A Few Bad Monkeys Don't Stop The Show!

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

A Few Bad Monkeys Don't Stop the Show!
(Otherwise known as Rant 163)

"Ye have locked yerselves up in cages of fear-and, behold, do ye now
complain that ye lack FREEDOM? Ye have cast out yer brothers for devils and now complain ye, lamenting, that ye've been left to fight alone. Verily, verily I say unto you, not all the Sinister Ministers of the Bavarian Illuminati, working together in multitudes, could so entwine the land with tribulation as have yer baseless warnings."
-from the Epistle to the Paranoids

Life ain't easy at times. Even though we may have realized that we are really performing in a circus underneath Eris' Big Top, or even in one of the other tents set up on Her grounds, life can still get hard from time to time. And that is what crying or talking is for. You get over it. You move past it. Done deal. Move to the next act in the performance. If you find it nearly impossible to do this, either you need to relax and go with the motion (which in time takes you to a better feeling), or you need to question what you are doing that makes it so nearly-impossible.

You can complain about those assholes and those people, whether fellow performers, or audience members who delude themselves into thinking they aren't performing, who make a mess and run roughshod over your act. We all do it. Blowing off steam is part of getting past the crap. However at some point in life, enough is enough. And you have to get on with your own performance. Because the rest of us aren't going to stop and wait. This is not cruel. This is compassion. Good medicine.

As you get more experienced with life in the circus you start becoming better at being able to spot the few bad monkeys and can learn to avoid their drama, but in any event, they don't stop the show. None of them can. Not even if there were thousands of them. None of us can either. The show goes on forever and it is so much more than any of us can even begin to conceive of. Infinity is a good word to use for this, though I think of it more along the lines of dance sets. The music never really stops and each life span is simply a dance set.

Why is the universe is like this? Don't ask me. It tends to treat you the way you see it. Not in every case, but in the vast majority of the time. Think about it. If you are so worried about all the bad monkeys and the assholes going around trying to make you and the rest of us miserable because the gray fools haven't yet realized they are in a circus, you will feel shitty and then see a lot of things around you as shitty. Even if you get a smile from someone, you'll think "why are they smiling? what do they want?" Do you see how this works? You do have a lot more say in writing the script of your performance than you imagine. Remember it isn't laid down before hand. It is mostly improv.

Just put on your red shoes (or whatever color, or hell, do it barefoot) and dance. I'll tell you something I learned about Eris (or whomever/whatever you blame reality for), because some of you think that you get all sorts of cool points or props for causing as much disruption and discord as possible. Eris actually doesn't care about that. Some of you have allowed that Yahweh and His evil twin Satan to sell you their old con-job about pleasing them and getting all sorts of goodies for it. Eris wouldn't set up something like that, not unless you are that gullible. (This is why we DSSSers used to go around calling ourselves the Bastard Children of Eris.)

Eris actually wants you to enjoy your performance. She deems it wise if we all could simply enjoy our own and each other's performances, but figures if some are going to be bad monkeys then that's their own damned fault. Skilled performers can improv their way around any type of monkey business, good or bad. Happy or sad. Illuminating the "opposition" into seeing that they too are performers in this circus as much as the rest of us who know it; that is the mission of the Erisian Movement and of the Discordian Society. (Though the former tends to be more heavy into the spiritual, occult, and cuisine aspects of the show.)

Remember reality? But do you also remember that 80-90% of what you think or remember about reality is simply and only what you think or remember about it. Even what you perceive or how you feel about it is part of the performance you are making up. I think the old crusty surrealists used to say that one's life is the greatest work of art. It might sound like some ruse, but they hit upon a more decent of a way of seeing it than any of the so called philosophers or theologians (or politicians), all of whom haven't figured out that they are performers...all of whom think of their various versions of the truth or the solution as being the actual sum of reality. This is sad since they didn't get the joke or the memo or the fact that all of their ideas are just as much fiction as a novelist's story.

Whether the monkeys are in your head or in other people, a few bad ones don't stop the show. There is no excuse for not dancing beyond the fact that you simply don't want to dance. And that is only your choice. Stop using the other performers' acts as excuses for the way you feel. If you want to come bowling with us, bring some beer, shiny shoes, and make sure that the next time you hoot and holler like a monkey that you get the joke. And try not to piss on the damned lanes because you drank too much beer too quickly. Otherwise we may just have to leave you there to explain to the cops why the pins are on fire and you're stumbling around gibbering some muck about Eris.

February 24th, 2006
-Irreverend Hugh, KSC
DSSS / PMM