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That line from the father's song in Mary Poppins, where he's going on about how nothing can go wrong, in Britain in 1910.  That's about the point I realized the boy was gonna die in a trench.

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I am the enemy

Started by trix, March 06, 2021, 09:47:52 AM

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trix

I am your enemy.

I'm a coward.  I play Chaotic Good in D&D, but Chaotic Spineless in real life.  I am kind to everyone I meet, generous, all the hallmarks of "good", but I am not good.  I allow evil to thrive and only give lip service to resisting it.  I allow racist and homophobic coworkers to feel like that shit is acceptable, by not showing my fangs every time I look at them.  By being polite to them.  By rationalizing my cowardice with "I would totally do something if I ever actually saw them say or do anything against a homosexual or POC in person".  I do this with full knowledge that it's a rationalization, that I am a spineless coward, and that I should do SO MUCH MORE to fight for what I believe in.  Yet, I continue.  I go to work, I keep my mouth shut, and I fill my spare time with bullshit.

I have read hundreds upon hundreds of posts on this website and many others, I know what the concept of the Black Iron Prison entails, I have taken many many steps down a road to becoming a better person, a smarter person, a biped, and then I stopped.  I gave up.  I shrank.

I am controlled by my fears.  I don't want anything to upset my precious little life, and because of this, I don't do anything to try and protect my precious little life from the major things happening that threaten it.

I am the perfect tool of the state.  The ultimate consumer.  I have a 55" OLED overpriced TV, a HD projector with a 120" screen, a powerful top of the line PC to play games on, etc etc etc.  I have tons of privileges granted to me by luck, skin color, and sexual orientation.  I am the white middle class man.  I did not start out this way, but this is the reality of who I am today.

I am no genius, but I am not a complete fool either.  I have the strength to look directly at the ugliness of what I am, and the ugliness around me, without flinching.  Yet, I am defined by my weakness, laziness, and unwillingness to change it.

I may not be the obvious evil, but it is because of me and my weakness that evil grows strong.  My apathy feeds it.  My hesitancy gives it confidence.  My fears give it freedom... MY freedom.

10 Years ago if someone accosted me in the street to go after my wallet, ONE OF US would be headed to the hospital.  Now, I'd give up my wallet without a fight.  I doubt I'd even whine as I handed it over, and instead whine in safety, later, when it no longer matters.

I don't even know what is so precious about my life that I am so afraid of losing it.  I don't understand how I can be FULLY AWARE that the life I lead and friends I have are AT RISK by allowing horrible shit to continue.  Yet I remain sitting here on my couch, wondering what happened to the Discordian Trap Door that used to spring open when I got too complacent.

I don't know who the fuck I am anymore.  I don't recognize this coward.  Yet I am he.  This time when I died, I somehow survived my own death, and now I'm just a ghost of a person sitting around eating doritos and playing Star Citizen.

I don't know what I hope to accomplish by this confession either.  If anything I am proof that Roger is right, fuck our moronic species.

I may not be the most evil thing around.  Or Really Real Evil.  However, I am certainly more problem than solution.  I live in Redneckville Wisconsin (A.K.A. Elkhorn) where Trump flags outnumber the American flags and every church in town makes the Town Hall building look ghetto by comparison.  A very comfortable, pleasant, suburb of Hell.  I'm surrounded by very friendly, kind, family-oriented demons.  Demons that actually cheer on American Hitler, refuse to wear masks during a global pandemic, and spread ideas like "Climate change is a hoax" and "vaccines kill babies" and I shit you not "the earth really is flat".  While I do disagree when that stuff is said out loud around me, I do so politely.  I don't berate people for not wearing a mask.  I don't tear down the Trump flags everywhere.  I don't do much of anything, really.

In short (too late!), I am the enemy.  Not by choice, but by apathy.  I would invite you to put me out of my misery, but I am not miserable.  Just, very disappointed in myself.  However, if one of you WERE to take me out, I would totally understand.  Because I am the enemy.  My own, most of all.
There's good news tonight.  And bad news.  First, the bad news: there is no good news.  Now, the good news: you don't have to listen to the bad news.
Zen Without Zen Masters

Quote from: Cain
Gender is a social construct.  As society, we get to choose your gender.

Cramulus

WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THAT, IF IT IS WHAT YOU WANT TO DO?

trix

Ahaha yeah, point taken.  I should've expected the Professor to appear on my TV and quote Eris at me, and it was a very well-chosen quote.  I love you Cram, you don't know me but you are my favorite poster on PD.  Your Discordia seems the closest to mine of anyone here.  I sincerely hope to meet you some day.  Anyway.

While it totally IS what I want to do, it is a selfish way to live, given the state of things.  I don't like how selfish I've become.  I want to fight, to tear this whole fucking joke of a society down and see if people build something better in its place.

But, man, I'm tired.  I worked another 50-60 hour week in the factory.  I have mortgage, bills, small-time shit to do, a sick person to care for and support, etc etc etc.  Also, Star Citizen is SO MUCH MORE FUN.  And my D&D session is tomorrow and is the high point of my week.

To be brutally, painfully honest, I want other people to fight the evil shit and win and bring sanity back to society, while I sit here posting useless crap in support of those people in between work and sleep and games.  However, this makes me a shit person.  I don't really like being a shit person either.

I've seriously considered trying something like alcohol or drugs to give myself the energy to get off my stupid ass and GO THE FUCK OUTSIDE and try to make a difference, but I also feel like if I have to be fucked up to do it, I haven't solved the underlying problem.

I just don't fucking know, man.
There's good news tonight.  And bad news.  First, the bad news: there is no good news.  Now, the good news: you don't have to listen to the bad news.
Zen Without Zen Masters

Quote from: Cain
Gender is a social construct.  As society, we get to choose your gender.

trix

The worst part is my memory.  I remember the feeling of fighting.  I remember throwing wrenches into the gears.  I remember PosterGASM campaigns and my old cabal and the other shit we got up to, trying to knock people out of their comfortable routine for a surreal moment of WTF.

Now I'm one of those people stuck in the routine.  No cabal, no GASMs, nothing.  I've become a well-oiled cog, doing what I am supposed to do day after day so that I can live my very comfortable life while feeling bad for all the people who cannot have what I have because society has gotten so fucked.

The most subversive thing I do these days is to subtly ship the homophobes I work with together make them uncomfortable.   Secretly leaving little notes on their machine that appear to be love letters or secret admirer notes from one homophobe to another.  Even that I have to be very careful about to make sure I don't cross any lines that could lead to trouble.  And it doesn't really do anything except make me giggle in secret.

I have become, comfortably numb.
There's good news tonight.  And bad news.  First, the bad news: there is no good news.  Now, the good news: you don't have to listen to the bad news.
Zen Without Zen Masters

Quote from: Cain
Gender is a social construct.  As society, we get to choose your gender.

Cramulus

Before, what you had was the demo, the sneak preview

the MachineTM was still being put together

your younger self didn't need to be at odds with it



Now you are searching for an ignition spark

so it sounds like the stage is finally set----

these are the   t r u e    conditions
of your real initiation






Cramulus

#5
Now, as an adult, you have the context to recognize that there are two different states within you


a state of sleep
and an accursed state which will remain nameless


this second state appears now and then (sometimes very rarely), but it doesn't seem like it's something you can just turn on by will alone, right?

This accursed state disturbs sleep, so your sleeping mind resists it, pushes it away, retreats into the dream world of the Golden Apple.



As the pope of Discordia, I tell you today, that this accursed state is a gift from Eris. She grants it at seemingly random times. If you're not ready, it'll be gone in the flap of a butterfly's wing.

(We must not lust for the taste of the apple--no, whenever we are free from it, we must throw the apple as hard as we can)

The STATE you're seeking....
It's certainly not HARMONY. The state DISORDERS our machine; it can fucking wreck everything, and this is why we're afraid of it, why we retreat so willingly back into the comfort of slumber.


The state only appears in certain conditions.
Discovering what the conditions are, and ordering your life to create these conditions

is holy work



this is how 2 becomes 3
how recognizing the Two states
is the precondition for the appearance of the Third state - the non-accidental awakening, the true initiation

               :fnord:
     the third state
  is not a gift from Eris

only the pope can grant it


trix

Quote from: Cramulus on March 07, 2021, 02:37:27 PM
The state only appears in certain conditions.
Discovering what the conditions are, and ordering your life to create these conditions

is holy work
(emphasis mine)

So... basically I need to create my own penis-showing game?
There's good news tonight.  And bad news.  First, the bad news: there is no good news.  Now, the good news: you don't have to listen to the bad news.
Zen Without Zen Masters

Quote from: Cain
Gender is a social construct.  As society, we get to choose your gender.

LMNO


trix

Ah, weak-willed.

Yeah, I can't argue with that.

However, in the process of... processing Cram's advice and reading what I dumped here, I came to a very familiar realization:  I'm an idiot.

It occurred to me that this post is the forum equivalent of pulling a stool up to a bar I'm only seen visiting once a year or so, full of people with only the most vague idea who I am (if that) and proceeding to whine and cry about how comfortable my nice little life is.  While masturbating sadly.

For those of you with much bigger and heavier problems, IE most of you, I truly apologize for this stupid-ass post.

Also, Cram and LMNO, thank you for having the patience to respond far better than the OP deserved.

I hope this thread gets nuked or more likely just sinks to the abyss it belongs in.
There's good news tonight.  And bad news.  First, the bad news: there is no good news.  Now, the good news: you don't have to listen to the bad news.
Zen Without Zen Masters

Quote from: Cain
Gender is a social construct.  As society, we get to choose your gender.

trix

That said, I am also giving a lot of thought to what Cram said.

I don't have a proper response to it yet though.  I am trying to process it in the context of my particulars.  I think you are right though.
There's good news tonight.  And bad news.  First, the bad news: there is no good news.  Now, the good news: you don't have to listen to the bad news.
Zen Without Zen Masters

Quote from: Cain
Gender is a social construct.  As society, we get to choose your gender.

chaotic neutral observer

Quote from: trix on March 08, 2021, 07:17:49 PM
I hope this thread gets nuked or more likely just sinks to the abyss it belongs in.

You should never be embarrassed about being introspective.  Introspection is what separates us from the cabbages.

If airing out your issues helps you, then keep doing it.  It can help just to talk through things, whether your audience has any answers or not.
Desine fata deum flecti sperare precando.

Cramulus

Quote from: trix on March 08, 2021, 07:17:49 PM
However, in the process of... processing Cram's advice and reading what I dumped here, I came to a very familiar realization:  I'm an idiot.


don't gloss over this important realization

To become any advanced form of idiot, one must continually return to Square 1, the Ordinary Idiot, the regular kind of moron that you see out there on the sidewalk going  :sexybeast: HUUUUU :punchballs:


Drake75

If any of you would like a sob story I could offer one.

Q. G. Pennyworth

I work.
A lot.
I also fall down a lot.
Have days where I can't make myself food or get out of bed.
Just cry at the thought of DOING anything.
Can't bring myself to answer an innocuous message.
Let alone go out and FITE.
There are days I just want to stop.
Stop.
Go back to brunch.
And I cry because I don't know what that would look like.
Because I have been fighting so long I don't know where the safe ground is.
Because I have nowhere to retreat to.
Even when retreat is the only viable tactic
To continue fighting.

There are times when you cannot
Times to digest
Times to rest
And they feel like forever
And they take longer when you beat yourself up for being in them
And you cannot be there for the ones on the front lines
Because they do not know what rest is like
And they resent it
And their howling pain and rage and fear and trauma may fall on YOUR head
Your head that is still in need of rest
Still in need of peace

I cannot fix this for you
I have my own demons to fight
My own exhaustion
My own weakness
But at least let me offer you this
Even the ones you think are strong
Have days, and weeks, and months
Like this.

Cramulus