I was in a violent mood that day. I'd been surrounded by the piss, the shit, the filth and too good friends for long. My mind grew dank, my mind had grown somewhere and I wasn't really paying attention. I was so bored. I was bored with the sparkle, I was bored with the shit and there was no difference if I drank champagne from crystal or if I drank ale for dirty jugs but I drank more champagne than I did ale and I thought I was enlightened, I thought I was born enlightened. My intellect told me that I wasn't but there was my intuition, there was always my intuition. My most prized object in world I saw as completely mad and as I laughed of all the wrong things and weeped of all the wrong things and as I continued to take life seriously for I was a serious young boy, a bright young lad who was taken by books rather than soccer.
Then, I did it. I killed myself. I wrote myself a list of everything that meant anything to me in any form, I wrote a list of anyone I ever cared for or hated and I wrote a list of what I never wanted to become. This you see, was the way I could find illumination, enlightenment. I was in error, I'd always been in error.
It was a case of poorly placed love. There is a hand or the action of a hand that many men feel in their lives. Women feel it too but that is different. It's from a different angle where the light is shed into kinder shadows but the action of this hand flairs up when it rocks the cradle. When the man, not too late at night rocks his loved child to sleep, a sensation of deja vu sweeps through him, only, it's not deja vu, it's something else entirely which he understands as he is locked in his position, frozen over the infant making googoo gahgah noises, soon going to sleep and there are so many thoughts in that mans head then and anyone can stretch their hand and select any thought they want and make it their own. The thought they stretch upwards to Icarian flames is usually this.
I can kill this child and nothing would matter after I've done it.
Then, based on personality, they create the most elaborate of schemes inside their heads within seconds and they already know the story. How it will be told to the police, how it will be told to the neighbours, how it will be told through the wire and the press. There is no cover story. There is only the death of the infant for no other reason that one had the possibility of doing so.
"What can change the nature of a man?" - Ravel Puzzlewell, Planescape: Torment
There are two great stories in the world. One is love and the other is vengeance. Through these ancient of stories comes other stories, smaller stories but every story written is based on love, is based on vengeance, every human life is based on either these. The notion of illusions is created by those too smart for this world, a segment I call "Genious and Lazy" for most genious people are lazy while most lazy people aren't genious. You say there are illusions but I beg to differ as someone else here, on this very board, begged to differ that there is no world spanning conspiracy driven by will. The illusions are our cushions so that we shan't fall so hard when we one day realize that everything we fed them in their little man speeches are there for us too. They say that death knows no rank, death knows none but the flesh it can feast on.
Really?
Death. What story is death? What is all this shit about death? It happens or it don't and when it almost happens why do we think that it could never happen to us? We are special, we've built this faboulous world where we go around and cast spells all day on those we love and the only thing we are, is bored. Did you spot a silver lining? Did you find a frame of reference where you could live your life and be happy about it, did you see something none other had seen, a hidden beauty, a gem tucked away in the filth? Of course you have, because you're special, special like a face scarred with a glasgow kiss, special like a crystal of the whitest snow dropping from the heavens and into our streets where you turn black along with your perfect wings.
Did you find something that mattered? Did you seize it and did you hold it tight to your bosom for the rest of eternity? If you didn't, you should. There is no salvation for yourself or for others. There is no hope for either yourself or for others. There is no light in the darkness, everything has turned gray. Was there something you could fight for? Was there something you could die for?
Yes, that old tale. How many men have died for their country and how many of them wanted to do so? Do you believe in your country? Do you believe in a god somewhere, benevolent or not, do you believe in something bigger than yourself? Stop. Go back to your work for you must pay your bills, you must supply food for yourself and your loved ones, mustn't you? Change the world, change yourself or change yourself, change the world.
I lost my hope on a dreary wednesday afternoon, drinking tea and eating scones. I'd met with someone who I hadn't met in a long time but it wasn't her fault that my epiphany shone through the dark clouds, it wasn't her fault that I was brought to some crude enlightenment. She was a backdrop and up untill then I'd believed the whole world was a stage and most of the time, comedies were put on. Nothing shakespearian for shakespeare wouldn't have shit to write about us. I got home and made my lists and then I killed myself to find who I was.
i liked this, btw.
i dont read all your texts, but when i do, i usually like them :)
QuoteIt was a case of poorly placed love. There is a hand or the action of a hand that many men feel in their lives. Women feel it too but that is different. It's from a different angle where the light is shed into kinder shadows but the action of this hand flairs up when it rocks the cradle. When the man, not too late at night rocks his loved child to sleep, a sensation of deja vu sweeps through him, only, it's not deja vu, it's something else entirely which he understands as he is locked in his position, frozen over the infant making googoo gahgah noises, soon going to sleep and there are so many thoughts in that mans head then and anyone can stretch their hand and select any thought they want and make it their own. The thought they stretch upwards to Icarian flames is usually this.
I can kill this child and nothing would matter after I've done it.
Then, based on personality, they create the most elaborate of schemes inside their heads within seconds and they already know the story. How it will be told to the police, how it will be told to the neighbours, how it will be told through the wire and the press. There is no cover story. There is only the death of the infant for no other reason that one had the possibility of doing so.
I liked it except for the above part, which I hated.
~Kaimi
Quote from: B_M_W on March 13, 2008, 12:03:11 AM
QuoteIt was a case of poorly placed love. There is a hand or the action of a hand that many men feel in their lives. Women feel it too but that is different. It's from a different angle where the light is shed into kinder shadows but the action of this hand flairs up when it rocks the cradle. When the man, not too late at night rocks his loved child to sleep, a sensation of deja vu sweeps through him, only, it's not deja vu, it's something else entirely which he understands as he is locked in his position, frozen over the infant making googoo gahgah noises, soon going to sleep and there are so many thoughts in that mans head then and anyone can stretch their hand and select any thought they want and make it their own. The thought they stretch upwards to Icarian flames is usually this.
I can kill this child and nothing would matter after I've done it.
Then, based on personality, they create the most elaborate of schemes inside their heads within seconds and they already know the story. How it will be told to the police, how it will be told to the neighbours, how it will be told through the wire and the press. There is no cover story. There is only the death of the infant for no other reason that one had the possibility of doing so.
I liked it except for the above part, which I hated.
~Kaimi
Which is kinda interesting as that thing have churned through my mind for quite some time now. It's an almost direct quote from a guy I know who used to work in a kindergarden. When he told me he meant and saw it like this, I was quite provoked and puzzled, but why do you hate it, if you don't mind me asking?
At a guess - because it's true. Not one of those nice fluffy shrink wrapped hallmark truths, more like staring in the mirror and knowing that one day that pretty face will all have rotted off, leaving nothing but a grinning skull.
Also:
Quoteor most genious people are lazy
struck a chord with me :lulz:
Quote from: Sepia on March 13, 2008, 02:11:46 AM
Which is kinda interesting as that thing have churned through my mind for quite some time now. It's an almost direct quote from a guy I know who used to work in a kindergarden. When he told me he meant and saw it like this, I was quite provoked and puzzled, but why do you hate it, if you don't mind me asking?
Because its basically gender steriotyping. We're not a fan.
If its true for alot of people, that is really sad. We know its not true for us, but then, neither of us are a man.
~KaimiAlana
Wait, so are you telling me that women don't get the urge to kill people just to find out what it would be like?
I kinda figured it was a universal thing.
Quote from: Golden Applesauce on March 17, 2008, 03:39:40 AM
Wait, so are you telling me that women don't get the urge to kill people just to find out what it would be like?
I kinda figured it was a universal thing.
I actually suspect that studies might find it more common in men than in women in Western culture, and I also highly suspect it's largely a matter of gender programming... not that I think there are not biological differences between male and female, simply that I think that many of the psychological differences are largely fostered by the culture-of-origin.
that bit was actually the bit about the piece that i liked most.
at least, until you had to bring "gender" into it, throwing it completely off-track into the world of "has nothing to do with it whatsoever".
if we could please leave the gender bit out of it (tbh i'm not so sure if this sort of thought happens more with male brains than with female brains, but i don't really care, either)
back on track, it kind of reminds me of a feeling a sometimes have when standing on the edge of a building, fenceless balcony, or something like that. i have an irrational fear of heights, and thoughts like these are part of the fear, "i could jump, and it would all end" [not the entire fear, btw, because when standing on a barstool, i obviously can't drop to my death, but i feel it too, unless i can hold on to something].
same thing when you see a big train or a big bus, thousands of kilos of metal and steel racing past you at high speed, "if i'd only take this one step, the lights would go out"
(now, i'm not suicidal, never was, never have been, there's too many people to embrace, so many stories to be told, etc)
but it's thoughts like those
you can almost feel the fork in the road at that moment.
how about the opposite (sort of)
whether you know about the many-worlds hypothesis or not, has any of you guys ever wondered, those times when you absent-mindedly crossed the road, your mp3 player blasting in your ears and you feel the wind of a large high speed vehicle rushing behind you, that you didn't notice at all before, and if you'd have walked only slightly slower would have probably hit you?
did you ever wonder if another version of yourself, in another parallel universe that was identical up to right there, might have got hit by that car, and that the only reason that you're still there is because .. your consciousness can only sit in a living organism, not a dead one. it's what Taleb calls the survivorship or hindsight bias. you are still there, alive, for the simple fact that if you weren't, you wouldn't be having this thought.
it's not surprising, it's not a miracle, it's just simple bayesian statistics. say you just survived a highly improbable dangerous accident:
P(i survived this accident) = 0.00001%
but
P(survived this accident | given that i'm doing bayesian statistics right now) = 100%
does that make you immortal? i wouldn't advise on trying and finding out.
The only problem with that theory is that it also predicts you never experience a timeline in which you have lost consciousness.
I think.
hm, interesting point. i will have to think about that.
I have often found myself musing about killing my children, my husband, myself, etc. It doesn't mean I have a desire, I just like detective novels.
This is, as usual, great feasting for the mind, Sepia. Thank you.
I've had intrusive (and rather upsetting) thoughts of that nature while I was postpartum. They made me paranoid.
Thinking of how you would kill someone =/= a desire to do so. That may not necessarily be the case with suicide, especially if you think about it often and fantasize about it.
But I don't know, I've been reading murder mystery novels since I was in 4th grade, and it seems not unnatural to wonder how to commit the perfect crime.
Intrusive, uncontrollable images of killing (or of the accidental deaths of, or murder of) loved ones gets really upsetting after a while though.
Yeah, I guess that's the point. If you have those issues, you should probably either deal with them or not be around kids. The occaisional thought about the perfect crime to me is not well a crime, or an indication of anything but an academic exercise.
Well, for me, anyway.
I was kind of talking about something different.
Quote from: B_M_W on March 17, 2008, 01:28:48 AM
Quote from: Sepia on March 13, 2008, 02:11:46 AM
Which is kinda interesting as that thing have churned through my mind for quite some time now. It's an almost direct quote from a guy I know who used to work in a kindergarden. When he told me he meant and saw it like this, I was quite provoked and puzzled, but why do you hate it, if you don't mind me asking?
Because its basically gender steriotyping. We're not a fan.
If its true for alot of people, that is really sad. We know its not true for us, but then, neither of us are a man.
~KaimiAlana
Ah, I see and I agree. When writing, I found it to be the best option for relaying the story and the message in a way where one wouldn't really notice the sexes as I'm not a fan of these things myself. Switching the sexes merely around didn't quite work. Well, the message is still there, no matter what gender, race, age or whatnot you have.
Quote from: Nigel on March 19, 2008, 08:20:49 PM
I was kind of talking about something different.
Well, damn. Sorry.
Quote from: Jenne on March 19, 2008, 10:45:58 PM
Quote from: Nigel on March 19, 2008, 08:20:49 PM
I was kind of talking about something different.
Well, damn. Sorry.
That's all right. Tired. Had to nap.
I don't know if you were replying to me or to the general conversation in your previous post, but basically I was talking about postpartum OCD-type invasive thoughts, which are a whole different category from either fantasies. or intellectual exercises. When you mentioned musing about killing your husband/children, I recalled my postpartum experience. I just wanted to make clear that I've never had *fantasies* about killing my family. I dunno if you've had any experience with OCD, but there's this thing that can happen; take a bridge, for instance. Suppose that somehow, the clear and vivid mental image of driving off the bridge runs through your mind while you're crossing the bridge. Combined with that image is a feeling of needing to drive off the bridge. Now suppose that it happens every time you cross a bridge, to the point where you avoid crossing bridges because you become afraid that you might actually drive off one. Not because you want to.
Just wanted to say I really enjoyed this Sepia. You're a very talented writer.
Quote from: Nigel on March 19, 2008, 11:22:40 PM
Quote from: Jenne on March 19, 2008, 10:45:58 PM
Quote from: Nigel on March 19, 2008, 08:20:49 PM
I was kind of talking about something different.
Well, damn. Sorry.
That's all right. Tired. Had to nap.
I don't know if you were replying to me or to the general conversation in your previous post, but basically I was talking about postpartum OCD-type invasive thoughts, which are a whole different category from either fantasies. or intellectual exercises. When you mentioned musing about killing your husband/children, I recalled my postpartum experience. I just wanted to make clear that I've never had *fantasies* about killing my family. I dunno if you've had any experience with OCD, but there's this thing that can happen; take a bridge, for instance. Suppose that somehow, the clear and vivid mental image of driving off the bridge runs through your mind while you're crossing the bridge. Combined with that image is a feeling of needing to drive off the bridge. Now suppose that it happens every time you cross a bridge, to the point where you avoid crossing bridges because you become afraid that you might actually drive off one. Not because you want to.
Ok, yeah, that's totally different. I mean, there are fantasies and there are OHSHIT moments. I've heard of this disorder, and that was sort of what I was alluding to with the "issues" comment.
Quote from: Sepia on March 19, 2008, 10:19:46 PM
Quote from: B_M_W on March 17, 2008, 01:28:48 AM
Quote from: Sepia on March 13, 2008, 02:11:46 AM
Which is kinda interesting as that thing have churned through my mind for quite some time now. It's an almost direct quote from a guy I know who used to work in a kindergarden. When he told me he meant and saw it like this, I was quite provoked and puzzled, but why do you hate it, if you don't mind me asking?
Because its basically gender steriotyping. We're not a fan.
If its true for alot of people, that is really sad. We know its not true for us, but then, neither of us are a man.
~KaimiAlana
Ah, I see and I agree. When writing, I found it to be the best option for relaying the story and the message in a way where one wouldn't really notice the sexes as I'm not a fan of these things myself. Switching the sexes merely around didn't quite work. Well, the message is still there, no matter what gender, race, age or whatnot you have.
In that context, yes, it works, and yes, it fits.
We like your writing, as always.
Quote from: Nigel on March 19, 2008, 11:22:40 PM
I dunno if you've had any experience with OCD, but there's this thing that can happen; take a bridge, for instance. Suppose that somehow, the clear and vivid mental image of driving off the bridge runs through your mind while you're crossing the bridge. Combined with that image is a feeling of needing to drive off the bridge. Now suppose that it happens every time you cross a bridge, to the point where you avoid crossing bridges because you become afraid that you might actually drive off one. Not because you want to.
I have this with heights and having an urge to jump/step off the edge. The feeling of not being able to trust yourself with your own safety isn't pleasant, but i imagine its horrible when others are involved. Maybe creating a cold unfeeling shadow-personality for yourself that you can trigger when you get into such a situation? ofcourse this technique requires that you have logical reasons to protect those around you at that time, seeing that emotions will not be a part of your OS at that time.
Quote from: Regret on March 29, 2008, 02:23:29 AM
Quote from: Nigel on March 19, 2008, 11:22:40 PM
I dunno if you've had any experience with OCD, but there's this thing that can happen; take a bridge, for instance. Suppose that somehow, the clear and vivid mental image of driving off the bridge runs through your mind while you're crossing the bridge. Combined with that image is a feeling of needing to drive off the bridge. Now suppose that it happens every time you cross a bridge, to the point where you avoid crossing bridges because you become afraid that you might actually drive off one. Not because you want to.
I have this with heights and having an urge to jump/step off the edge. The feeling of not being able to trust yourself with your own safety isn't pleasant, but i imagine its horrible when others are involved. Maybe creating a cold unfeeling shadow-personality for yourself that you can trigger when you get into such a situation? ofcourse this technique requires that you have logical reasons to protect those around you at that time, seeing that emotions will not be a part of your OS at that time.
Yeah, it's an odd sensation. I tripped when I found out that my friend Cordelia the Enucleator has the exact same bridge issue.
The thing is, though, in 36 years I have yet to succumb to the impulse to drive off a bridge, so I'm probably safe. I do have some other OCD issues which are not nearly as alarming, but which every once in a while escalate to the point of warranting medication.