Shower Epiphany: Fear and Loathing from an Organic Source

So the boy got tired of playing a game I beta tested a while back and lI won't plug it if only it will make them look bad with what I am to write and I do have to say it not only made me sigh a bit, but it did scare me to the bone . And I need that.

I honestly need that.

Niche said a while back that " When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you". IT's one of the reasons why I love horror. Why I let it chill me to the bone and pull the nightmares out of the dark recesses and under the bed that as a child would terrify me and I know "we" had this talk and I've learned as an atheist that there is no boogy man, devil with it's pitch fork, or dark abomination that has crept out of the temporal rift. Lovecraft was a bigot and a social elitist, Stephen King did amazing drugs, and Poe died a drunkard. There are no nightmares, goblins and glowing eyes staring from the edge of sanity to tear me apart and yet, I want there to me.

I'll explain.

One of the reasons why I'm going to mention religion here is that we've all been feed a bit of superstition here and there if only to make sure that good children obey lessons that they were too young to understand and that if I think of it long enough a real fear comes and creep up ever so slowly. The monsters I was taught were never real and in a moment in time a frightened child within a weary man was freed from the shackles of ignorance and daunting fear only to discover something oh so horrifying.

I've come to realize that every act of evil in the world, most witnessed by me and some that have never come close to me yet still chilled me bone deep were not the work of supernatural creatures. The devil never made me do it nor can I or any other human being truly say that they were insane without a neurologist to analyze our thought patterns and map our what part of our minds calculated an action and what were crossed neurons in a short circuit of sorts. That when a man raises a gun towards another adult or even a child and that life is taken it was not some horror of unknown source of the claim of an evil person possessed by some sinister force. The chill sets in and I come to realize that we committed it all and that what frightens me so.

In my small moment under the sun, I've suffered much from those who not only looked as me but those who didn't. Older people who I could trust and those who used my honesty in humanity and kindness to others against me as a weapon. I've done few wrongs to others and have begged my pardon and done my penance until today. I've committed evil out of ignorance that still guilt me now and it has forced me to recalculate what may be and what I have done in many ways to prevent it happening from my hand or by anyone else's. It has shaped me to do as much good with my time if not to please some deity but to make the world a kinder place. And yet, in my time I've learned that abuse spawns abuse in other forms and that a harsh word may cost a life in the end. It forces me to pull away from others while placing myself in the way of any harm without their notice. It has taught me the value of "doing no harm" as well as learning that Krishna once declared that one may do by doing as well as do by not doing. An action for action. Thought for thought.

And moments when I am alone in the dark that I once was so terrified to be in I've come to realize that the evil is me. That the wickedness comes from those who walk upright on two legs rather than a bestial form. That children not held enough in a loving mother's arms or who have lived a heavy hand of a father will commit atrocities for the greater good that only serves their mind. On my horror stories the hero is weakened and many ways timid in the face of great evil. The unfathomable abominations does not ponder the lives of humans as we do not value the distress of the crush snail or torn worm. They witness sights that chill them and force them to resort to methods that often shun them as fools if not worthless vagabonds.

In the truth, I drink to numb. I will not lie to you or anyone else. I've drank enough to black out and to reawaken alive in my horror. I've taken opiates in the pursuit of remaining callused to the harshness of the world and the need to push back harder against the onslaught that was or never was. I've wept in cold moments and sat bleeding in occurrences that had lead me to rather die than to raise my fist in anger. To take chastisement in the form of a reprimand or a shot of anger against me. All the while understanding that my lack of sleep is not from a child's fear of what may crawl in the dark, but the realization that I am the most dangerous creature in it. That I know someone out there is screaming my name: some out of sorrow and few out of spite and even certain from fear that I will pull them back into the hell they escaped from. I'm not going to say that I am a good person, but I've learned that in order to have those you love sleep in peace and in solitude that the world is a beautiful place certain sacrifices had to be committed and I would rather commit them again and again, despite of what may come, than to have them take their innocence of only for a little time longer.

I know I am frightening. I mean to be. I work hard at it and take much solace that I can chill the heart of another in a breath's escape. And yet, I know for certain that there is no evil in this world that is not wroth from our own hands, by either commuting it or allowing others to commit them. And so, I refuse the scape goat and all rites of absolution. I face what ever may come and hope for the best and that I do not lose more of myself this time. What I commit and prevent will be on my own hands without utterance of spiritual absolve nor mindless belief that I am sanctioned to do so. And so, I know that hell is a now rather then a where and often time sit in the dark and contemplate.

And yet, it is a relief and fun to chill what some call a soul and others call a subconscious mid with a bit of horror and take my mind of what people will do to others to prevent of a greater harm. Forget that the harm done by some is usually suffered by the small and the weak and the innocent.

Or what Jean-Paul Sartre declared in No Exit that "hell is other people". Or as T.S. Eliot hauntingly remarked.

"I will show you fear in a handful of dust."

Good night everyone.

Sleep well.