Apr 12, 2013 03:09
The dreamfasting is a double edged sword, but if there is any time to benefit from it, it's now. I can't say it was my fault for being who I was... I mean whose fault could it have been? Everything contributed, even people whose fault it wasn't for giving me what they could, and a society that perpetuated things that simply couldn't hold. In that sense, it's probably a good thing that society has crumbled, knowing that it is finding itself able to build itself back up anew. I can't believe how much of a monstrous, nasty, arrogant, thoughtless, heartless son of a bitch I actually was... and feeling like the magic was a justification. It's incredible. Some of the things I'd written have me absolutely gobsmacked, and in the long run, I feel like I must have deserved the suffering I've gone through. But how can that be?
It's hard to know how to make sense of it. I look back and have thought of moments that were too indulgent, too ridiculous, but now I can't help but feel like I actually *was* an evil bastard. My attitudes, my callousness... perhaps evil is too strong of a word, and frankly, innocence is a massive factor, but in the grand scope of things there is no justification for an ignorant kind of evil. Which is strange, because I know I was so good too - that my heart was good, that I wanted nothing but the best for people, kindness, support, love and thriving for all, and yet some seed had been planted in me to freely look down on everything and everyone. I just read an entry where I condemned suicide so thoroughly, demeaned the person in question flagrantly without knowing them, and then ridiculed and argued to the floor somebody who had the nerve to speak up against me who had lost a friend to suicide recently. And yet, I wasn't the only one; everybody was agreeing with me, and it was unpopular opinion to think otherwise. Not that one should support suicide, but... being so cold and assuming that anyone who could suffer was not worth it anyway? Jesus Christ... there's no excusing that.
And yet there was a truth to my brisk attitude that got results in everything I did. It simply wasn't endowed with any intelligence or tact that experience had to offer it, and now that I have the experience to grasp the wisdom necessary to value the entire spectrum of life (so far as I know at this point), the drive is far more of an issue. Is this the essential conundrum? We must praise the cold-hearted machines who can get the job done, but who are adroit of the sanctity of life other than their capacity for self-appraisal? To think that shelter could be a weapon... it's unthinkable and yet I lived it. It explains, I suppose, how in my coming of conscience, it took years for me to grasp a concept or project that could be worth dedicating my life to, something that could somehow aspire to making the world a better place instead of succeeding so wholly in spite of it. And yet my thoughts and attitudes about creativity were spot on, smarter than I even remember having been. Perhaps I *was* the golden idol kid... at all costs, he says, at all costs.
Logan's mother spoke of how my visitation with a nature spirit was a harbinger of great change... but certainly I have already gone through it. Now I come to a point where I sacrifice all of my youthful ideals in the hopes of making life better for those who cannot have the strength to do it themselves... though of course, it is not so philanthropic a cause as to succeed so clearly. It is just a reminder, and perhaps a guide. Perhaps only a vital echo.
Suddenly I understand William Golding so much better, the callousness of youth and inexperience. If my past self had known how much time I was going to spend wishing I was dead, what would I have thought of myself, or of the world? Or was I taught to be that? Was it merely that I stared into the world's painted mask face, beautiful and deadly... but no, the signs were always there. There was simply no way I could ever have interpreted them, and even then, I thrust myself into pain knowing there was something for me to find, something essential that our society had blocked out unjustly. Some part of me knew there was something wrong, no matter how proud and arrogant and psychopathic I probably actually was. And yet, innocent of it all, and not to blame.
Why do I feel like money is at the root of this? Oh yes, because the greatest injustices of all still perpetuate themselves. But that is another rant for another time.
Evil but not evil, but that's all in the past. I fear for my future, as I make my stand. But how could I live with myself if I did not?
The irony is that it was my search for greatness that brought me to understand my own flaws. For one cannot pretend that your work is great if it lacks that which makes it great... and the search for what that means will bring you to too many places to ignore...