We all know our own obvious flaws. It takes eons of time and wisdom to more fully understand our more nuanced scarcities, but the others are obvious. You don’t need to tell a fat person they’re fat. In the middle of that spectrum of our obvious proclivities, we are really capable negotiators of denial. A drunk knows he’s a drunk too. But there are a million good reasons why. When you’re fat (like I’ve been), it’s self-disgust and shame. When you’re drunk (like I’ve been), it’s because she did that, or he said that, or I lost my job, or she left me.
Here is the part that’s embarrassing. If you are half a human being, these are obvious, inexorable truths. Did I say obvious? Everyone can see them. Everyone knows they’re true. And I guess this evolutionary survival mechanism helps you explain why it’s not true. And this earned weird evolutionary instinct helps the closest to you in your tribe make you feel better; they describe infections as a phase. As an anomaly. They look for reasons to share blame.
I’m telling you now, a human living in the midst of proclivity. There’s probably no one to blame except the universe. And that’s not really blame; the universe is by definition everything. Your proclivities, faults, and failures are by definition part of everything. It was inevitable, but that doesn’t let you off the hook. If your sadness and falling down were inevitable, in an infinite reality, so was your happiness and standing up.
The ice we make feels like free will. Ok. I choose to be a drug addict sleeping at a bus stop. Does that make sense? Ok. I choose to finish my degree and buy a house and have a beautiful wife and two kids, and a garage. Those sound like opposites. I am the same person, and I HAVE chosen both. And they both seemed like the exact correct decision when I made them. EXACTLY. THE. SAME. Confidence at DEFCON 1 when I pressed the button.
What I’ve realized is that even the best minds of our generation risk being destroyed by madness. I’ve been mad. Mostly I love, but I’ve been mad (crazy) and mad, and when I was (second) mad, there was no reason to be mad. I’ve come to see, and it’s taken far too long, that madness is actually sadness. It’s like a white blood cell response to a threat to your body. You see a threat, and you grab a can of Raid and spray everything in sight. The people who love you and reach out a hand. Fear is a cunt. You spray their hands and mouth because you’re so afraid of whatever is making you feel is making you feel so much. You spray their hands and then go hide. And hide and hide and hide, until showing your face becomes a threat.