Lie to Yourself

[Bob the Mediocre]

Lie to yourself.

Tell yourself the world is fundamentally a nice place to live, that humans are good at heart. Never mind that you,Äôre defining good and evil self-referentially, with almost no regards to intention, incidental effects, or any crap like that. No, simple lies are more believable. And easier to come up with.

What,Äôs that you say? You don,Äôt like to lie to yourself? You want to find the truth? How arrogant can you be! Believing that if you search for truth you will find it. How many of you remember how long you slept Friday last week? That,Äôs a pretty simple fact, right? And the world ain,Äôt simple, however much it pains you to hear it. I'm certain my family has a few dark secrets that I don,Äôt care to search for. Do you believe yours doesn,Äôt?

You believe you can unravel the real ultimate truth from news networks, websites, and your own minds? Better to just ignore all that and not worry about the people dying horrible deaths every day. You,Äôll be much happier. And if, while flipping through the channels from one modern replacement for the static that cable has forever banished to another, you see an unsettling news report, forget about it. Watch an escapist movie. Get Pizza Hut to deliver baked cardboard in a cardboard box for you. Maybe even get into deluded arguments with your deluded friends. Representing the truth, of course.

It,Äôs been said that the best fiction reveals some truth. Perhaps. But even moreso, it distracts us from it. Everything important is wrapped up at the end of a novel. Everything that,Äôs not is simply paving the way for a sequel. Which will answer all the questions that remain. So of course the real world will work out like that, in the end. Every evil will be avenged. The hero will triumph, and of course you,Äôre the hero.

There will be antagonists who get in your way, of course. It,Äôd make for a boring book otherwise. How interesting would the Bible be if shit didn,Äôt keep happening to the Jews?

God isn,Äôt benevolent, by the way. No author is. They never can resist the urge to play with their characters, push them just a little farther, see how tough they,Äôve made them. ,ÄúLet,Äôs see, how much will this guy take before he snaps and starts gibbering about THEM and the squirrel conspiracy?,Äù And if the characters are lacking in sanity, the author can always just turn the story into a dark trip through the human psyche. Which usually isn,Äôt too pleasant.

So lie to yourself. Pretend nothing matters. You have a right to happiness, why let other people,Äôs problems get you down? They,Äôre just infringing on your peaceful, ignorant bliss. They want to spread their misery around, because it,Äôs easier than solving their problems. Fuck them. You deserve better than them. Better than reality. Reality will just let you down. So don,Äôt let it. Make your unrealistic plans and never act on them, always thinking how great it,Äôll be when you finally go through with it.

Lie to yourself. But know that if you do it in Eris,Äô name you will be rudely awakened. Or lie to yourself about that. Just don,Äôt come crawling to me when the shit comes flying up out of the toilet.

Damn it, this rant better wrap itself up nicely. Because that would prove my point so fucking well, with a nice snarky ending line that would sum up my arguments nicely. Well, fuck that. I,Äôll just say I,Äôve finished it. That,Äôll work. And no one will ever catch on to my lies.

4/9/2005

[Horab Fibslager]

bokonon would have soemthig to say to that, abut tom waits might agree.

i'm arrogant and i agree. more or less.

[/o\]

hahahahaha

[Bob the Mediocre]

bokonon would have soemthig to say to that, abut tom waits might agree.

i'm arrogant and i agree. more or less.

Thanks man. i'm not sure if I agreewith it, but I needed to get some sarcasm and cynicism out of my system

[East Coast Hustle]

rah, by the way.

very rah.

[Sepia]

wee

[Bob the Mediocre]

:bows:

By the way, Sepia, I like the quote

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

Great rant, A.A!

Even though you are probably just lying.

[Bob the Mediocre]

If I said I'm glad you liked it, would you suspect me of being less than truthful?

But seriously, it means a lot. Thanks.

[Sepia]

:bows:

By the way, Sepia, I like the quote

I stole it from Ms. Spektor.

And when I reread it today it felt even more comfortable to read. rah!

[Horab Fibslager]

:bows:

By the way, Sepia, I like the quote

I stole it from Ms. Spektor.

And when I reread it today it felt even more comfortable to read. rah!

i'm listenting to her again. damn. wicked ill.