I'm not a vindictive person, in the sense that I do not enjoy being so. I don't take pleasure in the kind of dominance that the primal brain craves and strives for. But I feel as though I always come off in a contrary tone.
I spend so much time and effort honing my thoughts. I come to very complex realizations, but not in a conceited way. I don't think I'm better for having the views that I do. But I respect the rationality of it all.
It's hard to keep real views like mine, because everything in society is built on linking views to personality. The way you feel about something is the way you feel about yourself. And, while true in a basic sense, it should not mean that you are defined by those connections alone.
There are phrases and concepts that I always seem to remember in a detailed way, hard-written somewhere in my brain. One of these is the idea that Western (specifically American) culture is so centered around the association between wrong/right and true/untrue that it equates being wrong about something (even something completely factually-based) with being inadequate or stupid. If you're wrong, then your soul is wrong somehow; you are defective and have defected.
And I see where it can be justified. But the problem is that it leads people to assume that they should always be right, because it means more as self-confidence than anything else. So, nobody learns new things that challenge their world-view, because that is threatening information that promises to impose on their sense of security.
It's the reason that America is only now seeming to wise up to the idea that climate change is real, the reason that religion is such a deadly force in the realm of public philosophy, the reason that I can never seem to explain anything to anyone without their own personal opinion coming into play.
It's so stupid, because it allows people to be so glaringly ignorant, yet never be viewed as ignorant. It lets people choose to be stupid, to be shielded from reality and not feel like they are living in a fantasy world. It allows society to slowly crumble without progress, while fading dreams of irrational, childhood selfishness is the life preserver.
So, I stopped trying to plainly explain anything years ago. I usually say what I think will give the impact I'm looking for, and it's usually only half-true; I usually try to go in for the kill-shot before my voice falls on retracted ears. I believe that everything should be challenged, and if it cannot be defended, then it should fall. The reason for this is that everything in life that is even remotely beneficial or remotely valuable in any sense is able to be spoken for, at least on a primal level. There is always a grain of truth, even in a large concept that is flawed and untrue.
So I come off as condescending, as an ass, and that's fine with me. I don't really care what other people think, and I don't mean that in any way other than the literal. I really am apathetic towards what other people think of me. I don't have time for that. I measure my own worth, as everyone should.
This comes around to sound like a contradiction, though: As if I want to judge everyone else, but don't want to be judged by anyone. I don't know how to explain that idea away, because it is completely false. I abhor that kind of logic... but that's what it sounds like I'm doing.
Most people don't know how to challenge ideas; they only know how to challenge people's personalities and emotions. They only know how to berate and belittle. I can do that too, but I can do it to concepts and abstractions. I don't need to feel better than other people, because I don't really think I'm all that great. I just have a wealth of knowledge and intelligence that I wish I could use in some constructive way. The only thing I've found, though, is that blaring destructive argumentation. All I can do is kick out the foundation, and still, it is for a good reason. It's out of the kindness of my heart, as weird as that sounds.
But, at the same time, the more time I spend around people, the more I see them as not really deserving of real change. I see all of the debased behavior and all of the egotistical self-gratification in everything people say and every pose they make. All I see when anyone acts is them patting themselves on the backs in a myriad of ways; I see them reassuring themselves that they're more important than anyone else. I see them scoff at different beliefs and ideas, not because the ideas are stupid or pointless, but because they believe the people are stupid and pointless. Their sycophantic meanness comes out in that, and it is something that should immediately turn someone into the most unattractive person imaginable. But... it doesn't, of course.
Those are the kinds of people that make it the furthest. Those are the kinds of people with many friends, with many loves and opportunities. Those are the ones that make families. How sad is that? How much sadder is it that I don't think anyone understands what that really means?
To be true to myself, I have to be that sledgehammer. Even though I almost always choose to be silent or apathetic over being a prick, I still have those moments. And when someone does it to me, I do not shell up and defend my childhood self. I still look at the message more than the messenger... and I feel like I'm the only person who knows how to do that.
Whatever happened to real thought? What happened to the connection one was supposed and expected to make between their own personal morality and their actions? Why do I feel as though Humanity has become an empty game, where people can just find whatever they want to justify selfishness and waste, greed and domination, slavery and enslavement? It wasn't always like that.
The death of God is part of that equation. Nietzsche meant that people no longer fear that literal specter. Societies no longer move in unison with transcendental beliefs in the way that they once did. I'm sure that one day in the distant future, the Pope will announce that abortion really is alright, and the Church will keep a few more stragglers. They already did it with the idea of unbaptized babies sitting in Purgatory for all eternity...
Is that really what the height of the Human mind results in? Will we always just be a society of territorial children who can split atoms and alter the structure of nature itself? What a contradiction it all is....
I still like to tell myself that if I can exist with my state of mind, if I can see that deeply into thought and what it means to be a part of Man, then there has to be other people who think the same way. There has to be a reasonably good-looking chick who thinks like I do.
With my luck, she's probably overweight, homely and too introverted to realize anything substantial. It's nights like these that I relish all the opportunities I passed up to get laid from an empty relationship or a one-night stand. Even though sometimes I would regret it, in the long run, I'm so much happier knowing that I didn't sacrifice a part of myself for the same thing that everyone seems to be alive for (and only for).
Ever since I started writing again, I started thinking like a writer again. And once that started to happen, I realized just how base my surroundings have become. I realized just how dumb everyone around me is. I realized just how empty society has become; even moreso than I last remember, which I didn't think was possible.
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