Have you seen those domino art videos?
They’re really fun, they’re really cool.
I like watching dominoes smash into each other.
It’s neat, it’s messy.
It’s chaos controlled.
It’s form and function.
Domino art is somebody creating an extension of themselves.
To give them credit for the dominoes is really appropriate and ridiculous at once.
I mean it’s largely a matter of mere commitment.
And the way the dominoes move is really up to physics, once they’ve been set up.
(can you feel your head hurting, thinking, what the fuck? don’t detract credit)
When you look at the number one domino art champion on YouTube
your cheeks kind of clench up.
It would be really hard to tell someone
“hey, this is kind of boring and lame”
without the oxygen in your head feeling like it’s been cut off.
If you really like that domino gal, and I were to talk your head off about how
it doesn’t matter if she makes a Pokemon face or whatever
or does some wild Rube Goldberg shit,
or actually somehow makes you forlorn with admiration as the tiles dance about,
and that she’s just exploiting physics and time with a smidge of artistic non-apathy,
you’d probably be upset for a long while.
You’d be fucking mad.
No, I won’t do that, I won’t say that.
I like the domino stuff too. Probably more than most!
But here is my experiment. Here’s a suggestion.
What if all that unbreakable feeling, humble feeling, flexible feeling, fair and decent feeling joy you feel for the domino master,
especially when I insinuated she’s nothing special,
is really at the very core, the fucking center, the raw essence,
of all the shit anyone can do or say or be,
that makes you really really fucking aggravated?!
Think about it deeply. Especially now that you know about the hunterian opiate.
(you did read the previous nine posts, right?)
THAT energy is the type of thing that could inspire some really hideous behaviors.
That fire in your mind. That delicious craving in your chest region.
That state people reach when they lose all words to describe how they feel.
that “holy fuck I can’t believe this person is that eager to invalidate”.
What if all this stuff that irritates you is directly tied to your at your most worthy of self-congratulation?
What if it’s all just one kind of similar emotion?
It’s something like…..wanting to invoke your inner power.
It’s something like….the intersection of mischief and maturity.
It’s something like the undulations in your heart leading to solid actions.
It’s the fucking friction between the purpose of something and the results of something.
It’s connection to other people always being imperfect.
It’s giving value in a way that feels obscene but just right.
Maybe it’s all something similar, something that metamorphoses a whole damn fucking assload.
Everybody can recognize this state. And they almost always call it a person being awesome and badass and interesting,
or belligerent and toxic and pathetic.
Cultural self-congratulation is a legitimate boogeyman too long fought either improperly or not at all.
What makes one group of people look at someone and silently feel, “that’s a real non-asshole, somebody really worth something”
is one that makes another group of people feel “that’s a high tier asshat who deserves zero praise and probably any suffering they get”.
I can say with total fucking confidence that the thinness of this asshole/badass line is a thing humanity has been aching to find a decent fucking explanation for.
If you think I’m being a charlatan, let me hold your face and ask you this.
How many times are you gonna go on the internet and see the same thing over and fucking over?
People trying to confirm whether or not they are the asshole.
Political cartoons that brute force humiliation since they have nothing new to say.
Debates about whether somebody advanced a political cause or tarnished it.
Desperate cries for acts of fair representation in weird situations that people know could just cause more havoc and even indignity.
And the endless bickering about which books and movies and video games are the one that really rises above the rest in terms of quality and worth.
I love it all, you see.
I’m not here to say that people act like duds or tools online.
I’m here to say it’s all about that fire of your heart, that delicious ache in your mind, that makes you feel like something outside of you really does, despite everything, have awesome fucking value.
It’s the type of thing that makes you feel not like a hero, or a great person,
but like you could just hunt for something, anything, and it would be more likely to come true.
So, here’s my gambit. Here’s my mission. For now.
Because I know a lot of you reading this might be confused. Might get up and walk away. Might not care. Might see this whole thing as enlightened centrist trash.
Might simply get bored hearing somebody trying to change FUCKING EVERYTHING.
Here’s the double edge.
Here’s what’s probably my last big attempt.
For those of you who you taste the dilemma…..for those who understand that the thin line between badass and asshole IS indeed humanity’s last major unsolved conflict, move forth.
All others can hit the X button on their browser.
Are you with me, my friend? The experiment, i give!
Do this for me:
Whenever you feel yourself overcome with passion and motivation,
whenever you feel like your eyes are falling out with desire,
when someone else’s malice or folly makes you feel like you could do anything no matter how apparently cruel or sick,
and it would be glorious and interesting, and on a large scale, really righteous and fabulous,
focus not on determining your moral alignment.
Don’t try to do anything deep.
Don’t struggle anymore.
Just try this. Try it as hard as you can.
Think about the domino art people. Just think about what I wrote about them!
And why anyone would give a shit about them, or not give a shit about them, and why the line of that is so endearingly narrow.
That’s what’s in the heart of all the people you hate, in the states that you hate.
An excess of praise backed by acknowledgment of limits.
The stylish exploitation of the very linked and very unlinked nature of all people and objects.
Dare I say, it’s friction of a very human order.
Satisfaction, relief, comfort.
A neat and proper thrill.
A very neat and very proper very thrilling feeling!
I beseech you:
Get inside the head of he or she who makes you burn with anger.
Get there! That’s all you have to do.
See why people feel so neat and proper and thrilled when doing things you consider disgusting and egregious,
just see it for what it is:
(which is, to reiterate, over-valuing while under-valuing, vaguely connecting people to stuff, and feeling just the right kind of inappropriate, with the result being a non-egregious-feeling boldness)
and you’ll become closer to them. You’ll be able to work around them.
You might even be able to get no adrenaline anymore
from those of us who seem to choose to be worthy of hatred.
I’m not gonna call this goal it love or kindness. I’m just going to call it
the will
to tame
the hunter.
That desire to make people not be bitches and bastards.
It will eventually work out if we can just refine it. Refine it!
Overcome that lack of articulation for how we act.
Do it it with my help!
Because I see where the puzzle pieces fit.
What makes a person hot with pride.
Read my blog until it all makes sense.
Until the fire feels truly tamed.
Until “the hunterian opiate” becomes a goddamn meme bound into history.
And taught to adolescents at they become unhinged in their cruelty.
…..
But A more peaceful and pleasant world where nobody is that much of an asshole anymore……will still be agonizing.
There’s a lot that can’t mended.
BUT!
But if I’ve found the words to describe the ways most people act
then I’ve achieved my goal.
So many things I may never achieve, that may never work out.
Even this work itself.
After all, the very vibe of insisting you’re the key to more peace,
is absolutely tied to the hunterian opiate you already have.
It’s a circular endeavor.
Claim you are the key to more goodness and decency and the other person’s heart will stir with that such stern air of exhaustion and appreciation.
You’re feeling a bit wry right now, aren’t you? Stranger reading this post for the first time?
REJECT THAT
and read read read read read read read read
read read read read read read this blog for for me.
No matter how unprofessional it seems, just do it.
I beg you.
Or would you rather continuing wading in the muck of
“wow, much asshole, wow, much nice person” that comes upon your heart every day as you lurk a forum for 5 hours?”
I’m offering you a way out of this mess.
I’m proposing a real, actual solution.
I am not fucking around when I say my writing stands above any and all attempts to explain what makes a person feel “inexplicably infallible”.
I say it’s the lock and key! If human beings getting along could ever exist
this or something nearly identical to it
is the means by which!
The very means by which.
If actual harmony comes about,
from my philosophy laid out,
then I’ll be the happiest person who ever breathed.
So I await that time.
Await with all the fervor of a madman discovering time travel.
And I do hope I’ve unlocked something in your head, just now,
which keeps you from ever complimenting or insulting anyone
with quite the same sense of civilized satisfaction as before.
So that actual civility may find its legs.
Do you crave a new era? Then read, read, read this blog, you must and shall.
Of course, the honor of creating mere dents in the lack of understanding of why people feel like very not assholes is an honor so great that I would swoon unto the very clouds.
I see so little of it these days, how could I not succeed?
Now comes the mad laugh.
Goodbye for now, my loves.
Until my next post I hope to bring many of you here.
Now, all revisions complete, I storm forward with my dank rainbow.
The Found Emotion (Invoke Yourself) 