An Epistle in C Minor to the Late "Discordian Society"

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Dear Sirs,

Upon learning of the untimely and tragic demise of our Glorious Revolution, I was stricken with such unimaginable remorse and grief that for a moment all hope was lost for me. I stopped eating for a week because when I could muster the sanity to fill my belly, I could not keep anything down. I spent three days lying naked and assprone on the floor of my bathroom, wailing and sobbing and cleaning the grout with my wife's toothbrush. I was inconsolable. The Revolution had meant everything to me, and when I heard that it was over, I was unable to think or breathe or do any of the other things that normally would distinguish me from a corpse. My life was filled, suddenly, with a deluge of contradicting emotions and unstoppable bouts of compulsive masturbation to try to hide the pain of losing what had become, I realized too late, my most trusted and reliable friend -- the Discordian Society.

I remember the old days, when the Revolution was bright and new. The world was dull and grey; devoid of imagination; full of schmucks and lackeys standing in line to be slapped upside the head by the uncaring, two-faced system they had accidentally built to protect themselves from anything they might want to become. Oh, but we had light and color! We had something different and off-beat, something that stood in such striking contrast to the dim world of the Greys that it nearly fractured our own ideas about the nature of reality itself.

But the Machine adapted, and we failed to match its adaptation. We tried, and we got damn close, but every time we added a new color to our palette, They added fifteen different shades and hues to theirs. We alerted the People that they had no real choices in life, and the Machine answered with Customized MySpace Profiles. We screamed about the lack of value in modern living, and in return we got Buy-One-Get-One-Free. Our every turn has been blocked, every exit barred, every exodus from the world of the Greys sidetracked into an amusement park.

As a movement, we are now little more than a squirming mess of whiners, vaguely uncomfortable but not really driven to change. I count myself among these. For all my trying to change the world (or at least my segment of it), I have remained at all times attached to the convenience of living in it. I have sold my soul like everyone else. I am, like the rest of the hairless apes on this rock, a hypocrite, a liar, and a fraud, because I subscribe to the benefits of our defective civilization and pretend they are not inherently and inextricably linked to every last one of its faults.

So my grief at the end of this ride is not that we have lost our Cause, but that we have succeeded in changing the world after all. It is only that it seems when we set out to make this world a more colorful place we forgot that, to produce all that color, someone would have to dump a whole lot of toxic sludge and make a lot of cheap shit out plastic. In the course of turning our civilization into a tolerant and open-minded Utopia, we disregarded the byproducts of limited freedom of thought and speech. And now, in the cabals of Discordia and the dens where the Subgenii laze, the pronunciation of judgment against the world outside has turned awkward because we must now tear down what we demanded They build.

The Revolution is over.

Long live the Revolution.

[LMNO]

Um... You do realize you're talking to the mirror, right?

[tyrannosaurus vex]

of course.

[Cramulus]

all you can really hope for is rearranging the locally components of the Machine.

there was once a time when my 3D life was full of lulz

now I'm surrounded by crap and the only lulz come from the jewel within


it's gayyyyyy

but it gives me direction

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I find that fun is my highest calling

that and the dream of someday starting a real live cult

I live for the lulz, til death takes me away

for the lulz. Fuck the Revolution. In the FACE.

[Kai]

Lolz is thy Law, Lolz under Lol.

[Jenne]

Yeah, seems it's easy to be let down when this shit is taken too seriously...but if you don't take it serious enough, it gets lost in the shuffle of life.  "Lulz" is a good anathema for this condition (which seems awfully like bitterness).  Good piece of writing, vex...though it's pretty sad.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Discordia didn't leave you.  You left it.  Because you wussed out...you weren't fucking serious about having a good time.

This is no century for people who half-ass their doom.

[Triple Zero]

Vex, wtf are you talking about? What ended? What failed?

What Roger said, Discordia didnt leave you.

What changed? How is this a ride with a start and an end?

What is this perceived window of opportunity that you seem to think The Discordian Society has missed?

If anything, I am just getting started and will continue to be.

Roger said it so much more clear and succinct, the rest of this reply is not really worth bothering, but I gotta get it off my chest anyway:

we are now little more than a squirming mess of whiners, vaguely uncomfortable but not really driven to change. I count myself among these.

seriously, you should probably just speak for yourself.

"as a movement, you are a squirming messy whiner, vaguely uncomfortable, and blahblahblah"

wtf does discomfort have to do with movement anyway?

except for intestrinal discomfort and bowel movement?

I am, (...) a hypocrite, a liar, and a fraud, because I subscribe to the benefits of our defective civilization and pretend they are not inherently and inextricably linked to every last one of its faults.

that is some fucked up reasoning right there. no wonder you end up on the bathroom floor.

And now, in the cabals of Discordia and the dens where the Subgenii laze, the pronunciation of judgment against the world outside has turned awkward because we must now tear down what we demanded They build.

The Revolution is over.

Long live the Revolution.

this bit, taken slightly out of context is kinda good though. but why would you get all emo about it? it's what we do, you didn't sign up for that? tough, means the joke is on yououououou

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I think it's just that he's having a midlife crisis and he's basically talking about himself but projecting it onto the rest of us, unable to see that we are still young and vital and thriving; I wouldn't worry about it.

[Captain Utopia]

Used to be you could thwart the system by growing your hair and listening to songs pre-ordained as anti-establishment.

Now you have to think and stuff, and realise that there may be times when you've wasted years on failed approaches.

It's no longer a free lunch, or free love.. yet I think it's progress.

Fuck it, every revolutionary movement uses the tools in its environment, to do otherwise would be foolish. I mean, I see the angst, but I don't understand where it's coming from.

Cults believe they have all the answers, Disordianism is not a cult. Why then weep at the marvels of your electric toothbrush?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Used to be you could thwart the system by growing your hair and listening to songs pre-ordained as anti-establishment.

Now you have to think and stuff, and realise that there may be times when you've wasted years on failed approaches.

It's no longer a free lunch, or free love.. yet I think it's progress.

Fuck it, every revolutionary movement uses the tools in its environment, to do otherwise would be foolish. I mean, I see the angst, but I don't understand where it's coming from.

Cults believe they have all the answers, Disordianism is not a cult. Why then weep at the marvels of your electric toothbrush?

THIS.

[Telarus]

"When all else fails to organize the people, the conditions will." -Marcus Garvey (of all people)

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Dear Sirs,

Upon learning of the untimely and tragic demise of our Glorious Revolution, I was stricken with such unimaginable remorse and grief that for a moment all hope was lost for me. I stopped eating for a week because when I could muster the sanity to fill my belly, I could not keep anything down. I spent three days lying naked and assprone on the floor of my bathroom, wailing and sobbing and cleaning the grout with my wife's toothbrush. I was inconsolable. The Revolution had meant everything to me, and when I heard that it was over, I was unable to think or breathe or do any of the other things that normally would distinguish me from a corpse. My life was filled, suddenly, with a deluge of contradicting emotions and unstoppable bouts of compulsive masturbation to try to hide the pain of losing what had become, I realized too late, my most trusted and reliable friend -- the Discordian Society.

I remember the old days, when the Revolution was bright and new. The world was dull and grey; devoid of imagination; full of schmucks and lackeys standing in line to be slapped upside the head by the uncaring, two-faced system they had accidentally built to protect themselves from anything they might want to become. Oh, but we had light and color! We had something different and off-beat, something that stood in such striking contrast to the dim world of the Greys that it nearly fractured our own ideas about the nature of reality itself.

But the Machine adapted, and we failed to match its adaptation. We tried, and we got damn close, but every time we added a new color to our palette, They added fifteen different shades and hues to theirs. We alerted the People that they had no real choices in life, and the Machine answered with Customized MySpace Profiles. We screamed about the lack of value in modern living, and in return we got Buy-One-Get-One-Free. Our every turn has been blocked, every exit barred, every exodus from the world of the Greys sidetracked into an amusement park.

As a movement, we are now little more than a squirming mess of whiners, vaguely uncomfortable but not really driven to change. I count myself among these. For all my trying to change the world (or at least my segment of it), I have remained at all times attached to the convenience of living in it. I have sold my soul like everyone else. I am, like the rest of the hairless apes on this rock, a hypocrite, a liar, and a fraud, because I subscribe to the benefits of our defective civilization and pretend they are not inherently and inextricably linked to every last one of its faults.

So my grief at the end of this ride is not that we have lost our Cause, but that we have succeeded in changing the world after all. It is only that it seems when we set out to make this world a more colorful place we forgot that, to produce all that color, someone would have to dump a whole lot of toxic sludge and make a lot of cheap shit out plastic. In the course of turning our civilization into a tolerant and open-minded Utopia, we disregarded the byproducts of limited freedom of thought and speech. And now, in the cabals of Discordia and the dens where the Subgenii laze, the pronunciation of judgment against the world outside has turned awkward because we must now tear down what we demanded They build.

The Revolution is over.

Long live the Revolution.

I find that if my revolution is against the machine, the robot inside my head... things are going well. For people that want revolution against The Machine that they imagine runs everything else... results may vary. I'm not even sure there is a Machine... other than the robot in my head... .the robot in everyone head. Beating that robot seems like a revolution worth fighting.

Each of us are the slave and the master. Only the master can free the slave, and then when man is free... mankind will be free.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I find that if my revolution is against the machine, the robot inside my head... things are going well. For people that want revolution against The Machine that they imagine runs everything else... results may vary. I'm not even sure there is a Machine... other than the robot in my head... .the robot in everyone head. Beating that robot seems like a revolution worth fighting.

Each of us are the slave and the master. Only the master can free the slave, and then when man is free... mankind will be free.

Tell it to the Malaysians.