Blithely Burning Broken Bodies
Hi. I'm joiless. And what you are about to read - or, if you prefer (I know I do), not read - is a livejournal entry.
"Hi kids. Do you like violence?"
joiless. A peculiar misspelling of a simple word, "joyless;" implying a state devoid of happiness. And what takes the place of that happiness?
Anger. Slow-cooking, stomach-lining-scorching, brain-aching anger, the kind of malcontent that can simmer quietly in your heart for days, weeks... years.
I am not an activist. In order to be an activist, you have to actively care enough about the sum total of humanity enough to actively do... whatever it is your activism compels you to do. I do not. I do not find humanity worthy of a sufficient emotional investment. The truth is, I don't care. I never have. I never will. I'm not a nihilist; I do not believe that all actions are devoid of merit or evil alike. I am a misanthrope: I believe that humanity is largely devoid of merit. The entire hateful, spiteful, stupid, murderous breed has produced so few luminary examples that, were it my choice to cast a flaming sword into the vast majority of the species, sorry. There's a few billion of you that would have to go.
No, I do care about humanity... just enough to be angry at them.
Do I spend my every waking moment railing against some injustice being perpetrated against me? No. Do I lash out at the world at large for the resentment that society engenders in me? No. Do I fret incessantly about the vast conspiracy plotting to divest me of every assured and hallowed right I possess? No.
I am sullen. I am angry.
I do not care because if I did, this anger would turn to rage that would tear out my heart and leave me a ruined, burned-out shell, existing only to strike back at the things that hurt me. Do I feel the same thorns as you? Yes.
So leave me alone, in my books and in my thoughts and in the slow, painful act of creation. Leave me alone, in the safety of my own intuition and my own thoughts.
If you drag me into the light, it will burn my eyes and then there is nothing for it. I will not be that angry again.
But just so we're clear.
I am not apologizing. I am not apologizing for my sex, my race, my ethnicity, my religion, my country, my politics. I am not apologizing for slavery, the Holocaust, the Crusades, the misogyny and the witch trials and the book burning and the extinctions and the other 10,000,000 crimes my double helix has bequeathed me.
Because I do not now, nor will I ever, answer to you. Because you are human and you are just as fucking guilty as I. You are just as filthy, just as decrepit, just as cruel.
Let it, and this world will leave you breathless, luckless, thoughtless, hopeless, heedless, heartless, loveless... joyless.
Forget You Ever Saw Me,
I'm gonna use this world as an ashtray.
"Hi kids. Do you like violence?"
joiless. A peculiar misspelling of a simple word, "joyless;" implying a state devoid of happiness. And what takes the place of that happiness?
Anger. Slow-cooking, stomach-lining-scorching, brain-aching anger, the kind of malcontent that can simmer quietly in your heart for days, weeks... years.
I am not an activist. In order to be an activist, you have to actively care enough about the sum total of humanity enough to actively do... whatever it is your activism compels you to do. I do not. I do not find humanity worthy of a sufficient emotional investment. The truth is, I don't care. I never have. I never will. I'm not a nihilist; I do not believe that all actions are devoid of merit or evil alike. I am a misanthrope: I believe that humanity is largely devoid of merit. The entire hateful, spiteful, stupid, murderous breed has produced so few luminary examples that, were it my choice to cast a flaming sword into the vast majority of the species, sorry. There's a few billion of you that would have to go.
No, I do care about humanity... just enough to be angry at them.
Do I spend my every waking moment railing against some injustice being perpetrated against me? No. Do I lash out at the world at large for the resentment that society engenders in me? No. Do I fret incessantly about the vast conspiracy plotting to divest me of every assured and hallowed right I possess? No.
I am sullen. I am angry.
I do not care because if I did, this anger would turn to rage that would tear out my heart and leave me a ruined, burned-out shell, existing only to strike back at the things that hurt me. Do I feel the same thorns as you? Yes.
So leave me alone, in my books and in my thoughts and in the slow, painful act of creation. Leave me alone, in the safety of my own intuition and my own thoughts.
If you drag me into the light, it will burn my eyes and then there is nothing for it. I will not be that angry again.
But just so we're clear.
I am not apologizing. I am not apologizing for my sex, my race, my ethnicity, my religion, my country, my politics. I am not apologizing for slavery, the Holocaust, the Crusades, the misogyny and the witch trials and the book burning and the extinctions and the other 10,000,000 crimes my double helix has bequeathed me.
Because I do not now, nor will I ever, answer to you. Because you are human and you are just as fucking guilty as I. You are just as filthy, just as decrepit, just as cruel.
Let it, and this world will leave you breathless, luckless, thoughtless, hopeless, heedless, heartless, loveless... joyless.
Forget You Ever Saw Me,
I'm gonna use this world as an ashtray.