Monday, October 4, 2010

IT'S NOT THE HEAT IT'S THE HUMIDITY


Hell is only Hell because we know that it’s HELL. So how better to disguise it than by making it look like the EARTH! Let’s say that we die and we end up in the Underworld, and there's this sign at the gate that says "Welcome to Hell" and “Arbeit Macht Frei” and there's Satan with a pitchfork and fire and brimstone and the damned falling in pools of molten lava... Well, you're in Hell, right? So by definition you'd expect things to be pretty awful. But the thing about pain and torment is that you eventually grow inured, so the predictability of hell in the traditional sense would make it less than effective as a form of punishment. I mean, if we’re damned to hell and things are bad... well, whadaya expect? We’re in hell, right? And in hell there's no hope of release, we're damned for eternity. So with nothing to hope for, even hellfire would be something we'd get used to... True torment comes when one still holds on to hope. So with this in mind the Evil Deceiver (or ED as I like to call him) created Hell on Earth. Think of our lives. We have good days, good months, good years even when suddenly out of nowhere shit happens. We get fired, somebody dies, we get cancer and we recall the times that were good and we wonder if we'll ever see them again. And meanwhile we look around and there're all these people who don't have cancer, who are rich with beautiful wives and husbands and good jobs and this and that. The CONTRAST is what makes our OWN suffering acute. WHY ME? WTF?! Whereas, in HELL we're all in it together, misery loves company, so while I'm burning for my sins everybody else is burning for theirs. But here on earth, we're each of us alone. And the suffering, it's all so arbitrary. The innocent are senselessly slaughtered as others go blithely about their lives, and this makes the bad that happens seem so much worse, because it appears at times to be utterly random and undeserved. But that’s exactly the point! We've all died, you see? We lived on earth and did bad things and we were damned to hell and sent here. And that's the genius of it! We’re under the illusion that this is all we’ve ever known. What better way to inflict suffering upon someone than to have them believe that this is THEIR LIFE, that they haven't died at all but on the contrary, that they're very much alive and that this world is the planet earth—a place of hope and possibilities. And this is the crux of it because it’s the spaces between the torments that make them so effective. Take Chinese water torture for example. Between each drip is a space and in each space we hope that THIS time the drip will finally stop, and this hope is what makes it torture. If there were no longer a drip there would be silence. And if the drip were continuous it would be a flow of water and could even be pleasant, like a gently flowing stream. True torture is made up of torment followed by an absence of torment in an endless repetition, juxtaposed against a background where we perceive others to be better off than we are. And this is a microcosm of our lives here on "earth". I mean, if I left my house and got mugged I would think it was terrible. But of course it doesn’t happen every day. It’s the unusualness that makes it seem so bad, especially since nobody else I know got beat up today. Why did the world single me out? But if you knew that this in fact was HELL then you’d say to yourself, “Figures!” The problem is a matter of perspective. Then when that bastard cuts me off and that guy at the copy place is rude and I get fucking Leukemia instead of complaining I’ll say, “Is that the best you can do?” It’s all part of the torment, personalized to make it seem that it’s OUR’S ALONE while everybody else goes around thinking the same goddamn thing! GOD’S A FUCKING GENIUS! I mean, I always thought this fire and brimstone stuff was a bit one-dimensional. But THIS... The world! All of history, the great men and women, their achievements, their triumphs and failures, and each of us with our individual lives, our personal histories. So much intricate detail, but all of it an ILLUSION created by ED (the EVIL DECEIVER) to complete this vast mural of hell. I mean, think of the work that went into creating it! It's incredible! THIS is a God I can respect! A God I can believe in!


And this explains other things as well. Like why are there so many lousy books that become bestsellers and so many lousy movies that get made? ANSWER: To frustrate the starving artists. And why do bad things happen to good people? Well, to FUCK YOU UP! (And besides, you’re not really good after all since you’re in Hell, comprende?) I mean, if you take the earth at face value then there are some things that are downright incomprehensible. But if you reframe your thinking... If you see that this isn't earth at all but HELL then everything makes sense. And instead of being ridiculously absurd it now seems almost comical. Then you're finally let in on God's inside joke. And the illusion is complete by making us believe in a finite world. If we know that we’re immortal souls suffering an eternity of torment then it will lose its potency.


“How was your day?”

“The usual… flames of woe. Eternal damnation.”

“Yeah me too… BORING!”


In Hell, HOPE is what crowns our suffering! So we therefore must believe that we are mortal, that our lives are finite. And if we live to be 80 we’ll want to maximize our pleasure and minimize our pain, and even if our life is full of suffering we have the hope in an afterlife where our pain and suffering will be vindicated. So we "die" here in hell only to come back again as a "new" person, to suffer all over again in a new unique way, which of course is completely unknown to us and all part of our punishment, on to infinity. It’s the MOTHER of all conspiracies! And the first thing to do, as far as I can see, is to get rid of hope.

(But then again, where would we be without it?)