The squalor and the misery that I have to witness on a daily basis sickens me. It sickens me to the very core, but what am I to do? What options have I? It is my own life I’m looking at and I have no other. I have to get on with it, the same way we all have to – every single last one of us. We’re all in the same boat there, as I’m sure you will agree. There’s no possibility of doing anything about it. That’s just not going to happen – we just have to carry on however we can and hope for the best. Even though that hope is a always going to be a futile one…
It really does sickens me, though. It sickens me more than I can say I feel like screaming out loud, I feel revolted and appalled at the same time, yet what was I to do? It was my life – it was the only life I had and I wasn’t prepared to give it up. The thing is to try to keep the sunny side up, of course. Don’t engage with the actual reality. Never do that – just keep on smiling and pretending that you’re having a good time, that you’re enjoying life, and all of that. Don’t let on that you’re freaking out on the inside. It’s the same for us all of course – the same for us all.
It’s not that bad really, of course. I’m exaggerating somewhat. Exaggerating for effect. Sometimes my life is even kind of ‘halfway OK’. You get a good moment (or at least an OK moment) every now and again. You may enjoy pleasant fantasies – for example, fantasies in which you are the hero, fantasies in which you are a great person and not a total shitbag. Not a complete nonentity. Etc. You’ve got to try, haven’t you? Wouldn’t you agree? ‘God loves a Trier’, so they say. They say this for sure, but God also loves to punish triers, to delude them, to make fools of them, to lead them on and on and then – ultimately – let them down. And that’s not something they tell you about in Sunday school! Or wherever else. Take your pick. I might perhaps be getting it a bit mixed up here – am I talking about God or Satan? How easy it is to get confused!
It’s easy to get confused – it’s easy if you’re me, anyway. ‘And who are you?’ you might ask, caustically. You might well ask, of course. Although my answer will not be anything that you’d like to hear. I’m the one who puts the question that you’ve just asked into your mouth if you must know. I am the one who stares into your eyes but says nothing. I am the flea that hops and the dog that barks. And lots of other things like that too. Innumerable other things like that. And some things – other things – that are not like that at all. Or any combination of the above, whichever way around you like it. Take your pick…
It was a religious message, you see. It was all about God and how we should always praise and obey Him. Because it will be very bad news for us if we don’t. Or didn’t. That’s kind of the gist of it, anyway. God could of course force us to obey Him and praise Him and all that kind of thing. Naturally He could because He’s God and we’re not – there’s a bit of an old power differential there, wouldn’t you say? He doesn’t do this however because he wants us to have free will and choose to obey him instead – that’s what people don’t get you see. That’s the gift of freedom right there. That’s the bloody old gift of freedom – the only thing being of course that nobody actually wants it. ‘Keep your bloody freedom’, we say…
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