Sometimes I think that everyone in this Mad world is here just to serve me and in the most precious sense of gratitude towards me. Alas, this is wrong! But would it not be wonderful? Am I a bad person for thinking like this?
Manifesto of Alphonso Monet- (to be read at the funeral of Mankind)
I have hated everything since I was born. I killed my father when I was seven, then I slit my wrists in vain, fate was not done with me. I met the girl of my dreams at 17, I disregarded her for a while and when she got to me, I cut her tongue out. But this is hardly the worst. Let the words echo once more: Nothing is hardly ever truly worth it and the same goes for pain. Only the pain he does to himself may matter. In addition, whatever we do or do not do, we will anyway regret it, so why not get it done, and finish this miserable chapter? There still seems to be something to live for?! Often acceptance comes when regarding the denial as the existing falsified truth, and the meaning of the lost or dead one. So, I may now come to the reality of the matter. Meaning is now meaninglessness. Oh, I dream this was a masterful paradox adjoined by God upon us with a universal law, a Kantian moral principle, a transcendental idealism, but no, no, it is the devil's work. Now I finally proceed to phase two.
Therefore, my last request, my last will, will be that of taking everyone down with me. For a while, I asked myself how this would be possible. Firstly, I thought, what if I exploded the whole of Mankind by blowing up Earth, but that is hardly something one man or woman can do by themself. As I see it, the other clear option was to write, to express myself quite literally to the world. In this way, I could choose to denounce the world, tell the truth that life is meaningless to all these ignorant fools, and think-they-know-it-all superficiality screaming human beings. Oh, but something does not yet satisfy me. The former option sounds illogical and for the latter one, let me ask, who even reads nowadays apart from myself and a bunch of old dudes? Well, they say the woman reads. But I do not desire to write a happy novel or love story. There is nothing to love about this painful life, the mad world, and our miserable thoughts and views of this ridiculous veil that must be removed at once. So, back at the beginning, I have come to realize, that I shall just damage the world as much as I can before I am inevitably taken out. No avoiding that, alas. I can be the sacrificing lamb and the blindly bleeding soldier of truth, the reality of the meaningless life. Then, there is just one thing bothering me. Am I therefore also part of the meaningless? Does the meaning protect the meaninglessness or vice versa? How would we know? As I think, this must be simpler than eating an apple since the apple may be poisonous by any man or to any man, but my own inner battle with reality can only be poisonous by the forces and limitations of my very own free will. Thus, I have to see the truth as the following: I'll hurt everyone and everything while I can, and when I am at my last breath, no silence will ever be heard afterward because my eternal laughter of the miserable despair we face is realized upon Mankind. They will now have finally spoken the words of the truth. The frontman of the fools pronounces: "Meaning has died". Now I am gone and done my servitude well-deservedly. I bet God will laugh in heaven with me!
It is time to get to the story itself, enough of this manifestation, I am no Karl Marx. Fuck him! You see, this text is not the manifesto - it is the sins or arguable virtuous deeds I have committed that truly is the manifestation, that is, the manifestation of truth, the manifestation of the reality of despair and meaninglessness.
I realized quite a while back that the things I used to get satisfaction from, even just the tiniest bit, have shrunken in vast quantity. What fascinated me a week ago might as well bring nausea to my frail body. Oh, how far has this mighty egoistic philosopher fallen?
One thing that never loses its satisfaction but only keeps it while at work is my writing. It is the aesthetic beauty and dreamland fantasies that for just the moment may bring peace unto a fallen comrade. Amazing Grace!
The sour taste of my lips and cravings for this eternal satisfaction sometimes makes me nauseous as well. Only pure in thought and wet in desire am I while writing and preferably poetically. Not even a woman can satisfy me anymore. Not the touch nor the voice. She is just one more enemy of false meaning I see. A face causing meaningless nightmares to the meaningless face that I am.
In May the flowers are at the shift of Summer and Spring and most importantly they are not the afterglow of Winter but the first glow accompanied perfectly by sunlight. My friend, the inevitable fool named Gerald Boucher was the only idiot I knew who instead of stealing flowers from the park during this time of the year would go to the florist and break the bank. A kind heart he had, but at heart, he was a butcher. He butchered himself in more ways than the English language would ever let me express. We always used to go for coffee and maybe once a week we ate dinner at a Chinese place. I made it certain that it was never anything more. Just two friends chatting. Here and there some intellectual would come up but mostly just the sort of thing that the aesthetic man would please himself to. Blow his brains out. Sometimes I asked myself, was Mr. Boucher butchering himself for his gay cravings for me? What am I even talking about?
On every mundane day apart from walking around town and my occasional arrangements with Gerald, nights were my thing. Oh, what is more, what is more perfect than my hopeless soul and a comforting woman next to me accompanied by bottles of champagne and red wine at night? Sometimes some vodka or gin tonic, or just tea. Japanese not Chinese. Italian wine preferably.
But you see, this is the perfect symbol of aesthetic living and at worst unreasoning blended with heartless behavior. Still, nothing would stop me. Maybe it was my endless lust for these pleasures that distanced me from the world. A transcendental punishment? Not that I am aware. So, going on I slowly started to become dull and dissatisfied with both the surplus of wine and women. No "w" would be enough. Without them, I felt lonely, but with them, I longed for solitude. A contradiction from hell had arrived at the gates of my mind - and body, for that matter. I respected this experience, perhaps I could find amusement in the contradiction itself, after all, I was by heart a literature and poetry lover. I made a living writing about inappropriate love and beautiful fairy tales. This had its contradiction in nature as well. I am a man and for the sake of revealing as well a writer who sincerely desires to be heard - do we not all desire so, perhaps not to be fully understood, but at least misunderstood? So then, why am I not writing about something meaningful instead of the superficial dreamland works I have produced like a machine? Would it be appropriate to call me the lying aesthetic machine? Or am I just deceiving myself here...?
Next, I adamantly searched with mutinous willpower for solutions regarding this "w" issue or rather conclusively everything regarding my pleasure-seeking nature that would at the moment not be satisfied in any way. With the contradiction, I had already touched briefly on the psychological aspects of the matter. Now my focus turned to the meta-side of the aesthetic pleasures. I wondered what the pleasure of mind was in these cases. What is the psychological element of pleasure and how does the mind steer these pleasures? Intriguing indeed. This springs to mind a plentiful of fantasies I desired. However, the issue with this quickly became, that I had to act on them, it was not enough to think of them. This is where the unfortunate victims come in. Mirabella and Felicia. Well, we could count Gerald as well. Simply the thought was not enough and in any case, why would it? The satisfaction that I deemed as vital for my pleasure-seeking lust was that of being in control, I was to say if the pleasure was in a multitude or momentary, would it be of an aesthetic or intellectual nature, would it be bodily pleasure or pleasure of the mind, would it be abrupt or continuous, would it be earthly or divine, who would suffer the pain and lastly what the pleasure-pain relation would look like, would it be in disarray or a perfect equilibrium.
It all began with scheming and a sheer master plan. I will make sure that Mirabella and Felicia both work till death to win over Gerald's hand in marriage. Is it not what the feminists desire? Equality? Neutrality? Fairness? Should they not, therefore, fight what has naturally been the task and battle of men? Let the best, or unfairest woman win. See, I told you it would be brutal by all accounts. Victorious will no one be after all. I wish these fools would realize the truth of the matter at last. It does not matter who marries who, it does not matter who dances with who, it does not matter who leads and follows, and it does not matter who is king, or queen. They are all miserable anyway! Alas, I cannot do anything else but laugh at them!
If you dare to accuse me of tormenting these girls you are just as blind as they are to the real torment, that is life. Nonetheless, you will be happy to know that what I have planned for the girls is nothing compared to what Gerald is in for. The best part of it is that he has no idea. But importantly there is one thing I have to keep in mind which is that I may only watch and laugh from a distance, after all, I cannot spoil the ending (that my death is the final nail in the coffin because of the revelation that follows, the revelation that the last acknowledgment of the meaning is gone, and so what is left is Mankind in a doomed state and only the lost ones living in the veil of a meaningless world.)
I will give Gerald a choice—a dreadful one—but at least he can decide, and after all, it is a meaningful one however he wants to believe it. If he sticks to the aesthetic way of living he will assume that all his choices will enforce his meaningfulness, and otherwise in the world devoid of meaning Gerald's choice between two extreme meaningless options will provide him some realization, and to some extent meaning. The first option is Mirabella, and you guessed it, the second option is Felicia. For simplicity when recalling the options, I will reduce them to Option A and B. Option B is B as in Mirabella while Option A is A as in Felicia. There are no rules. Gerald has the choice to choose or not to choose. This is the freedom that torments thee. Circumstances are also inconsequential, as they should be, therefore, what is left is the consequences of the aftermath of the choice. Now I will go as far as to presume that Gerald will not refrain from choosing A or B and that you are aware of what refraining from the choice indicates. So, by picking B firstly Gerald loses eternally the chance of having or loving the most beautiful girl in the universe, Felicia, and, secondly, he chooses the ugliest girl in the world in Mirabella, but what Mirabella has is the key to life, the meaning we have all searched. If Gerald would go on to choose Felicia, he would lose all hope of ever finding the meaning of life, but perhaps, perhaps, he would go on finding meaning in the most beautiful girl in existence, Felicia. But how long would the satisfaction last? Is it not just crop rotation as someone famously said? - Let me ask you then what you would choose, the meaning you are uncertain of or the familiar pleasure?
It is decision time! Oh, what a festivity we have upon us. I do not know if carnival would be the proper definition of what is meant to happen in front of my very own eyes, or would it be better to politely call it a party that is certainly what I am more inclined to do. In any case, it is a night to celebrate because tomorrow it all may be in vain. These humans never seem to learn. At least they know how to drink, coffee. We are in the basement of a coffee shop. Next to me is Gerald. In front of us stands two women blindfolded. Their eyes are covered for the sake of their dignity. We would not desire for them to take off when they are unleashed and given to Gerald, that torment of life could be too much to bear for even the strongest. There is no audience except the laughter of God Almighty. You did not seriously think this was my idea? Yes, it actually was, but just like everything, he takes the credit for my actions. Cruelty! Now, back to the decision time. I hate to break it to you but it took no less than seven seconds for Gerald to mumble: I did not put much effort into this decision, so I chose A.
I should not have been shocked, but anyway, I was. Well, I should have known that this mankind had not heard of resilience or hope. Honestly, that must be a lost a priori. I straightened my face and attempted to listen when Gerald said in tears: what would I do if I had meaning, something I had looked for my whole life, what would I do if I had everything I wanted except for satisfaction? What would I then look for, was the adventure not what the human was created for?
So, the eternal wheels keep on turning, and everywhere they travel, the writing is on the wall. Everything says, and even the songbirds sing: It is easier to pick the instant gratification!
I once thought, what would be the questions I would ask myself in an afterlife if such would exist? Simply there would be no question worthy enough to ask about a worthless life. But still, there is one rhetorical question that has worried my mind for some time. Will I regret my actions against humanity? For a while, I was certain that with no doubt I could dare to say "NO" in the face of Mankind, but now I am not so sure. Somehow doubt has risen from ashes I never saw. So, looking back why would anyone need to regret anything? You are the first and last judgment to yourself and only yourself, not accounting for your mother who decided, whether to take you or not, or the medieval king who pointed at the daughter in disbelief. Just like if we asked Hitler if he thought what he did was sinful and if he regretted it, I bet he would adamantly say no, even though we can all agree objectively that the actions and consequences of the Holocaust were one of the worst tragedies of Mankind. However, this adamant belief makes something shiver inside of me, I just know that it is not worthy to regret life. So, until my last breath and beyond I will carry no shame in laughing at the world. Perhaps the hysterical laughter will be the end of me.
Recognizing the truth, of the matter is what matters; I know that I live in a world devoid of meaning and neither am I born something worthwhile. Since this is the case, I must become in myself the meaning. The punishment of non-believers of this truth is just pure torment. You aesthetic pleasure-seeking freaks, like I was, look up in the sky and answer: do you see anything meaningful? If the answer is no, I say: good for you. If the answer is yes, I will bring to your attention that you said that it was meaningful in the first place. You see, either way, you are bound to arrive at the truth in the ethical in yourself, you will know what the meaning is, but it is not born by nature and neither is it found by endlessly searching or attempting to create something that does not exist, rather it is by will, the truth and responsibility of your choices.
Oh, I have realized that what is even better than committing my task of punishing humanity is that of reliving it. Can you guess who laughs next to me? Au revoir!
The wonderful in this is yet again that you will never truly know. You may assume that I am an advocate of existentialism and nihilism. But could I not as much be in fact the primal criticizer of the existentialist and nihilistic views by pointing out their lack of validity and deficiencies? But after all, how will you ever know? Is it not the case that everything in their perfect sense is of an imperfect nature? What a world we live in! A Mad One indeed!
Now graciously I have to say goodbye. But do not be mistaken, this is not an eternal farewell as there is an infinitude of provoking thoughts to express. Next on the line: Why pineapple does not belong on pizza!
-Fuckin' fuckers tonite, bathin' baiters by night,
dancing dodgy while I can, this must be God's plan.
Oh, I wish time was salt,
wine blood,
because just as I told you,
barely can I respect the halt,
Of time,
if Mankind awaits in mud.
- Aye Ego -
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