Pain Vs. Emotional Cannibalism

What happens when a person needs pain? I mean, what do I do when I need to hurt? I use to say that people read online journals so that they can have permission to feel their own pain. Why else would anyone read another person’s journal? I know I say I read them so that I can know I’m not alone but what good does it do for me to read another person’s ills? It gives me permission to feel my own pain. I think it’s also the reason we as humans would rather watch Law and Order instead of some telethon. We can distance ourselves from the pain but still feel enough of it for some type of release. It’s all asking for permission to feel. It’s why I listen to Linkin Park’s “Numb”, “In the end” and Evanescence’s “My immortal” repeatedly. I listen so I can stir up pain that would otherwise go unexpressed and sit and fester in my belly. Maybe sometimes it’s more of a drug type fix than a therapeutic outlet. Sometimes music gives me the kick I need to get things done. When I listen to Gavin De Graw’s “More than anyone” I’m usually in a cleaning mood. When I listen to Linkin Park I need to climb inside and eat at myself for a bit. Emotional Cannibalism. Wow. My own new term… emotional cannibalism. If this term is accurate, I’m feasting at the moment. (The song “Numb” by Linkin Park reminds me of me somehow. I like the way the blonde guy sings. He seems to bend in agony. I think that’s what makes him so attractive to people in pain. He expresses it very well. Perhaps his ability to express that anger out loud makes the video that I play often.) I’ve done a lot of reaching out today but it doesn’t seem like enough. It doesn’t feel like I’m making a difference in anyone’s life. I have resolute to confine myself for sometime….kind of soul searching. My own issues come into play because sometimes my sesquipedalianism is manic in nature or withdrawn and simplistic. Even when I do things well I’m not pleased with my performance. Many, many people tell me that I cook well but I have to admit that I don’t enjoy my own cooking. I tell people I have the best yeast rolls around but when it comes to eating them myself the one thing going through my head is, “I could have done this or that better.” I tear my food apart like some critic. I’d like to just enjoy it like others do. I ate my heart /To arrest my pain /Now it lies /Heavy like a stone In my stomach… Dogs are bored silly by the restricted lives we offer them. /Hearing we do not listen; listening, we do not hear. /Seeing, we do not notice; noticing we do not see... /...therefore, to be human is to be insane./ Pascal ironically wrote that the main cause of Man's unhappiness is that he cannot stay quietly in his room. I would counter this by saying that the root of human folly (and the present world's destruction) is the insanity of optimism. 'Intelligence' is merely the stupidity of constantly setting goals to achieve and puzzles to solve. And, of course, all cultures are insane. Our human culture is founded on redemption based on suffering, and hence on the justification of suffering, whether for the sake of each individual 'soul' or for the sake of 'art' or 'progress'. But we are the most soulless of animals. The greatest art offers no hope, and 'progress' is just the trashing of the planet. There is no pain on Mars. Not yet. /Does it matter if the universe (epidotic or otherwise) /is multiple or limited or infinite ? /Certainly not to my inner self…the sufficiently-knowing, the sufficiently-aware./ You are allowed to kill your children's minds and hearts and sensibilities through stultifying 'education' - but not to expose them on an Adoption Rock (as in ancient Athens). English is a good language for describing things - especially metallic things like motor-engines and guns, and a bad language for describing subtle emotions, ambiguity and resonances. Because of the fear of the meanings of words, poetry so-called in English is beautifully castrated: the scars are very well-heeled. Animals are truly themselves and use almost the full capacity of their brains. Humans, however, can be defined by their unique quality of not being themselves and of refusing to use their brains to more than half their capacity. This is another definition of Original Sin, and why we are irredeemable. Everything human is deeply superficial - except in its effect upon the planet. Increasingly I find human beings unattractive. I warm to dogs, cats, centipedes and spiders - but regard humans more like slugs and sheep. Slugs individually, sheep collectively. In groups humans are gangs - from families and New Year's Eve parties to Amnesty International and Islamic Jihad. I am human myself, and, confronted by Cujo’s (my once pet dog) beauty of form and spirit, feel pretty unworthy of him. Dogs are wonderfully undemanding. "Humans are gods from outer space," Cujo’s legs, salivating tongue and wagging tail might say. It is not so long ago that heretics were burned alive and roads were impassable for half of the year and famines were frequent and a healthy human was hard to find. I wish the worst for Man: for what is 'good for' Man is very 'bad for' Earth. Among vast galaxies of flaming suns /One small...great...god is dead /And we are falling though the terrifying emptiness of Space Of loss /Which is the only poetry. /Poetry is nothing. / But to try and tell big truth (as opposed to lots of little discrete ones) without threading and shrouding it with lies is pointless. Nobody wants to hear or read what leads only to sanity, an intolerable condition. Words speak to me more than I speak words. What I have written is unreadable. All that has resulted is the gurgling of despair down the sink of my heart. Again you disappointed me,/ Again you made me upset, /Again you left me ailing, /You killed me again...

~~Hallucination~~

My age is somewhere between nineteen and dead. I have lost all my friends. I can no longer see any merit in having friends just for the sake of it, just to keep up appearances. I have nothing in common with anyone. Soon there will be only me and Oscar. The body bags are under my bed. I am the only person with whom I do not feel disjunctive and dissonant. Dozens of times, while planting or working or trying to sleep, I have thought of Great Lines, and my thoughts have moved on, and the great lines never got noted, and were forthwith forgotten. I took the champagne out of the refrigerator. I wept dry tears of ironic self-pity as I cooked an altogether humbler meal than I intended, with no alcohol - which should, of course, only be taken to celebrate with or to uplift, never to accompany sadness or drown miserable disappointment. Everyone I have ever met has been disappointing - as I was a disappointment to my friends, my brother and my father and mother who raised me. I really cannot cope with 'normal' people. In my (irreversible?) state of incipient dementia, I see no point in and get no pleasure from brief socializing; it is about as meaningful as a TV chat show. The one person I would like to be with is unavailable, and shrouded in cannabis smoke. As a child I got relief from tension and from thinking by turning on to my belly in bed, placing my hands upon the pillow, and banging my head against them while singing a monotonous tune repeatedly - an Ur-tune that is the basis of many melodies and variations in Sufi (and, for that matter, popular) music, especially the hymn-like tunes and chorales beloved of Gayatri mantra.. Some of my findings in last couple weeks: (1). Consciousness is just a wound. (2). Humans talk of pure and true because their souls are dirt and lies. (3). Belief is jumped-up desire. (4). Only the happy have sanity, and some have said that the only happy humans are the dead. The poor dead moon, hopelessly in thrall to dying Earth. (5). Failed suicide is true failure indeed. Another day awakening to terrible dismay in glorious weather. (6). In death is safety. When we're all dead, we'll all be safe. It is another glorious day. (7). The most enduring Terrorism is 'Normality'. (8). Human knowledge is no more than the maps of human ignorance. (9).When you think people are laughing, often they are weeping. When you think people are weeping, the worst of them are laughing. (10). When all else fails – philosophize! (11). 'Satan' is the sum of all the humans who have ever lived. And money is the devil's seed. (12). Money is, as I said, a bit like pornography. Some love it, others don't, but the world is ruled by it one way or another. The pornography of greed. (13). The beauty of the amazing weather only makes it worse. (14). Love is more terrible even than sex. It is hate which 'makes the world go round'. (15). The greatest lie we're told and tell ourselves is that life is good - when it is only animated junk. (16). Weeping is better than talking. Weeping is better than words.(17). There is nothing like hurt and anger to clear the geriatric fog in the head. (18). Kill is a perfectly acceptable word, but fuck is not. This says almost all you need to know about our values. (19). What is not suffering is denial of suffering. (20). Grief is also celebration. Even if I had a soul why would I think it’s worth saving? Silence, no mirrors. When people say that they are devastated, do they mean that, like me, they wake up weeping in the small hours of the morning? I certainly now realize the appropriateness of the colloquial term gutted. Every day is worse. Joy is shallow, Sadness is profound / And love a tiny hollow / In the trampled ground./ O that the days and the nights would cease./ Life is stupidity starving and striving; death is the infinite wisdom of peace... It is time to stop. I guess I must drown myself to slumber for a while.