Rant 52
THEM and theirs
“When will you begin to inhabit the heart of your life? When will you become the real subject of your life rather than its target or victim?”
“The Resurrection is frightening because it is a call to live a life without the walls of crippling definition or false protection. The huge stone over Christ’s tomb was rolled away. The cave of dying was ventilated and freed. It is a powerful image of smashing open the inner prison. The confined, the exiled, the neglected are visited by the healing and luminosity of a great liberation.”
-John O Donohue (from Eternal Echoes; pg. 132)
“In a time of peace, the warlike person attacks himself.”
- Nietzsche
“Fundamentalism does not converse or explore. It presents truth. It is essentially noncognitive. This false certainty can only endure through the belief that everyone else is wrong.”
-John O Donohue (from Eternal Echoes; pg. 256)
THEY are coming and THEY are here. Who are THEY? That insidious faction of phantom-like people of gray disposition known as THEM. What do THEY want? How should THEY know? THEY never ask questions—never needing to, since THEY have amassed the power to force their ideas and nightmares upon the rest of the world and believe themselves to be right, righteous, and progressive in doing so. THEY tell you what to wear, how to talk, what to do, and how to find meaning in your own life. THEY even commit the silly little snub of telling you what is funny, how to laugh at it, and what is not funny and how to get rid of it. THEY ignore Eris because She doesn’t fit into their little prefabricated packages of DIVINITY. THEY are afraid of unpackaged DIVINITY even while THEY claim to be the true arbiters of globally marketed divinity™ . THEY masquerade themselves as both the protectors of ORDER and the forces of CHAOS. Little do THEY know of the horrible prank Eris has inflicted upon their self-tortured souls in an attempt to get THEM to snap out of it.
Eris is laughing at THEM. Surely the other Gods and Goddesses are laughing as well. But don’t take my word for it. Look around for yourself. Every sock of pretension eventually grows holes that eat away at the fabric to let the toes come out and play. If your toes want to come out and play, I can assure you that the rest of you wants to play as well. (Or maybe my steel toed boots are just hard on socks in general and I am just making all of this up to fill space. If so, get over it. It’s my rant and not yours.)
There is a very good reason why Eris is not shown on television‚Äîor at least the real Eris anyway. Have you ever thought about that? And if you do see the real Eris on television, you are about as nutty as a five legged pink squirrel in heat, which makes you a better person than me, I must admit. (B‚Äôfh?©idir go bhfuair t?? a raibh uait.) If Discordia, or anarchy, or freedom, or even Jeffersonian-style democracy were ever to become to major influence upon this society, those of THEM who always seek more than their fair share would be scared shitless and lose whatever shred of false credibility THEY have collected about themselves through their ill means. THEY would lose the pots THEY piss in and be forced to watch as we immanentize the eschaton all by ourselves.
What do THEY do about it? THEY manufacture problems and your consent to that manufacture—otherwise known as faith™ , power™ , and authority™ —and then dupe everyone so that their problems become OUR problems. The Discordian Jihad has been criticized since its inception as being divisive and such. But no one has ever bothered to stop and think about the parody of THEM that the Discordian Jihad symbolizes. (The Discordian Jihad is not to be confused with other people’s jihads. Our own home-brewed Discordian Jihad is simply another Golden Apple.) And as to divisiveness…hell, we are Discordians, right? Shouldn’t we allow divisiveness while simultaneously watching such divisiveness build up an Operation Mindfuck amongst the forces of THEM that is truly engaging and mindblowing? Are we Discordians, not, or maybe?
Do we ourselves need faith or power? No. Not as Children of Eris. What have we to do with such feedback loops that enslave the imprisoned minds? Unless, of course, we can use them as fodder for jakery. We have our laughter, which is the center of all existence, no matter where you are. We have our sneakiness. We have our cunning (let’s be ambitious). We have our Erisian propaganda, irreligion, and holey scriptures. We have our socks. We have our pop-tarts. We have our Golden Apples (or at least we might want to have them). We have our parentheses. We have our sacred “maybes”. Maybe.
My fellow Discordians, if you cannot see Eris, then perhaps you aren’t laughing hard enough. Or perhaps She is in no mood to see you right now, since She does have a somewhat busy schedule and likes Her beauty sleep. But rest assured, unless it worries you, that Eris is out here amongst us in our great theatre of Operations Mindfucking and otherwise (perhaps even a little party every now and then too). She will answer you if you really hail Her. (Now if only we can get taxis to do likewise.) So worry you little about THEM and theirs. Do something about it.
All Hail Discordia!
(Bureaucracy 9th, 3170)