like fatty foods, a drink that burns me up, and music that gives me the urge to break things. I like sex, and I like violence, and I like the ego-driven feeling of power over another creature because I got the better of it. If you killed me, because you were a better survivor, I would applaud you from the afterlife for getting the better of me. I refuse to lose my dreams of running naked through the woods with a knife, or just my bare hands, chasing a creature that is barely faster than me, both of us terrified of the hunt, and exhilarated by the knowledge that one of us is going to die.
In our culture, most of us think that murder is wrong, and that drugs are bad, and that to be a good person we are required to avoid doing anything that might harm our fellow man or woman. In the marathon of our existence, I think the running is what is important. People have spent the last twenty-to-forty years stopping to smell the roses. We’re examining what we’ve done, or what our “enemies” have done, and the possible terrors that might come at us. Biological warfare is possible, nuclear warfare is possible, but so is boredom. I think the most damage that could happen is for the creature being chased to stop running and wonder how it is going to die, and if it should find a Bush to hide in; instead of just running ahead to see what’s on the other side of the next copse of trees.
These are rules to live by:
1. Rely on what /you/ can do to survive.
2. Eat when you are hungry.
3. Screw when you need to.
4. Never let the dreams stop, and revel in the nightmares.
You want to be a patriot? Beat up a crack dealer. You want to help people? Create jobs. You want to change the world? Spend fifty seconds telling someone why it is they feel like they hate themselves. It’s because they do. It’s because they aren’t being who they were meant to be. Tell people to be what they can, not what they’re told to be. The best chance at survival for all of us now is to begin thinking about ourselves first, our loved ones second, and saying to Hell with anyone that would slow us down in our fight to evolve into whatever might come next.
If you let your dreams get too far ahead of you, you’ll never catch them… and you’ll never feed your mind. Much less your soul.