I'm too hot.
Oh, and if I have to read one more truculent piece of 'writing' written by people on my course then I am going to have to remove my own testes. I thought I was elitist (even though my veneer is a joke, consecrated by my inability to be serious), but these people genuinely believe that they have some kind of higher moral authority with which to bargain. You don't. Ironically, the only kind of morality you seem to be employing is turpitude. A paradox indeed. Instead of your insipid pseudohilarious prerogative of naming things with a hint of irony, just call yourselves the Walking Paradoxes. No one will get it, but who cares? We're all morons any way. Before you all get up in arms (hahaha, 'all') and start waxing bullshitical about how I never have anything interesting to say, or how I'm really elitist, or how I think that everyone is a moron, or how I'm awesome, or how I'm no better than them, I beg you please just read the following sentence. I make no claims to being good at this. I have laid no stake. I suck at this. My sentences are grammatically flawed. My structure resembles poorly constructed snakes and ladders board. My thoughts are fragmented and normally ridiculous. My arguments are circular and ugly. My points are pointless. It is in the claim, however, that they make which riles me. "I have been pressured into doing this...", by what, exactly? Some kind of cosmic journalistic presence that I am unaware of? Is that what imbibes your copy with such startling banality? A super-being guiding your every keystroke? How'd I miss this memo? Maybe that's why you think you're so great: you're all religious. See. Stupid argument. The fuck? Any way. Go away, because I'm not better than you, but I mock myself - which makes it OK. Oh, and I might not be any good at metaphor but at least when I occasionally knock one out it doesn't always involve the words 'baby' and 'rape'. Neither of which are particularly funny apart, and aren't in any way amusing when you put them together.
Unless you're raping babies. Then it's good lulz.
Summery song for the day is David Guetta + Akon - Sexy Bitch. Go listen, even though it's kinda old. That doesn't matter. Things get good with age, or so I've heard. Or, at least I hope they do - what with my birthday coming up soon. God I don't want to think about that. Someone who is dear to me said he was gonna get me some glasses, however, and even though he can't afford it I appreciated the offer. Perhaps, when my faculties are more attuned to writing (rather than staving off the advances of a horrible dehydration-headache) I will discuss how I think motive is more important than action (in a lot of cases). I think the whole present-giving reciprocal altruism thing is a good demonstration of it. Even though a lot of people will dismiss my thoughts with an airy flick of their realism-wand, I think there is a time and a place for some mindless optimism. Sometimes we over-think and paradoxically over-look things: this will bring them to the forefront. You will appreciate man, damnit, or you will die trying.
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I promise that if I see another worthless prole citing Ecclesiastes as some kind of ethical or moral guide, I'm going to be forced to get very un-Christian on them. Let me grab my Bible!
Well, the first fourteen... paragraphs (because this implies at least a reasonable grounds for critical interpretation) are nothing but mindless platitudes which could be found in any teenager's diary: "all is vanity" (1:2), "All the rivers run into the sea" (1:7), "and there is no new thing under the sun" (1:9), etc. etc..Then it flips into some kind of narcissistic ridiculousness, "That which is crooked cannot be made straight" (1:15). Somewhat inconvenient given the tendency towards indoctrination and proselytizing, but no matter - we'll gloss over that. Then we move onto a slightly paradoxical phrase, which I have never been certain of how to read it, "For in wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow" (1:18) Now, without hindsight, I would be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt here -- it is undeniable that with further questing for knowledge, we invariably acquire new ways of being sad. Shame. With hindsight, however, we can see how this is evangelically applied to the doctrine of faith; I mean that insofar as faith is the 'antidote' to evidence and reason. With the exegesis which is evident in the world, the passage might as well read:
"Just listen to what I'm saying, because God is speaking through me (sort of) and you don't need to know everything else. After all, you're probably not smart enough any way. Don't be vain!"
It's OK, though, because you don't need to do anything. Fortunately, our erstwhile 'narrator' (the Son of David/King of Jerusalem) is going to do it for you! He plants the trees, makes pools of water (truly, the scope of God's power is infinite: if a man alone can create a pool of water, and tend to an orchard - he must be imbued with some kind of superhuman awesomeness). Oh, but wait. No, sorry, he's not doing anything after all: "I got me servants and maidens" (2:7); so, OK. Let's reassess. Only go looking for knowledge if you're a) Really powerful (preferably a king), b) Superhumanly strong and awesome, and c) In a position to hire slaves. Otherwise leave it to the people who have all of those things. After you've gathered your slaves you can move onto the binary polemic which is espoused by many religious types, "I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments" (2:8). I'm more of an aestheticist, to be honest, so I'm not on board with this whole 'God is divine. Listen to this music' argument. But, at least whence you have collected your spoils you can engage in some reckless hedonism, "And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them" (2:10); although it archaically probably stood for some kind of prudish stuff, in a modern society this is truly wanton behaviour.
But no! It's OK. The King's vanity is misplaced (what with it being vanity and all), "And, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun" (2:11). Now, if you're anything like me, you're probably thinking 'Who is looking after the kingdom? The king, after all, is busying tending to trees and pools of water and the like! When he gets hoisted by his own petard what will we do!?' Who knows?
Then it gets a bit confusing. He starts thrashing about and saying that basically everything you could possibly do is vanity, and that you should eschew all forms of enjoyment. Then, however, he has an epiphany (miraculous!) and it turns out that you should enjoy what you've done as long as you've come by it by hard work (not sure how this links with the conquests, and general Church appropriation of otherwise well-intentioned government funding, but there you go). Then we praise God or something, "For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. This also is vanity and vexation of spirit" (2:26). Ah, good job, Old Testament God! Good to see you're not petty or anything.
Chapter 3 is basically just more platitudes talking about seasons and toiling in the fields and whatnot. I have to say, life in Biblical 'times' (the plural necessitated by the fact it's a retrospective biography created by myriad authors) seems like it was just a load of hard work. I suppose it was good they had something to back to at the end of the day: God. Otherwise there might have just been mass-suicides throughout the region. Then we have a swift rehashing of one of the 'commandments', basically intoning how it's bad to be envious of a neighbour (though why God would create a human so fallible as to fall afoul of such a base emotion is beyond me). Fortunately, in Chapter 5 we do have a return to some semblance of humanity. The King admonishes people who don't pay attention to what they're doing and saying, "be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few" (5:2). Though, if you're again like me, you probably won't enjoy this kind of superimposed censorship. It is true that we should watch what we say, but not because of some divine providence; but because that is what we should do. Any one needing to derive a life lesson from this chapter missed a few dozen lessons on innate ethics in high school.
Chapter 6 starts with a repetition of Chapter 5's sentiment, "There is an evil which I have seen under the sun" (6:1). All well and good, but it's a pointless chapter. Just talks about how things are only good if we use them. Otherwise it is vanity, as decreed. Chapter 7 I find somewhat more disquieting:
"A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of birth" (7:1).
Dunno about you, but I quite liked being born. Not so looking forward to my own death, what with it being the termination of my life and all. Tiny bit presumptuous to assume we believe in the afterlife; though I suppose if you have slogged through the preceding 754 pages there is a good chance that you do believe. I don't, but there we go. If you're feeling a bit perturbed by my liturgy, by the way, don't worry, because "Sorrow is better than laughter" (7:3). The rest of this chapter has some nice moral messages, I suppose, extolling the goodness of wisdom, penitence, patience, a thirst for knowledge, etc. etc.. The problem comes when the assumption is made that a non-believer is capable of sinning. The overt religious connotations, to me, would preclude an atheist, for instance, from receiving divine retribution. I do not believe, and thus I have not sinned. If they can apply this sort of logic, then I do not see why I cannot. It is fallacious to the point of idiocy, but it is also a precursor to the ontological argument so I'm going to say it any way. We move swiftly (or not so) onto 'observations on wisdom and folly'; concluding that, "Wisdom is better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroyeth much good" (9:18). And therein we have another contradictory instruction: the message is clear, but the implication is muddy. How are we supposed to live, then? Are we to assume that the death of the sinner is good, even though he may or may not have been wise, or are we supposed to abnegate this decision to the Creator? Aren't we meant to be reticent to act against those who don't share our values, or does that only extend to people within our inner circles?
Then in Chapter 10 we have some weird talk about how a prince shouldn't be walking next to a horse with a servant on top of it, and that a man will hurt himself by taking a brick out of something. It seems as though we're just talking about wisdom again. It is good to have wisdom, the King concludes (or so it seems).
I hope for your sake, reader, that you're not young. If you are, you're buggered; "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgement. Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity" (11:9-10). Sorry, guys. You're even more buggered by the end as well, because it turns out that the only way of really ensuring eternal bliss is to follow the totalitarian rule of God to the letter, and to not err in any way, "Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." Well, who knew?
The problem, as we see, is that nothing done 'under the Sun' can really have a good outcome. For that matter, it is better to just bow and become blindly subservient to a higher power. Just as a disgusting despotic reign of horror would want you to (though despotism is too light a shade for this colour). So what ethical or moral derivative can we hope to glean from this abysmally depressing foray into humanity? All is worthless and pointless, but that doesn't matter because you should enjoy it any way: it is a gift from God. Or perhaps you should just abdicate any earthly responsibility and merely persevere in your quest for the after-life, and immortality (though this licentious wish, to me, seems the height of profligate behaviour - mortal sin). So, we could derive a nice message from this: enjoy that which is around. Unfortunately, we have to take it as a gift from God; so we are, ultimately, not enjoying anything on Earth, rather we are enjoying God through the conduit that is Earth. A fairly dismal prospect I hazard. The problem is that there isn't really any kind of ethical guideline here, no moral: just obeisance on a global scale. If you want to live your life dominated wholly by a possibility then by all means do, but do not preach it as some kind of codified tale of morality.
It shows that all is base and futile and that we might as well abandon all earthly enjoyment. As far as I am concerned, you cannot get more arrogant, and thus less moral, than that.
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