Hikikomori, n, (Japanese etymology): 1. A phenomenon whereby an individual becomes a recluse from a society, typically confining him- or herself to a house or a single room for a very long period of time.
2. A reclusive person of this kind.
nothing breeds nothing breeds nothing breeds nothing breeds nothing
Hid for a year. Thought I had won. Thought I was rid of Hyde. But he's been here all this time. In this room. In this head. Stronger than ever. All this time.
I'm dessicated. A half-man half-corpse entombed, to remember fading memories of another life. The years have gnawed away at what I was, and what's replacing the eaten pieces scares me. Rust and broken machinery and non-voids. Things that grind and twitch, and oh, the rust. I'm forgetting what it is to be a social creature. The facade is there, certainly but even that is crumbling and cracked now. My hands, you see, convey the paranoia and anxiety that my face refuses to. My hands, shaking and grasping for some escape rope that could deliver me from the oubliette of being half in a world of fulls. My hands, searching for a dagger to fend off innocent aggressors, but still only manages to strike it's holder in solitude.
I can smell the distant acridity of burned bridges stretching back through the miles and the years. The ones I have not set alight are decaying or have decayed due to neglect. They could have led me to Elysium, had I allowed myself to take them. But the envious, the inferior, the damned are not allowed to see paradise. I saw my failure reflected in their success, my un-life in their lives, and knew myself to be unworthy. So I turned away the hands that could have pulled me out and let myself sink. There's no bottom here. Every time I think I've hit the lowest of the murk, felt it fill my lungs and stomach and veins, filling me with more of it's poison - just when I thought I could sink no further, the bed gives way and I fall into darker sludge. And I know that if I go much further I will drown, and someone will find my bloated, waterlogged carcass lying in the middle of my room, my cell. And yet many have sunk much further than I and still managed to break the surface - but I can't help but wonder how many are floating dead above me.
And you know the worst thing? This stagnation, this isolation, this oblivion - I chose this, I chose it all. I gave up the lives I could have had for false duty, for second childhood, for phobos, for acedia, for the rust and the rot and the nothing. I nailed my own cross. I tied my own noose. I sealed my own tomb, and now that the weight of dirt closes me in, I can only lie in it.
I remember. I remember you all. I remember how you were, how we were. And I know how many of you are lost to me forever. And I fear how many more I'm going to lose.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Saturday, May 15, 2010
X: Lies
I don't really mean the things I type here. I have no darkness, no Hyde within me. I am as pure as people believe I am, with no hidden bitterness, rage or despair. And even if I did, it's not like I'd punish myself for it.
I am still capable of love. I have a healthy view of sex and relationships, with no intertwined horror and obsession over the topic.
I am desirable. I am intelligent. I am strong. I am worthy. I am good.
I am not selfish. My world has not shrunk to myself and this room. Other people are not just vague ghosts on the periphery of my perception. I feel profound empathy for them. Truly. I don't suspect myself of sociopathy at all.
I will live a long, succesful life and die peacefully at an advanced age. I will leave behind a loving, stable family. If there is a Heaven, I feel I am destined to go there.
I feel my life has meaning. I feel I deserve to continue existing in this world, which I believe to be a good and just place. Just like humankind is, deep down, a noble and kind species.
So nice to make believe. So nice to pretend.
I am still capable of love. I have a healthy view of sex and relationships, with no intertwined horror and obsession over the topic.
I am desirable. I am intelligent. I am strong. I am worthy. I am good.
I am not selfish. My world has not shrunk to myself and this room. Other people are not just vague ghosts on the periphery of my perception. I feel profound empathy for them. Truly. I don't suspect myself of sociopathy at all.
I will live a long, succesful life and die peacefully at an advanced age. I will leave behind a loving, stable family. If there is a Heaven, I feel I am destined to go there.
I feel my life has meaning. I feel I deserve to continue existing in this world, which I believe to be a good and just place. Just like humankind is, deep down, a noble and kind species.
So nice to make believe. So nice to pretend.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
IX: Under Ether
Can't organise my thoughts well enough, so another project gets sent into purgatory. May or may not be salvaged.
The darkness recedes once more, returning me to the more welcoming waters of emotional laudanum. In this waking sleep nothing can pierce through. The minor problem that is the absence of any meaning or worth in my life no longer pains me. The world may die, and still I dream. Thoughts are fragmented, transitory things, forming no greater mosaic, just the mind flipping through channels, some comforting, some disturbed.
Another star in this ever-darkening void winked out several days ago, with no light to replace it. Some who had taken notice of the distant sun mourned the passing. Most trudged onwards, oblivious, face down. Is there a lesson in this? Will it matter if there is? I don't really know. And before too long, whether I like it or not, I won't care either. Other lights shall dim in due time.
Farewell, Petrus.
The darkness recedes once more, returning me to the more welcoming waters of emotional laudanum. In this waking sleep nothing can pierce through. The minor problem that is the absence of any meaning or worth in my life no longer pains me. The world may die, and still I dream. Thoughts are fragmented, transitory things, forming no greater mosaic, just the mind flipping through channels, some comforting, some disturbed.
Another star in this ever-darkening void winked out several days ago, with no light to replace it. Some who had taken notice of the distant sun mourned the passing. Most trudged onwards, oblivious, face down. Is there a lesson in this? Will it matter if there is? I don't really know. And before too long, whether I like it or not, I won't care either. Other lights shall dim in due time.
Farewell, Petrus.
Monday, March 15, 2010
VIII: Lust
Blessed be the Cathars, the Skoptzys, the Shakers. In this blind world they had at least some degree of vision. They saw one of the tethers binding them to damnation, and it lead from between their legs. By severing this fetid tumour, this cankerous umbilical cord, physically or spiritually, they knew a true release those who could not bring the knife down never experienced.
On this level does the carmine tempest rage, the lustful and carnal thrown in endless cycle within the hurricane. Some cast around in vain for their lost loves, others to remember in sorrow the pleasures that ultimately brought only more pain. For this is desire manifested; the passion, the fury, the endless questing for mirages. Romance is sold to us on supermarket shelves, on cinema screens, in books, by ourselves and each other. Proffered as the ideal state, a whole merging of two half-souled selves, instead it becomes the strained yoking of two mules pulling in opposite directions, bearable at best, horrendous at worst. Rarely, if ever do two people fit into one space with any degree of comfort. And the external and internal forces that mold, that warp, that break us only make this imposition more Sisyphusean. And thus our fusions shatter, leaving our diminished, seperated halves to go away bitter, mournful and most unfortunately, hopeful. And after all, love is mostly just the dignification we afford our lust.
Lust. Wretched, malformed, vile lust. The battleground where men prove themselves beasts and women prove themselves perfidious. Where the rapine and depraved hold court. Where all prostitute their souls for an iota of false comfort. Where our twisted shadow selves make their play with the flesh of newly trapped victims. As surely as love must twist to hate, so does copulation become indistinguishable from violation. So many infinite variations of methods to steal dignity, steal spirit, exercise dominion, revel in sadistic pleasure. So many ways to learn more thoroughly the art of debasement. And through this we sow our seeds, to shape the rapespawn that shall be as hellbound and daemonic as we are. This would not exist in a good world. We are not good. And so it goes.
Away we must go now. Time to see a dog about some men.
On this level does the carmine tempest rage, the lustful and carnal thrown in endless cycle within the hurricane. Some cast around in vain for their lost loves, others to remember in sorrow the pleasures that ultimately brought only more pain. For this is desire manifested; the passion, the fury, the endless questing for mirages. Romance is sold to us on supermarket shelves, on cinema screens, in books, by ourselves and each other. Proffered as the ideal state, a whole merging of two half-souled selves, instead it becomes the strained yoking of two mules pulling in opposite directions, bearable at best, horrendous at worst. Rarely, if ever do two people fit into one space with any degree of comfort. And the external and internal forces that mold, that warp, that break us only make this imposition more Sisyphusean. And thus our fusions shatter, leaving our diminished, seperated halves to go away bitter, mournful and most unfortunately, hopeful. And after all, love is mostly just the dignification we afford our lust.
Lust. Wretched, malformed, vile lust. The battleground where men prove themselves beasts and women prove themselves perfidious. Where the rapine and depraved hold court. Where all prostitute their souls for an iota of false comfort. Where our twisted shadow selves make their play with the flesh of newly trapped victims. As surely as love must twist to hate, so does copulation become indistinguishable from violation. So many infinite variations of methods to steal dignity, steal spirit, exercise dominion, revel in sadistic pleasure. So many ways to learn more thoroughly the art of debasement. And through this we sow our seeds, to shape the rapespawn that shall be as hellbound and daemonic as we are. This would not exist in a good world. We are not good. And so it goes.
Away we must go now. Time to see a dog about some men.
Friday, March 12, 2010
VII: Limbo
Wish I'd started with this one and stayed true to the numbering. Oh well.
In my mind's eye, I see the river Acheron wend it's way twixt Hades and the overworld. Throngs of ashen, sullen shades trudged bowed towards vast black gates. Beyond, the vale of sorrow, the lightless void, where hope and goodness never tread. Onwards we march, nevermore to see the light of Paradise, into perdition's waiting arms. Into Hell.
But I am not dead. Nor are my travelling companions. Not outwardly, at least.
Subjectively, it no longer matters what the world truly is. Even as I type this, I feel the colours draining out of my vision and my soul, leaving me with mere monochrome, with the occasional splashes of crimson and jade, and the hint of an unknown and malevolent hue. The spirited activity of living, from my dimly lit window, look like the aimless shambling of penned cattle, chewing cud and waiting for the slaughterer's bolt. Some can take in the sun's warmth, look upon their world and know that it is good. Others, like me, can only hear the sound of the hourglass, the shallow pain of the knife pressed against one's back. I may have a pulse, a steady breathing rate, and verifiable neural activity, but I realise that I am not one of the living. Existence denies me, and what it doesn't I deny myself.
Stranded on the shores of Acheron. No way back. Only forward. Into Hell.
In my mind's eye, I see the river Acheron wend it's way twixt Hades and the overworld. Throngs of ashen, sullen shades trudged bowed towards vast black gates. Beyond, the vale of sorrow, the lightless void, where hope and goodness never tread. Onwards we march, nevermore to see the light of Paradise, into perdition's waiting arms. Into Hell.
But I am not dead. Nor are my travelling companions. Not outwardly, at least.
Subjectively, it no longer matters what the world truly is. Even as I type this, I feel the colours draining out of my vision and my soul, leaving me with mere monochrome, with the occasional splashes of crimson and jade, and the hint of an unknown and malevolent hue. The spirited activity of living, from my dimly lit window, look like the aimless shambling of penned cattle, chewing cud and waiting for the slaughterer's bolt. Some can take in the sun's warmth, look upon their world and know that it is good. Others, like me, can only hear the sound of the hourglass, the shallow pain of the knife pressed against one's back. I may have a pulse, a steady breathing rate, and verifiable neural activity, but I realise that I am not one of the living. Existence denies me, and what it doesn't I deny myself.
Stranded on the shores of Acheron. No way back. Only forward. Into Hell.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
VI: Minute of Hate
To the youth: You shall inherit a world dying of the parasites that infest its surface. Any bullshit attempts to save it in the name of 'environmentalism' will be for nothing. Give up now. I will endorse, however, anyone who still wishes to join the 'Voluntary Human Extinction Movement' with complete support, though. Oh, and don't flatter yourself on your worth. All those negative stereotypes of Generation Y? All true.
To the old: You're no better. You may have been around during the Summer Of Love, and some of you may have gone in for the hippy ethos. But I'm sure that when the acne went away and you were faced with that nasty responsibility thing, you sold your souls for a buck and a business suit. The rape of the world, of life, continued unabated. You are as just to blame for our species' failure as the rest of us.
To the pro-life crowd: Funny how you've elevated a formless, lifeless blob of carbon as more worthy of life than the people involved in creating it. I'm sure Jesus would have gone in for the whole back alley coathanger shindig to, if the fucker had actually existed. Do us a favour, next time you think about firebombing a clinic, immolate yourself instead.
To the pro-choice crowd: I am on your side of the argument, but not for the same reasons you probably do. See, a zygote may only be a useless clump of cells, basically a kind of cancer, but as far as I'm concerned, zygotes pretty much stay cancerous beyond birth, into adulthood and onwards to death. Abortion is a moral act more in what it destroys than what it saves.
To the hegemonic (XY, low melanin, het) order: Our frantic denials of our continued role in perpetuating oppression will not save us. Lie to everyone, lie to yourself, all you want, but we revealed our true nature from the first tribal skirmish, and to the last survivor this will not change. The tide is turning; it will drown us all.
To the (XX, high melanin, homo) underclass: Perhaps you have the moral high ground now, but all this talk about wanting equality will change to the usual in-group genocidal chauvinism the instant the playing field turns level. You are human, and humans seek total dominance above anything else, and above any cost. Make no pretenses to innate moral superiority, for that shall not hold.
To everyone in general: You are not special. You are not good, worthy, or significant in any way. You are shit, a mindless chemical structure pulled along by the strings of biology, fate, and the louder mewlings of chemical structures with more experience points in this turd of a game called 'Life'. Stop all the delusions of adequacy, all your meaningless ambitions. Just stop. Go to your beige little jobs, slave away your beige little lives for beige little paychecks that just might stop your beige little family in your beige little domicile from starving for another beige little week. Walk around your beige little neighbourhood, have beige little conversations with your equally beige neighbours while secretly despising them in a beige little way. Watch beige television, eat beige food, listen to beige music, have beige sex in your beige bed and dream beige dreams. That's the best you can hope for in a world like this, so don't hope for anything better. It's not like you'd deserve anything better anyway.
God-damn, this is therapeutic.
To the old: You're no better. You may have been around during the Summer Of Love, and some of you may have gone in for the hippy ethos. But I'm sure that when the acne went away and you were faced with that nasty responsibility thing, you sold your souls for a buck and a business suit. The rape of the world, of life, continued unabated. You are as just to blame for our species' failure as the rest of us.
To the pro-life crowd: Funny how you've elevated a formless, lifeless blob of carbon as more worthy of life than the people involved in creating it. I'm sure Jesus would have gone in for the whole back alley coathanger shindig to, if the fucker had actually existed. Do us a favour, next time you think about firebombing a clinic, immolate yourself instead.
To the pro-choice crowd: I am on your side of the argument, but not for the same reasons you probably do. See, a zygote may only be a useless clump of cells, basically a kind of cancer, but as far as I'm concerned, zygotes pretty much stay cancerous beyond birth, into adulthood and onwards to death. Abortion is a moral act more in what it destroys than what it saves.
To the hegemonic (XY, low melanin, het) order: Our frantic denials of our continued role in perpetuating oppression will not save us. Lie to everyone, lie to yourself, all you want, but we revealed our true nature from the first tribal skirmish, and to the last survivor this will not change. The tide is turning; it will drown us all.
To the (XX, high melanin, homo) underclass: Perhaps you have the moral high ground now, but all this talk about wanting equality will change to the usual in-group genocidal chauvinism the instant the playing field turns level. You are human, and humans seek total dominance above anything else, and above any cost. Make no pretenses to innate moral superiority, for that shall not hold.
To everyone in general: You are not special. You are not good, worthy, or significant in any way. You are shit, a mindless chemical structure pulled along by the strings of biology, fate, and the louder mewlings of chemical structures with more experience points in this turd of a game called 'Life'. Stop all the delusions of adequacy, all your meaningless ambitions. Just stop. Go to your beige little jobs, slave away your beige little lives for beige little paychecks that just might stop your beige little family in your beige little domicile from starving for another beige little week. Walk around your beige little neighbourhood, have beige little conversations with your equally beige neighbours while secretly despising them in a beige little way. Watch beige television, eat beige food, listen to beige music, have beige sex in your beige bed and dream beige dreams. That's the best you can hope for in a world like this, so don't hope for anything better. It's not like you'd deserve anything better anyway.
God-damn, this is therapeutic.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
V: Philosophical Starch
I'd sell your heart to the junkman, baby
For a buck, for a buck
If you're looking for someone to pull you out of that ditch
You're out of luck, you're out of luck
Ship is sinking
The ship is sinking
The ship is sinking
There's a leak, there's a leak in the boiler room
The poor, the lame, the blind
Who are the ones that we kept in charge?
Killers, thieves, and lawyers
God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business
God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business
Digging up the dead with a shovel and a pick
It's a job, it's a job
Bloody moon rising with a plague and a flood
Join the mob, join the mob
It's all over, it's all over
It's all over
There's a leak, there's a leak in the boiler room
The poor, the lame, the blind
Who are the ones that we kept in charge?
Killers, thieves, and lawyers
God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business
God's away, God's away on business, business
Goddamn, there's always such a big temptation
To be good, to be good
There's always free cheddar in a mousetrap, baby
It's a deal, it's a deal
God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business
God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business
I narrow my eyes like a coin slot, baby
Let her ring, let her ring
God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business
God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business
Tom Waits, 'God's Away On Business'.
For a buck, for a buck
If you're looking for someone to pull you out of that ditch
You're out of luck, you're out of luck
Ship is sinking
The ship is sinking
The ship is sinking
There's a leak, there's a leak in the boiler room
The poor, the lame, the blind
Who are the ones that we kept in charge?
Killers, thieves, and lawyers
God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business
God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business
Digging up the dead with a shovel and a pick
It's a job, it's a job
Bloody moon rising with a plague and a flood
Join the mob, join the mob
It's all over, it's all over
It's all over
There's a leak, there's a leak in the boiler room
The poor, the lame, the blind
Who are the ones that we kept in charge?
Killers, thieves, and lawyers
God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business
God's away, God's away on business, business
Goddamn, there's always such a big temptation
To be good, to be good
There's always free cheddar in a mousetrap, baby
It's a deal, it's a deal
God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business
God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business
I narrow my eyes like a coin slot, baby
Let her ring, let her ring
God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business
God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business
Tom Waits, 'God's Away On Business'.
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