Stoned for Life (Or how to switch Hate to Pity)

Stoned for Life
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(Or how to switch Hate to Pity)
A note: This is long. If you don't have the time to read the whole lot, just don't start it at all. Okay?



Here is what happened few days ago. There was this guy. Actually I am not sure what sex it was. But anyway lets call it "him" and be done with that issue...

So I hated him with all my guts! I mean, he was damn ugly! So ugly and dirty looking I can't even put it in words! All grey with filth and misery! You know, the real filth is never black. it is black only if a child falls down and it gets his white pants soiled. The filth of the bums that live their life at the edge of the society is just dark grey, never really black.

You probably know (or heard of, if you don't have the guts to admit it) that when one sees some abnormally hideous creation of Mother Nature, he just feels compelled to look at it no matter how disgusting it is. Yeah, that's the truth - only in the sleazy books "the lady turns away her eyes". All you people just keep staring, I just know it!

So I was stalking this utter piece of crap, as per usual, and couldn't take my eyes of him. Of course, he managed to disappear for a sec or two but I always could spot him right away. (Damn junkie, he thought he could get away from my sharp eyes!). It may seem strange but when I used to do that after a while I started getting physically sick from his looks, motions, awkwardness... just from everything. And yet I still kept on following and looking at him. On and on... For hours! Till I kicked myself out of that trance and went to kill a kitten or do another refreshing thing.

I have been doing this for months now. I probably shouldn't speak at all and just go and see a shrink or something but hell, maybe you can learn something as well!

The other day, what I was again doing that silly stalking, he dropped a letter. Geez, I thought he was not able to speak, let alone to write. But damn it! There it was - a very well composed piece of writing! I picked it up and when I read it I was shocked to the depth of my soul (or whatever makes me tick). It is a very personal letter and I was very dubious to share it or not. But for the good of our small community I felt it's worth to do it. (Besides I am a damn omni. What worse can I do? ;))
So here is the letter. I don't hate this guy anymore. I just feel pity for him, his creator and all the people. I can't explain it well - it's better you to see the point for yourself.



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Dear Gawd,

I cannot call you with your proper name because you don't deserve it! You - as my creator - caused me only grief and bitter sorrow!

I know I am ugly and not worthy, but... I don't want much from my life either! All I want is to be stoned! That's all! I don't need fancy apartment, nice food or people to love me. I just need to be left alone. No one to bother me, so I can sit down, get stoned, feel nothing...
It is so wonderful to hug my knees, close my eyes and feel the abyss... Yeah, I know people say being stoned is to live on the edge, but I like it that way. I love the sense of enormous emptiness and me just staring at it through my eyelids...

I don't know if you approve this way of life or not. But I guess, if you have put me on my place, that's exactly what I am supposed to do. I am at the end of the civilization in all the meanings of the words and yet you allow all these people to come to me and hunt me down.

Why?!

What for?!

What do I have to do with them?!

I don't need gold and riches like they do! I don't run all day long to gather money and stash it in banks! Why me?! Why don't you punish all these stupid little idiots doing all those horrible stuff to each other?! I have heard them bragging and seen their doings enough already! Oh yes, I have! Their sole purpose is to get money and to get better 'this' and buy 'that'... Is that more valuable than what I want to do?

What is to life if not having a little peace to oneself?!

Please, understand: All I want is peace and to be stoned! And stay like that... forever! I don't want these hordes of people going after me, looking me with their dull greedy eyes! Is that so hard, oh my dear Gawd?!

But enough of that! I have questioned you enough all that time and you never answered me! Ever!

I blame you for creating me so repulsive and disgusting that people always come after me, push me, kick me, beat the crap out of me and even shoot at me!
I accuse you in the deadliest sins of all : to have all the power in the world but to use it for creating a creature with the only purpose it to be chased and humiliated!
I despise you for your might and lack of imagination! You made me strive for peace and emptiness and yet you put me in position not to have any!

Damn you, Gawd!


With all the disrespect I can have,

Heckler of Stones
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I can personally relate to some of those things, but the problem is not God (or any other mythical creator-being of lore), the problem is modern-day society. There are many things wrong with it which we are inflicting unto ourselves, and only ourselves are to be held accountable: as always, shifting responsability to imaginary figures such as God will get us nowhere, except for drowning into a pool of whining inaction. We are alienating ourselves away from our basic humanity and turning into a mindless frivolous herd of consumers that worry too much about social status. Mainstream media, organized religions, political parties, ideologies, consumerism... these are all our babies.

I won't comment of older-day society as i've never lived there - though i seem to recall having read somewhere than in more primitive / natural societies people suffered far less from mental health issues - but there's so much (not all, mind you) nowadays that makes me sick and fills me up with misanthropy and nihilism.

Very interesting personification and image of hecklers--making them out to be 'people' who just want to be left alone. Great writing. Of course, I look at the people who compulsively hunt the hecklers as the junkies and not the hecklers themselves. Definately an interesting read (I had to reread it to make sure I got your underlying meaning). Definately not the typical post on the forums.

Haha, wonderful how it is possible to project AO on to every day western society and have it make sense :) indeed, hugging ones knees and staring deep into the abyss while under the influence of some europhoric drug is something that is extremely alluring if you try it but once...
The bliss of being outside reality and not bearing the weight of the world on your shoulders for that short time is so wonderful that you can hardly imagine it. "Coming back" is like having a sledgehammer smacked in your face, and then subsequently being weighed down by all that which you thought left behind.
The call of the abyss is strong after that.

Never one to go with the flow myself, I know all too well the troubles that lie on the edge of sanity and how easy it is to slip into the shadows.
The metal underground has to some extent given me peace in life. Fighting the never ending onslaught of consumer culture is hard though, and it saddens me to see the stupid lemming people all dressed up like Britney Spears and trumming along their treadmill existence in an ever decadent direction believing it to be ascension.

Amen!

Deep...

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Originally Posted by Mastablasta

The metal underground has to some extent given me peace in life. Fighting the never ending onslaught of consumer culture is hard though, and it saddens me to see the stupid lemming people all dressed up like Britney Spears and trumming along their treadmill existence in an ever decadent direction believing it to be ascension.

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Masta you can come and tripple me as many times as you want and it ll be ok after reading this. Thanks for putting my thoughts in better words than i could express.

Monks do it via meditation. To feel a oneness, a harmony, to be serene, passing through life observing it and existing. That is all. Not to possess. Eating when hungry, sleeping when tired, drinking when thirsty and so forth and so on. With all the bounty that their karma, sufferings and strivings have provided for them. Other try to get beyond the wants, still others try to get beyond the needs, living without shelter, not truely sleeping, not eating, not drinking, only existing contained.

I haven't seen it, those that get beyond the needs of the flesh conquering the matter.

What I have seen is a Western man, a friend of my grand father before and after he went to Tibet. He says that he stayed in a stone box for four years and was denied human companionship, light and sound. Conditions people are meant to go insane under.

Now, you may argue that I admire him and will believe what he says because a part of me wants it to be true. So tell me, when he walked into the restaurant to meet my mum and me for dinner; why did this man, wearing a normal jersey, jeans, glasses, with a normal haircut, looking like a professor or possibly; why did all the people who looked at him stop mid conversation, as soon as they were aware of him, stop to look at him; why did everyone in that restaurant watch him walk in and sit down. Why did we all relax and talk more quietly?

That is something I can't work out no matter how much I replay it over and over in my mind.

I admire them but for me, I don't want one way of living, thinking, existing until I die. I change, I look for new experiences. People who knew me at different times in my life remember me as polite, quiet and shy; others as loud, aggressive, active and violent, still others and cheerful, full of life and always quick with a joke or a compliment.

Now, I play games, that are not on my terms. I think on the things I should do. However, the things I had a burning passion to do, I have done. They have been experienced until I was sated. I ponder my next steps but they are more of a logical progression not based on any passion.

Each to their own.

"... serenity to accept,
the things I can not change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.

..."

I have tried, but there is free will. I won't change the way a person thinks. They may see it they way I want them to for a time but they will revert, never having wanted to or having actually altered, bending but springing back to how they were before.

What can I change? My environment to some extent. The way I think and perceive. Do I want to change? Why? How? What to?

If I don't, I won't.

If my presence offends you, we have choices and options. You can ignore me, attempt to remove me or change me. I can adapt to how you will be more comfortable. While together, we will find a compromise, part company, dominate each other, struggling or destroy each other.

We are individuals, having slightly or different stimulii, we are unique just like everyone else and even with controlled stimulus we will react differently, even twins are born in succession, do not occupy the same space and so forth and so on. So, we are the product of our nature, our nurture, environment, experiences and choices.

Live your life, take what you like from others and be who you want to be there is no way that you have to live, there is so much room between immediate self termination and a long off death. Society is growing and it is all around us.

I go to work, go shopping and have chosen to do those things in order to sustain being alone at home with a computer, book, out cycling and just having quiet, I don't take on your problems, you are not welcome here so I will not assist you even if you break in and sleep on my floor. I don't care about people, shut them out.

Even saying, "Live your life, ..." you can chose not to, seeking the money and all the material things that will magically make you happy, magically getting through your flesh and skull to strip away your sadness and depression, anxieties and fears to make you happy and content.

Buying a gun and keeping it in your cupboard will magically keep you safe.
Getting a gym membership will magically make you fit and healthy.
Having a computer, internet connection and playing the most "challenging" social, multi-player game will magically distract for the rest of your life until you are dead without knowing it.

Having serenity from mediation takes effort, years of practise.
Being zoned out on drugs takes effort to get the drugs and sacrifices the duration you will have that experience and your health.
Having a gym membership means you still have to go to the gym and burn as much or more energy than you take in.
Getting the gun means you need to keep it in a gun safe with the key around your neck at all times, you only have it if you can get to it before the danger gets to you. Then you need to have practised using it and be able to use it well enough to remove the danger.

Sitting, not breathing, thinking and doing nothing, means you are going to die very soon.

Now we go from conscious to subconscious decisions. I have faced my doom and embraced it consciously. I risk my life often pushing the boundries of safe, telling myself that last time I held the window and didn't fall so that is safe, now if I let go the ledge under me is still safe, trying to not let thoughts of the wind enter my mind and change it from safe to not safe. I didn't overcome the organism that is my body, I survived.

Even, not chosing is a decision for you know what will happen if you don't do something. You have more choices than you are aware of. Thinking, therefore processing you are making decisions.

What they are and their concequences are up to you. If it doesn't threaten other peoples' decisions and their way of living you will not be stopped.

Consider the difference of walking out onto a ledge of a high rise building and walking out onto the ledge of a mountain cliff where there is no one around.
At each of those points, what things are stopping you from stepping out into the void?

numinous.

Definitions of numinous on the Web:

• Numinous (IPA: or ) is a Latin term coined by German theologian Rudolf Otto to describe that which is wholly other. The numinous is the mysterium tremendum et fascinans that leads in different cases to belief in deities, the supernatural, the sacred, the holy, and the transcendent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numinous

You're welcome! But show some rigor. :(

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We can call a numinous (from “numen” meaning divine or spirit) experience, a non-unitive experience (purportedly) granting acquaintance of realities or states of affairs that are of a kind not accessible by way of sense perception, somatosensory modalities, or standard introspection. Your garden-variety sense of God's (mere) “presence” would count as a numinous experience. Numinous experiences contrast with religious experiences that involve, for example, feelings but no alleged acquaintance with non-sensory realities or states of affairs.

Rudolf Otto reserved the term “numinous experience” for experiences allegedly of a reality perceived of as “wholly other” than the subject, producing a reaction of dread and fascination before an incomprehensible mystery (Otto, 1957). In the sense used here, Otto's “numinous” experience is but one kind of numinous experience.

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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

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Originally Posted by Sterva

You're welcome! But show some rigor. :(

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Hey! How many others would even bother to look it up? :p

We are gonna die. Did you know that? Wonder what happends after? .... :D

/opens up the can of neverending argumental inqueries


Jen you asked what makes us not step out into the void? For me its my dog..my dog has all of its basic essentials for life given to him and never asks why he exists (in short he is content)...I truely believe animals are more advanced in us in some ways. Perhaps they know the meaning of life and we are clueless and just cannot comprehend the answer?

Animals are naturally stoned you could say :D

Animals can adapt to and be in harmony with the environment - we have to change it to survive, that is our strength born of weakness. Gorrillas are just as intelligent but don't need tools.

The meaning of life is life itself.

For my part I will have as many different experiences as I can. If there is something after death, that is probably something I can take with me. :cool:

I was stoned for weeks on end in my life... If I want to get stoned right now I can...But I never fooled myself so thoroughly as to think that the nebulous cloud of euphoria was going to get me anywhere...

This guy is asking himself questions and still has unresolved philosophical depressions that he should have been asking and hashing-out (forgive the awful pun) when he was 15, but instead, he was probably stoned, and happy...

Yeah it is a pity, he seems morose, and resentful, but I'll bet when he's stoned it's another story entirely...

I'll save my strength and effort for someone who wants help, someone who sees that something is wrong... Or who doesn't blame some almighty being for what he has clearly done to himself...

This guy can nail himself to a cross all he wants, maybe one day when he isn't looking for excuses, he'll be worth helping...

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Originally Posted by Jenshai

Animals can adapt to and be in harmony with the environment - we have to change it to survive, that is our strength born of weakness. Gorrillas are just as intelligent but don't need tools.

The meaning of life is life itself.

For my part I will have as many different experiences as I can. If there is something after death, that is probably something I can take with me. :cool:

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I believe the meaning of life is death.

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Originally Posted by Sir_Malak

I believe the meaning of life is death.

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Uhm.

To put it short. No.

But who am i, with my inferior verbal english skills to discute with you about life and death.

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Originally Posted by Jón Sæmundur Auðarson

The one who fears death cannot enjoy life†.

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Originally Posted by Jenshai

Hey! How many others would even bother to look it up? :p

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Truth, and for that, I salute you.

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Originally Posted by Sir_Malak

I believe the meaning of life is death.

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Perhaps for you it is, but that's a sorry way to live, nihilist!

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Originally Posted by Shareida

Uhm.

To put it short. No.

But who am i, with my inferior verbal english skills to discute with you about life and death.

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eudaimonia.

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Originally Posted by Sir_Malak

For me its my dog..my dog has all of its basic essentials for life given to him and never asks why he exists (in short he is A SOCIALIST!!!!)...

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=D

........

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Originally Posted by Shareida

But who am i, with my inferior verbal english skills to discute with you about life and death.

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I learnt that one early in life. The ability to communicate in a second language does not have anything to do with their thoughts or how valid they are.

Have you tried writting it in your language then translating it so that you don't lose meaning while trying to think up the English words?