So as we saw from
your opening rant - the Universal Human Longing for Goodness can get
just a tad over the top when it faces the frustrating reality of badness.
You yourself were prepared to wipe out the entire human race
with a band of invading aliens just because society is not just and
peaceful and good and fair. What the hell makes you think society
has to be just and peaceful and good and fair? It doesn't!
And in fact it's
not going to be. Little pieces of news like this always hurt your
Goodness Module's feelings and make its eyes sting with tears, even
though it hears this kind of shit all the time (nobody said life
was fair!), because it is, after all, a big-hearted idealist with
easily hurt feelings. It lives in a delicate little fantasy world
where everything always works out for the best, a world of illusion
that doesn't exist, and the delicacy of the supporting structures
it lives on are exactly what make it act like a little pussy sometimes,
balling up its eyes and running home for its mama, crawling back into
its comforting little illusions that things are okay when in reality
a lot of the time they're not.
You hate this
shit! This pussy shit. That's exactly why you were trying to beat
up your pussy Goodness Module and toughen it up by screaming at it
about all the stupid scum-sucking things people do. You were trying
to give it a dose of reality because you hate it when it bursts into
tears all the time. You are like a dad with a sissy son, enacting
ever more bizarre scenarios of rage against the sensitive little twit
in a misguided attempt to toughen him the fuck up. Give it a rest!
This strategy never fucking works on sons or Goodness Neurons so save
yourself the screaming rage-filled trouble. It only makes you look
like a loser yourself. Honestly! Other People may not be able to see
through your strategy of Horror at Your Own Sensitivity in either
case, but they will still think you are just bad fucking news.
Calm down! Swear
first, and then calm down. State your opinion that the entire human
race should be wiped out, since that is Your Goodness Module's way
of expressing itself when it gets all mad and shit, and then realize
that it's a complete fucking loon. And sensitive to boot. Because
behind all that ranting, it just wants to boo-hoo-hoo over the state
of the world and all that mean badness. So use the Bubblewrap Theory
of Rage Enjoyment and let it express itself by boo-hooing or shouting
curses and then show it how to grow up. Like this:
The
Human Goodness Module Grows Up and Gets All Wise and Shit!
Step
1: Have
it make friends with Mr. Human Selfishness.
This
is another exciting Plot Twist! Because it turns out - Mr. Universal
Longing for Human Goodness and Mr. Human Selfishness are actually
related! They are long-lost brothers!
This
is such a great plot twist. This is like in Star Wars where it turns
out that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's own dad! It's always great
for the plot when the deadly enemies turn out to be long-lost missing
parts of their own family. Aha! It all comes together now.
And
so it does for your intrepid Goodness Neurons. They have been going
it alone, such a lonely quest, for all these years. They come upon
an enemy in the woods - in self-defense they wage a furious battle
until....they spot the secret tattoo mark on Selfishness's wrist.
It's the Happiness Scar! Inflicted on all members of Goodness
Module's family as a result of an ancient curse in which they were
doomed to wander the earth forever in search of Human Happiness. What
a frightening moment of recognition and discovery. Could this
be their very own long-lost dark side twin brother! I bet it could!
Legend
has it that the best and brightest of Goodness Module's siblings got
into a fight with their dad - The Need for Survival - and was cast
out of the family and forced to wander in search of human happiness
through terrible terrain until he could be rescued and redeemed by
none other than Mr. Goodness Module himself! Mr. Goodness is now staring
in frightened awe at nothing more than his destiny. And an intimidating
destiny it is! Mr. Selfishness is all decked out in an impressive
suit of black armor, very tall and very strong. He seems cruel and
relentless and about ready to slay Mr. Goodness Module altogether.
Until Goodness, utilizing his clever sneaky smaller guy skills suddenly
cries out - I can help you!
Selfishness
momentarily hesitates - no one knows how he cries out in his soul
for assistance and companionship but he never admits it. But Goodness
seizes the advantage during the momentary lull by grabbing the Selfish
Knight's wrist and exposing the telltale Happiness Scar. This is Selfishness's
weakness and Goodness exploits it by breathlessly explaining to Mr.
Selfish the origin of his scar.
He
explains how Selfishness was cast out so long ago but that their very
own father was overcome with regret and remorse at his hasty act and
personally charged Mr. Goodness with finding Selfishness and bringing
him back into the fold where all will be forgiven. Sadly, the two
brothers are all grown up now and their dad is no longer alive and
Mr. Goodness himself had forgotten this important element of the legend,
but now upon seeing that scar, a vital piece of the puzzle falls into
place.
Mr.
Selfishness doesn't believe Mr. Goodness Module at first. According
to the legend, only the knight who can't be slain by Selfishness's
sword is truly his brother. So they have a rip-roaring crowd-pleasing
fight with plenty of sword action! They go the fuck at it with
many perilous twists and turns but no matter how Selfishness tries,
he cannot slay the Goodness Module. Exhausted but full of respect,
Selfishness embraces his long-lost, now-found brother.
Because
it's true. Selfishness desires Human Happiness just as much as Mr.
Goodness Module. They really are brothers. They are on the same team.
They come from the same root. Go ahead, let them fight it the fuck
out. Neither one will be able to slay the other. They have every reason
to respect each other. Their styles are different but their skills
complement each other. From now on, their epic quest for Human Happiness
will be shared. From now fucking on, it's a buddy movie. This is so
great! They're not lonely any more.
And
neither will you be if you let your own personal Selfishness and your
own personal Longing for Goodness start buddying up and consulting
each other on every major decision. Which is exactly what they should
do. They should link arms and decide how human happiness can most
sensibly be pursued.
On
the other hand, if you try to shove your Selfishness Mechanism out
of the picture, you will indeed be very fucking lonely because you
will never be able to relate to the rest of humanity. You will be
locked into lonely rants unable to share the slightest communion with
others, forced to judge the simplest of their desires, locked in a
tower of pride wherein you can't fucking admit how much you'd like
to be a part of the party they're all having fun at, forced to look
down your nose at all the things you can't have without a functional
Selfishness Mechanism, driven to pretending you don't want to have
them, that you'd much rather be superior. The only relief you'll get
is your own dark ritual of going down to the tower basement where
you keep your Selfishness and whipping the shit out of him over and
over again in some frankly sexual and appallingly primitive ritual
of power and submission, where the only desires are pain and humiliation.
Sounds great, I know, and indeed it is a darkly addictive high
that often ensnares your Overly Religious types but who the fuck are
you kidding? You're not that ambitious. You have to be not just Incredibly
Fucked Up but also Really Tough, Amazingly Naive, Excessively Passionate,
and Just Plain Really Pretty Stupid to put up with a ritual
like this for long. You want to join the party! Which is why you're
never really going to shove Selfishness out of the picture for too
long.
On
the other hand, if you shove Human Goodness out of the picture, you
will be just as lonely, completely unable to relate to the rest of
humanity, trapped like Scrooge in a money-counting house, miserable
and starved, swearing bitterly that the goodies of love and affection
and caring and sweetness that everyone else is feasting on don't really
exist, that they're just an illusion and you wouldn't like them even
if they did exist because you're so tough, so self-sufficient, so
selfish, you don't care, you don't want that sweet shit, you like
chewing on the boot-leather of your own isolation, scraping the metal
shavings off your cage door for spice, getting old and ugly and wild-eyed
and more and more like a rabid raccoon every year, shifty but dangerous,
always hungry, always searching the trash for another scrap. The only
relief you'll get is when you pull out the bitter wine of all your
hidden longings, pour yourself out a nice self-pitying snifter full
and drown your pathetic sorrows in a fest of tortured boo-hoo-hooing
while you slowly and excruciatingly remind yourself of everything
you can't have, getting drunk and ripping the tape off all your favorite
wounds, despising yourself for their existence and their pathetic
ugliness while vowing to never let them heal because it's the only
time you ever feel anything really is when you're drunk and ripping
the scabs off your own wounds. Whooh! That's an impressive but
harrowing way to live your life! Not to mention a very long sentence.
The
point being, they really are buddies. Selfishness and the Longing
for Goodness are so fucking close they could be conjoined fucking
twins! The Longing for Goodness doesn't work at all without Selfishness
at its core. And Selfishness bollocks everything up until it admits
it just wants everyone to be happy. Both of them will steer you dead
fucking wrong every time without the other. Your most Selfish fucking
desire is for everyone to be happy. Your most altruistic desire
is for you personally to be selfishly happy. The two twist and turn
throughout each other like the snakes on a doctor's symbol. They're
related. Your happiness makes other people happy, because as much
as they hate to admit it - their goddamn Human Longing for Goodness
Modules just want you to be happy! Indulging your longing for everyone
else to be happy makes you happy. It makes you so goddamn happy, you'll
kill yourself over it, sacrifice yourself in myriad untold ways. Don't!
Because you're making yourself unhappy and that makes everyone else
unhappy. It's not Goodness or Selfishness - it's Goodness and
Selfishness. And that makes everyone happy.
Believe
me - you have plenty to argue with yourself about without getting
these two bullheaded warriors into a fight with each other. I'm
not saying they'll never bicker, like brothers do, just that everyone
will be relieved when you finally have them working on the same side.
Okay,
now that we have found your Goodness Neurons a little buddy to keep
them from being lonely, it's time to move on to step 2. The very important
and dreaded step of....
Step
2: Introducing Mr. Goodness Module to Reality.
Wow!
This is an important one. Always very intimidating. When your Goodness
Neurons are very young and very small and realize they are not Big
Neurons yet, they retreat into a fantasy-land where they can work
things out and practice for when they are Big. In their fantasy-land
they become the Fairy Kings of Fairy-Tale Land and when they rule,
good always triumphs, justice always wins, the right things are rewarded,
love reigns, and Bad People are forced to flee or worship their conqueror.
This is lots of fun for your Goodness Neurons - being king. It's so
much fun that both you and the Neurons are a little reluctant to let
them out of fairy-tale land and into the real world.
The
real world looks kinda scary to a little Goodness Neuron. And the
in the real world they won't be king. They might even just be a pawn
or something. This is exactly how you feel. Like a pawn. Like you
will never be king. You will never be a superhero or the just king
and you will never be able to make everything work out the way you
think it should. You don't like this.
And
so, like an overprotective parent, you keep your Goodness Neurons
small and safely within Fairy Tale Land. You don't want to let them
out. And yet....if you don't, they will never stop bugging you. They
whine and jump and say nasty things to you, like frustrated children
everywhere. They will accuse you. They will hear you ranting and raving
about injustice or what have you - and then they will say to you -
Well what the fuck have you done for the world lately? I don't see
you putting your money where your mouth is. $25 dollars for charity,
help an old lady across the street, big fucking deal. You're no better
than the rest of them, you think you're a good person and all that
crap, but you're no fucking better than the rest of them.
This
is their way of saying they want out of your head and into the world.
They will criticize you mercilessly until you let go, let them grow
up and make their way in the world. You needn't be so apprehensive.
They have Selfishness on their side now, and that's a formidable ally.
But you are apprehensive.
For one thing, you are worried about the Big Dreams/Small Achievements
Dichotomy. Everyone fucking worries about this. It's the major
impediment most people face toward letting their Goodness Neurons
out in the world. The world's problems just seem so big and there
seems to be so little they can do about them. At best, they can volunteer
for the PTA or something. It's not enough. Small Achievements can
hurt quite badly when slapped up against the yardstick of Big Dreams.
And Big Dreams what are what they Goodness Neurons live on while they
are stuck in your head. After all, they were king there. It's hard
to measure up against being king.
Further,
while
they are safely in your head, they are your own beloved children,
very special, extra intelligent and quite frankly more talented than
everyone else's Goodness Neurons. Out there in the real world, there
is the rather disturbing possibility they won't be quite so special.
This sucks! Especially when they were king inside the realms
of your own imagination. It might be that your Plan for Improving
World Leadership is not all that snazzy when faced with the annoying
details of reality. In your own head, there are a lot of obstacles
you can safely overlook, the real world doesn't seem quite so forgiving.
In fact, you know it's not because your own furtive forays into Universal
Goodness have never been quite as successful as you'd hoped. You are
not a fucking saint. You are not the Dalai Lama. Half the time you
are not only not Universally Good, you are not even sure why you are
such a fucking pisser to everybody. It all seems pretty hopeless.
All
in all, it often seems more sensible to let the little Goodness Neurons
play safely in the backyard of your imagination rather than let them
play out there in Reality where Child Molesters might get them. So
let's deal with this. Child Molesters might indeed get them. This
happens. They will survive. Repeat this to yourself. Nothing in the
whole wide fucking world can kill my Goodness Neurons. Because nothing
can. Goodness Neurons are unkillable. They are corruptible, but they
are unkillable. They can be twisted, distorted, injured, and even
turned into rabid animals. But they cannot be killed. So stop fucking
worrying about that.
Instead
put in place a plan for what to do when they get sucker-punched by
badness. Here's what to do. Acknowledge the badness and acknowledge
the Goodness Neurons. That's reality. Like this:
Greedy
corporations are despoiling the environment! But I don't want
them to.
Hateful
politicians are spreading the disease of intolerance like a bad plague!
And I don't like that.
Ignorance
and stupidity reign supreme in human society! And I am opposed
to both.
Little
children in Africa starve and die of AIDS while Americans drive around
in gas-guzzling SUVs and won't vote even 1% of their GNP for vital
foreign aid! And I want the little children in Africa to be
healthy and well.
Horrible
abuses of human rights are perpetrated around in the world in the
service of imperialistic world powers who look the other way and prop
up corrupt regimes! And I am forever in favor of human-rights
for everyone.
My
local politicians make bad zoning-law decisions! And I want
them to make good ones.
And
so on. It's pretty simple and not all that impressive. But it's important.
And it works. It's the step you skipped in your rant. It's the step
everyone is tempted to skip. They think their longing for goodness
doesn't need stating. It does. State it.
You
don't fucking know everything in the world. You don't know how to
enforce peace and justice on the planet and you'd do a bad fucking
job if you tried. You'd be far more effective if you just admitted
that, like everyone else, you want it. The Israelis just want everyone
on the whole fucking planet to be happy and love them. The Palestinians
want the same fucking thing. But both sides will be god fucking damned
if they'll admit it.
Of
course, they'll be goddamned if they'll admit it. Cuz it's gonna hurt
like hell to look at exactly how fucking much they don't have it.
Their Goodness Neurons are fucking wusses about pain. So are yours.
So are everyone else's. They don't like the pain of disappointment,
of defeat. It hurts so bad, they think it'll kill them. Nothing
hurts worse than an injured Goodness Neuron. The whole fucking
evolutionary history that put them in your body in the first place
knows the entire fucking human race needs your Goodness Neurons to
survive. It freaks like a motherfucker when it thinks they're in danger.
It will do anything to protect them, including strapping dynamite
to a Palestinian woman's chest so she can blow up a bus full of Israeli
civilians. She'll fucking die and take as many as possible with her
before she'll ever ever ever admit that the badness of Israeli oppression
will prevail. She can't live with that, the utter defeat of human
goodness that her people's oppression entails, it's a fate far far
worse than her own personal death and her Goodness Neurons will blow
up the whole fucking world before they'll stand down. They cannot
stand the pain.
They
don't have to. And neither do yours. They just have to remember that
they never give up. The badness Modules that seem to defeat you are
the ones you end up not being able to do anything about. Of course.
It only makes sense. If you feel like you can't do anything about
Environmental Degradation, of course you won't do anything about it.
If you can't stand the pain of not getting your way, you will not
be able to stand the pain of doing something about not getting your
way. It's only when you can stand the pain and realize you're not
defeated, that you can take action. Mother Teresa wouldn't have been
able to run around helping the poor if she hadn't had the ability
to deal with 2 aspects of her reality. #1 - Goddamn some people are
really fucking poor and suffering and that's not good - that's not
universal human happiness at all. #2 - She didn't like reality #1.
So she dedicated herself to aggressively altering Reality #1 as best
she could. Because she never really did end up liking it.
It's
pretty simple. But hard to do. Hard to stand the pain of your own
particular reality #1 and hard to stand the pain of your own particular
reality #2. Goodness Neurons have a tough road to hoe in the world
- but they have Selfishness on their side and that helps. Selfishly,
it feels good to help someone else. And that helps a lot.
And
in the end - it doesn't come down to Small Achievements at all.
It comes down the actual Reality of Human Goodness. For there is nothing
the slightest bit small about never being defeated. Far from it. It's
endless, it's eternal, it's huge. It's part of a momumental stream
of Goodness Never Giving Upness that stretches back as far as humanity
does. It's neither lonely, nor pitiful, nor unsatisfying.
So
back to your rant. Yeah, okay, maybe humanity is a bunch of scum-bags.
But before you strap that dynamite to your chest and try to blow us
all to smithereens, stop copping to a defeat that doesn't really exist,
take a step back and state the fucking obvious - you're in favor
of Goodness. Really, you are. You are truly, deeply, madly, deliriously
in love with Goodness. There - you feel better already. You weren't
defeated, your feelings were just hurt because you thought it didn't
love you back and had abandoned you. It hasn't. It will be there for
you always. It's the one love affair you can always count on - even
when you are having a nasty disagreement - so indulge the fuck out
of yourself and indulge your Goodness Neurons in the lovefest you
both want. It's just like the Dalai Lama says - you will never feel
lonely again.
Even more
philsophical shit if you can take it, which I know I can't at this point.....
prettyfedup.com