Payne, There's Something in the Water.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Something is in the water, and it makes us all crazy.  We start eating each other, while the monkeys around us hoot and gibber.  I can feel it.  My blood is filling up with poison, and my heart is full of hate and a blind rage that makes me lash out at everyone around me.

If only it were just me...then you could all just kill me and get on with things.

But it isn't, is it?  No, it's damn near everyone.  It's all happened before, and I can see it happening again.  We all devolve into monkeys, dig our heels in, and screech.  We KNOW we're doing it, we just can't STOP.

What causes this stupidity?  Is it something in our genes or something in the water or just a DOOM which will not be denied?  Somewhere, I swear to God I can hear Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon laughing...And why wouldn't they?  They always hated us and said we were wrong-headed, with all the wrong values.  Who knows?  Maybe they're right, because if they were wrong, we wouldn't be so fucking stupid half the time.

Verthaine was right, you know, when he made everyone admit that we're all dumbasses.  But then he found out just how dumb we really are, and he took off to wherever Curly went...And he didn't leave directions.  Would you?  I wouldn't.  We squabble amongst ourselves as the world slides into the muck, so we obviously can't be trusted with Nice Things™.

Explain this to me, Payne, because I don't understand it.

Or kill me.

[P3nT4gR4m]

We hate because there's nothing else worthwhile left to do. It's either give up and join the rest of the herd at the trough or rage until the veins on your neck stand out like the cables on a suspension bridge. Those are your choices. And where the fuck do we direct the rage? We've all tried the rubes but how fucking rewarding is that? Kicking a sheep aint sport it's boring, with a subtle hint of cruel. What you need for a really good ragefest is someone who puts up a bit of a fight, maybe rages back at you.

Forget about nice things. There's nothing nice worth having, that's the thing about nice things - they suck. Every talking monkey and their dog spends their whole life cocooned under a mound of nice things, all at affordable rates with interest free payment plans that don't start til the end of the century. I'd much rather smash things up and set things on fire and scream and shout, somewhere horrible, in the middle of the night. That's real. Not some fucking color coordinated towels or a cute little device for removing the pips from your apple with a built in GPS and Pez dispenser.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Yeah, Pent, but you can't buy the nice things I was talking about, because I wasn't talking about cars and computers and Tivos, I was talking about Verthaine.  And Curly.  And my friend Nigel.  And the feeling that we were, as a group, something other than slightly more clever monkeys, but still monkeys that smash everything they can, and shit on the rest.

I am stuck on the planet of the apes, Pent, and I feel like a bit of an ape myself.

I don't think I like it.

[P3nT4gR4m]

That's the thing, mate - we aren't something evolved from monkeys, we're just monkeys with an extra bit. You don't stop being a monkey just cos you've learned to walk on your back feet. Trying to ignore that fact is why this "evolved civilisation" of ours ended up such a decaying pathetic fucking excuse for an existence. You need to embrace the monkey, it's what you are first and foremost. Throw the dog a bone, have a swing in some trees, eat a bananna, smash another monkey over the head with a stick... Cos, until you've satisfied those filthy simian urges, the monkey won't give you peace to think.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

That's the thing, mate - we aren't something evolved from monkeys, we're just monkeys with an extra bit. You don't stop being a monkey just cos you've learned to walk on your back feet. Trying to ignore that fact is why this "evolved civilisation" of ours ended up such a decaying pathetic fucking excuse for an existence. You need to embrace the monkey, it's what you are first and foremost. Throw the dog a bone, have a swing in some trees, eat a bananna, smash another monkey over the head with a stick... Cos, until you've satisfied those filthy simian urges, the monkey won't give you peace to think.

I reject that in its entirety.  We may be built like tall, weak monkeys, and we may be WIRED like monkeys, but we can think rationally when we care to, so our monkey heritage is no excuse.

That's our real problem.  Laziness and excuse-making.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Also, it happened again.   

TGRR,
Will never address a psycho letter to a specific person, ever again.

[Jasper]

My unsolicited take on it is that yeah, we come standard with the same flaws as the rest of the assholes, and our condition as a species makes us prone to desire something greater out of ourselves.  I also have the nasty suspicion that we can't become anything greater without hard work and maybe even some adherence to some virtues, much as most people here won't like the sound of that. 

Good friends are hard to come by and hard to keep and well worth the effort.   I don't want to make this too personal Roger, but I read that you had an argument with that good friend of yours in another thread, sorry about that.  Don't give up trying to be friends with him.  It always breaks my heart to meet someone who doesn't have any old friends.  I'm going to try and keep mine for a long time, because I like the idea of having friends I've known for several decades.  There's been inordinate amounts of venom on the boards lately, though.   This forum needs something to pour itself into, and when we're idle we eat noobs like popcorn and try to kill each other. 

I've never been that enthusiastic about 'extracurricular' board activities, and I think it's time I got over that.  This place needs people, not profiles with high post counts. 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

My unsolicited take on it is that yeah, we come standard with the same flaws as the rest of the assholes, and our condition as a species makes us prone to desire something greater out of ourselves.  I also have the nasty suspicion that we can't become anything greater without hard work and maybe even some adherence to some virtues, much as most people here won't like the sound of that. 

Good friends are hard to come by and hard to keep and well worth the effort.   I don't want to make this too personal Roger, but I read that you had an argument with that good friend of yours in another thread, sorry about that.  Don't give up trying to be friends with him.  It always breaks my heart to meet someone who doesn't have any old friends.  I'm going to try and keep mine for a long time, because I like the idea of having friends I've known for several decades.  There's been inordinate amounts of venom on the boards lately, though.   This forum needs something to pour itself into, and when we're idle we eat noobs like popcorn and try to kill each other. 

I've never been that enthusiastic about 'extracurricular' board activities, and I think it's time I got over that.  This place needs people, not profiles with high post counts. 

1.  These threads are designed for unsolicited input.

2.  I want my friend back.

[Aufenthatt]

That's the thing, mate - we aren't something evolved from monkeys, we're just monkeys with an extra bit. You don't stop being a monkey just cos you've learned to walk on your back feet. Trying to ignore that fact is why this "evolved civilisation" of ours ended up such a decaying pathetic fucking excuse for an existence. You need to embrace the monkey, it's what you are first and foremost. Throw the dog a bone, have a swing in some trees, eat a bananna, smash another monkey over the head with a stick... Cos, until you've satisfied those filthy simian urges, the monkey won't give you peace to think.

I reject that in its entirety.  We may be built like tall, weak monkeys, and we may be WIRED like monkeys, but we can think rationally when we care to, so our monkey heritage is no excuse.

That's our real problem.  Laziness and excuse-making.

You think?

I've seen a gorrilla use a stick to see how deep a river is.

[Payne]

This hideous thing called "Consciousness" is a bastard. Was once a time when it was considered a gift, this self-reflection and the subjugation of instinct under abstraction. The whole damn "You" thing.

Mysterious shit, hey? The priests told us it was from God, that we were special, and the only proof we needed of this fact was that we could consider the question. Try it with a dog and it just eats its food, shits in the corner and falls asleep. We think about it and get all crazy, like CRUSADES crazy. Cause suddenly God must want something in return for his gift, right? Maybe he wants us to go kick someones ass, preferably someone who doesn't believe in him in the Right Way^tm.

So we go from being able to work together to kill and skin mammoths for fun and profit, to trying to kill badwrong ideas for profit and prophet. Fucking priests. That's why I skipped being a priest and went straight to being The Motherfucking Messiah.

Recently though, the Priests are pretty much out of the equation. We got to keep the crusades, but we do them in the name of "Democracy", "The Almighty Dollar" and "American Idol" (or whatever Simon Cowell vehicle is most appropriate at any given time). An even greater level of abstraction and bullshit than the Priests peddled. At least you got the promise of a fucking awesome time after you died, either way, with the Priests. Now we are being told constantly that all that matters is having a nice house, a nice car, a nice family and everyone sits back and waits for the heaven on earth we all know is just around the corner.

You and I, Roger, all of us here... We didn't follow everyone else when the Priests left. We didn't covert to McDonaldsism^tm or the Reformed Church of Disney^tm Evangelism. No, after the Prophets died we went back to thinking about consciousness again. We regressed, took one step back to take three steps forward later on instead of one step forward now. If we were going to have a New Heaven, it was going to be fucking AWESOME.

We have our own Gods now. Bespoke, perfectly turned out for our needs. You, yourself, are a God. And the pinnacle of your Pantheon is The Truth. A harsh master. It's a hard road you travel. The Lost Highway where Curly is always round the next bend. A man has to watch his own back when he is under the gaze of The Truth and the soles of his boots kick up the "dust" on that bleak strip of cracked and faded tarmac. The dust of those who were weaker, who looked back, who had plastic in their bones.

But we're stuck. We've turned into fucking monsters. We stepped back, but took traces of the same shit with us we were trying to escape. Our righteous anger and hatred is tainted with the plastic beliefs of this Post-Prophetic age. We're better off still than the cardboard cut outs that we call "normal" people, but we have to SEE this shit happening to us because that's what we DO. We poke around the gubbins and the what-nots and see what happens. It's not the water, Roger. It's something far far worse. It's US.

~~~~~~~

Specifically, this forum is a community. We rewrote a bunch of rules for ourselves, or at least chose to view them in different ways, but we cannot help but run by the same community rules that govern the outside world. There is competition for influence. Add to that the fact that we are hate filled, mostly pretty intelligent, and tend to find ego-maniacs of one kind or another in here... It's a powder keg. It leads to some awesome energy and inspiration, but there is a price to be paid for it.

[Jenne]

I sometimes feel partly to blame for Vincent leaving us like that, but then I remember that The Verthaine is too mighty to be put off by a mere fly like memnoch buzzing around everyone's asses.

Vincent's genius came in his brutal honesty and refusal to bullshit around.  I love that fucker and I wish he'd come back around.  Once he got remarried, though, he sort of took off and hasn't been seen since.  I don't think even Bella knows how he is, though she assures me he'll be back sometime.

I miss the fuck outta him.

As for being a monkey that smashes shit, I think we do still have the smarts to make the choice.  We just choose NOT to do that.  Which is another point about Vincent--he knew he had the choice to smash, and he only did it when it was necessary, warranted, or he goddamned felt like it and that was that.  No regrets.

He was righteous.  Shit, he still is.  (No more past tense, Jenne, for chrissakes.)

[Jasper]

Have you tried saying words to the effect of "I know I pissed you off and I understand if you'll stay mad at me, but I hope you don't"?  You know, not in those words (because then it would sound fake) but in your own way.

That usually works, if you happen to mean it.

[LMNO]

It's an old familiar game.  We've been trapped on galciers of stupidity, and the only way to break free is three steps forward, two steps back.  Every freedom we gain, be it our minds or in our lives, we keep looping back to where we started, like moths drawn to idiocy.

Sometimes, the trauma is so huge, we think to ourselves, "man, that is never going to happen to me again!"  and then, a month, a year, a decade later, we're back to our old stupid tricks.

Because they're all tricks, in the end.  Ways to get around that pesky sisyphusian rock that stands in our way, the one marked in cryptic letters, "TFY,S!"  We think we've found a short cut, a way to get through the day without so much damn effort to evaluate and parse, but when we part the brush at the end of the trail, we're back at base camp.

Hell, let's face it.  I know that I'm just as guilty as anyone else.  Independent Evaluations are really hard work, and dammit, I just don't want to deal with that sometimes.  And I know that when my back is turned, that the demons, and the spiders, and the Cities™ slink out and envelop me.  Then before you know it, you're blinking in the harsh daylight, fangs bared and a handful of poop ready to fling at the nearest sentient object.

It's work.  It's a constant struggle.  And victory, while sweet, can only be short.  But we fight on.




Because the alternative is repugnant.

[Jenne]

Have you tried saying words to the effect of "I know I pissed you off and I understand if you'll stay mad at me, but I hope you don't"?  You know, not in those words (because then it would sound fake) but in your own way.

That usually works, if you happen to mean it.

Who is this for?  If it's for me, Vincent gave me a thumbs up after the memnoch debacle at eb&g...but I still feel bad for what went down.  That's my own personal fuckup.  Vincent stays away for his own reasoning.  But he knows there are folks who respect, love and miss him here and at Bella's forum as well.

[Jasper]

Have you tried saying words to the effect of "I know I pissed you off and I understand if you'll stay mad at me, but I hope you don't"?  You know, not in those words (because then it would sound fake) but in your own way.

That usually works, if you happen to mean it.

Who is this for?  If it's for me, Vincent gave me a thumbs up after the memnoch debacle at eb&g...but I still feel bad for what went down.  That's my own personal fuckup.  Vincent stays away for his own reasoning.  But he knows there are folks who respect, love and miss him here and at Bella's forum as well.

No, Roger actually.  I hate hearing about people losing good friends over arguments that, in perspective, don't matter.

But, as general advice, it has mileage.