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[prismaticbleed]

 

Current Location: the edge of reality
Current Mood: this is insane.
Current Music: "Solitude" (Jewel Lightraye)

 

 

 

Geez. What a crazy freaking day.

Pulled an all-nighter last night as I said I would. Stayed up for 29 solid hours before my parents chased me to bed.
Ended up missing school as a result. Bugger. I can't be missing all these classes.

So I slept from 10 AM to 7:30 PM, and now it's 10 PM and I have to hurry up and finish my work so I can talk to my Animus.
He's not online yet, which has me terribly worried. I don't know what he's up to.
He didn't read the note I sent him this morning as a result... which may or may not be a good thing.

Hm.

Now, time for a rant. A SERIOUS rant.
Honest, I just came back from washing my crazy hair and whenever I do that my mind runs wild in the meantime.
It jumped everywhere from Johnny C. to The Fly to morality in today's society to modern philosophical applications to childhood ignorance to the meaning of true innocence to heaven knows what else.

And I want to type it up here before I forget. Lucky you.


<RANT>

All right, let's start where my head started.
Johnny. I was thinking about the scene where he's talking to Tess and quoting The Fly.

"You stupid, blind thing!! I spend enough time trying not to touch or be touched! The mere thought of such repugnance!! I would have nothing to do with the submission to physical longing. All seek to enslave you, and I've already got this ravenous beast of plaster to contend with. Flesh does not motivate me. No, mine is a penetration beyond the veil of the flesh."

Amen, Johnny boy. I would have said the exact same freaking thing.
You see, it's true. I spend much of my own time trying not to touch or be touched. And why? Not because I'm a misanthrope; no, I'm more of the polar opposite of one; but because of the negativity and vice and sin that lurks within society.
It sickens me. It disgusts me and repulses me and breaks my heart and is the reason why I cry nearly every day.
However, unlike Nny, who goes about killing off the worst of this planet (although he does make mistakes from time to time, regrettably), I go about finding the worst of this planet and trying to get some sense into their hearts through my own example and inspiration and motivation and words and actions. I don't kill; I bring life.

Another quote of Johnny's that I wish to speak upon, this time an exclamation directed towards Reverend Meat:

"I'm a slave to nothing, you little burger eating kind of meaty guy! NOTHING!"

Not only do I find that line terribly amusing, but once again it is something I would say myself... actually, IS something I have said myself, although in a slightly different context, of course.
I said that line to Julie.
Julie, Julie, Julie. You might not know her unless you know me on Xanga and/or InsaneJournal.
Julie is my first and oldest headvoice.. my "shadow", per se... the personification of my "id".
She's the darkest part of me, even if she hides it at times... but she's also me, in a sense, and so she's not entirely bad.
Take right now, for instance.
I have been going through a severely severe guilt trip for YEARS thanks to what she personifies, and it's hit a fever pitch recently now that I've turned 18 and can literally discard my entire past up to this point and start over. Honest.
As a result, she is now looking how I feel about her. Nowhere to lie, she's sitting on that couch in my headroom and looks absolutely crushed. You can see the regret and guilt in her eyes, too, which is a surefire sign that my life is turning around. When your very id starts to feel guilty about herself, then you know you're on the right track!!
Oh yeah and Laurie too. She's my psycho superego, and although I love her dearly, she's very upset right now and happens to be pacing back in forth across the room in front of Julie. She's not lecturing, she's just mumbling here and there, and is obviously quite irked. Undoubtedly. She's angry at Julie and I for giving in to darkness when we were younger, but she can't hate us because we've flipped a 180 since then, and now she's just furious at the past and is trying her freaking best to not only burn that guilt and those lessons into our heads a little more but also to keep us from straying off this road of life ever again.
But back to the above topic...
I have shouted at Julie in the past before she changed as well. We have had some seriously scathing arguments, fights of epic proportions all centered around my morality and her wants and my actions and her influences. I usually win.
"I'm a slave to no id", you know. That's my second motto right now, right behind "Know Thyself".
It's funny; I always wanted a motto as a kid-- well, now I've got two!

Rant number three. Religion and philosophy in today's world.
Oh my. What a subject.
Let's start at the beginning, when I was a kid... no matter how badly I regret my childhood, it still had it's fantastic points, and here's one of 'em.
My grandparents and my mother... extremely religious. They made religion an irreplacable part of my life from an early age; never let me miss a mass, always made sure I took time to pray, celebrated all the holidays with God as the top priority.
Now, mind you, being a stupid id-loving child, as all children are, half the time I wasn't too keen on that, but I still obeyed, thank God.
And I'll admit... my elders didn't always go about their religious education the right way, and that didn't help at all... speeches of hellfire and damnation and eternal suffering, my grandmother's angry curses for the devil to visit me in my sleep, the kneeling on hard rice and saying rosaries and punishments for wrongdoings, the constant screams of prejudice and racism and ignorance and mistunderstanding. Not a good way to bring up a kid in the ways of God.
And if it had continued like that, I seriously think I would have lost my faith. They stuck far too much negativity on it for me to look to it as a purely positive force in my life back then, and that is terrible... but God never lost faith in me, and He decided to fish into His collection of miracles and hand me a couple, to make sure I never lost faith in Him either.
Before I get into that, though, let's say that God has been with me, powerful and unfailing, from the very start. Even as a tiny kid I had one heck of a conscience. I thank my parents for that, of course, thanks to what I know from Psychology. The superego is formed in our childhood from what we admire and fear in our elders... our parents and how we view the society around us. Thus, Laurie was born from what they gave me back then.
Laurie is a personification of the fear I had of punishment, of the strap and the stick, of being locked in the cellar, of having my mouth washed out with soap, of my hands being tied behind my back to the kitchen chair while they screamed at me for my failures and mistakes, of being locked out on the icy porch for an hour after my grandmother convinced me that there were demons living out there. Laurie is the personification of my constant penitence and contrition, of my anger at myself for screwing up time and time again, of my constant trying to better myself even when I was already doing my freaking best.
Laurie is everything about my childhood that I will never forget, everything about my childhood that I don't regret, everything about my childhood that stayed with me to this day and has helped me to become a better person, that has helped me on my neverending mission to become the best person I can possibly be for my sake and the sake of the world.
Now you see why she means so much to me?
Now you see why I give her a face, so I can talk with her?
Now you see why I keep her part of me and a seperate face at the same time?
Laurie is the good part of my childhood.
Julie is the bad part of my childhood.
I am no longer a child. I am an adult. I have an entirely new life now, and although the influence of my younger years will never be forgotten or erased, that influence does a much better job of getting through when it's looking me in the eye with a voice of it's own and a face of it's own and a bloody axe in it's right hand.

But back to the miracles.
When I was five, I saw a devil. Yeah. I really did. There's your wish, grandma.
Don't laugh at me, it's true! And imagine how I felt! Here, let me tell you.
I was kneeling on the living room couch, looking out of the bay windows, in a terribly vile mood. Yes this is a photographic memory. But anyway, I had just been lectured by my parents about a wrongdoing again... some little id-influenced thing again, and of course Julie got mad and got me mad as a result (because she was still part of me then, with no face of her own), and of course I stormed off into the living room to sulk as I had been deprived of my stupid little selfish pleasure or whatever the heck I had been doing that afternoon at age 5. I forget.
Anyway... I'm looking out and feeling irked, and suddenly-- nowhere to lie-- I got this absolutely terrible sensation of wrong. Like something very bad was happening, or about to happen... just a feeling of pure fear and fright.
Scared, I looked up and turned right to face the hallway that runs past the living room.
There was a huge black shadow standing there.
I swear my heart stopped. The thing was actually facing the door at the end of the hall (out of sight from where I was), and was slowly walking towards it. It was huge and hunched over, very beastlike, but with a vague humanoid shape. It looked like it was either wearing a cape or was made of shadow, because I couldn't see any arms, just this terrible hunchbacked form. And it was looking at me.
Honest to God, it's head was tilted just enough towards me for me to see it's left eye, to see the shape of it's head. It had this single, glowing red eye, a dull shine against the black, almost a perfect circle, but hazy like a flame. It was focused right on me as the thing hulked down the hall and disappeared out of sight behind the living room wall.
I stared for a minute or so after it disappeared, scared out of my freaking mind.
Then, determined to see if it wasn't my grandmother playing a cruel trick on me again (nevermind that hideous eye), I bolted up from the couch and ran over to look down the hallway (super courage ftw!)... and there was nothing there. The door the demon had been walking towards was closed as always... locked as always, deadbolted as always.
Now I was terrified. I had been staring at that spot since the thing disappeared, and there was no way in heaven that anything could have left from that space... the only way out of that 4x4 spot would be to either open the door and go outside (for which you'd have to undo the lock and the deadbolt and the screen door on the other side, and opening it would not only cause a ghastly creaking noise but also let in a flood of light from the afternoon outside), or to turn around and walk back past the living room entranceway.
The thing had simply disappeared.
Too scared to cry, I ran into the kitchen and asked my parents (who were all sitting at the kitchen table and talking) if any of them had left the room. Completely oblivious, they all said "no, why?"
I sputtered an explanation which caused my parents to erupt in laughter and my grandmother to declare "see, I told you they'd come and get you someday!', before running off to my room to cry and literally pray like crazy.
Well, that turned my life around. Honest to God it did.
I still think of that experience whenever I need a solid motivation or reminder, and it works just as well as it did that afternoon 13 years ago.

Now for the second miracle, which happened three years later.
I fell asleep one night in 1998... and met Preludove.
No, I won't go into details here, not just for time but for privacy... but let's just say that Preludove taught me what faith and morality and conscience and goodness and righteousness really were, and never let me forget, even to this day.
She's still with me, I still love her dearly, and I'm still living by what she taught me.

Now let's jump to the conclusion as Q is dying to talk to me about my latest LJ entry and that note I sent him and I don't want to keep him waiting too much longer.
Conclusion... what is right, what is good, what ALL good faiths and philosophies revolve around (I know, I've been doing research for years)... is all common sense.
Open a philosophy book. Google religion.
I don't care if it's Christianity or Judaism or Hinduism or Buddhism or whatever, you look at it and you look at what they're trying to achieve and it's all the EXACT SAME THING.
Now, I'm a devoted Roman Catholic, but I also read up and diligently research every other religion and philosophy out there to see what they're up to, and not only do I get a bigger picture of humanity and morality but I also find proof of what's truly right and good and I keep those truths with me regardless of what thought system came from. (Does that make me a cosmopolitan of sorts?)

But yes. Conclusion.
The Golden Rule.
The New Law.
That's it.
I don't care what religion you paraphrase them into, I don't care what words you change them into, as long as they keep their original essence of truth they are the BOTTOM LINE.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
And, if you believe in a higher power, love God (or whatever you call Him/Her/It) with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

BOTTOM LINE, KIDS.
YOU WOULD DO WELL TO LIVE IT.
THE WORLD WOULD BE A HECK OF A LOT BETTER IF MORE PEOPLE DID.
START A FREAKING REVOLUTION FOR HEAVEN'S SAKES!


That's it for that rant, then.
Now for the last one, and I'll make it short because I can easily do that without losing ANY meaning.
Childhood and innocence.
Are they synonymous?
HECK NO.

Listen to this, kids.
First of all, after reading my first rant, you should have an idea of what I'm saying already.
All right. Using my extensive wealth of info that I have gained through manic psychological and philosophical and theological research, I can give my opinion and support it right here, right now, and hopefully give you one heck of an inspiration at the same time.

Let's start with the basics.
When a child is born, it has no formed ego or superego.
The superego must be formed through childhood.
The ego is our consciousness and awareness, and so will not fully form until we have a life, until we have the ability to form memories and thoughts, which will not occur until a child is out of those infantile years. Correct me if I'm wrong there; the ego is a very involved subject.
However!
THE ID IS THERE.
And why?
Because, at that age, it's the only darn thing keeping the kid alive.
If an infant doesn't have an automatic psychological funtion operating solely on selfish instincts, operating solely for the function of self-preservation and to heck with everybody else, then that kid is NOT going to survive. Simple logic, it has no possible way to.
Unfortunately, the id does not die when the child transcends infancy. No no no, the human being needs a drive operating on it's own interest, no matter how primal or selfish. If everyone was as overly selfless and altruistic as I am, then we'd have a big problem because people wouldn't give a darn as to their own selves and soon everyone would start dying off because they'd literally be sacrificing themselves for the good of others.

MODERATION! EVERYTHING IN MODERATION!
That's a very good piece of advice, y'know. Follow it!!
But yes. Even I, even the selfless fools of society, even we need an id in our soul, no matter how suppressed it may be at times. We need that little bit of selfish interest to keep us from utterly disregarding ourselves.

For after all, how can you help the world if there is no you to do so?

All you fellow altruists out there, LISTEN TO ME.
All you fellow self-loathers out there, LISTEN TO ME.

YOU NEED TO KEEP YOURSELF ALIVE IF YOU WANT TO HELP OTHERS.

No matter HOW much you hate yourself at times, no matter HOW badly you want to just throw in the towel and give in because you keep screwing up, no matter HOW low you put yourself down, no matter HOW high you hold the rest of the world...

You're still a soul.
You're still a human being.
You still have people that care about you.

You STILL have the capacity AND the ability to do a HECK of a lot of good, and YOU KNOW IT.

And when you feel that you don't, remember this--

God works through sinners.
God will never give you anything that you cannot handle.
You have all the means in life to handle every one of your problems... you just might not realize them, or might be too scared to use them.

I know.
Believe me, I know.
I speak all of this FROM EXPERIENCE and it is the HONEST TRUTH.

Look at Saint Augustine, for heaven's sakes!
If he can rise from that squalor to sainthood, you can get through this!!

Okay? I believe in all you guys, and we can do this. I can do this. You can do this. We're all in this together.


But back to the subject of childhood innocence.
Children do not have fully formed consciences yet, and usually their ids are far too strong at that age for them to hear their conscience and/or superego when they speak anyway.
You know it's true. Look at any kid out there.
They work selfishly most of the time, and would rather play and have fun than do anything important... than do the right thing, sometimes.
I know. I've been there. So have you.
"But," you say, "but what if they don't know what they're doing is wrong, huh? Wouldn't that make them innocent after all?"
No, I say.
It makes them ignorant.
Ignorance and innocence are two totally different things, my friends!!

IGNORANCE is the state of being unaware and unknowing. Ignorance is what children have. They don't knowwhat is right or wrong, not at first, and so they cannot follow it. That is not entirely their fault, as their parental and societal influences play a major role in such development, both positively and negatively. If the child develops a malformed moral code or 'superego' as a result of this, then the child is still ignorant, as their understanding of truth is also malformed.
However, they are not truly innocent, for the sole reason that they may still 'do the wrong thing,' even if they don't know it.

Now, before you yell at me, let me give you my tried and true definition of real innocence.

INNOCENCE is defined as a blameless state, which already exists in opposition to ignorance, for how can one be truly blameless if one does not understand where blame lies? However, this 'complete' innocence in the sense of never having committed any degree of wrong is virtually impossible. As a result, I believe that innocence can still genuinely exist in an altered state even if one has committed 'wrongs' in the past, if it is connected to the senses of both wisdom and righteousness. This new innocence lies in knowing right and wrong: it lies in understanding the many pains and injustices of the world-- really knowing them-- and still striving to keep one's heart white in spite of it all.


I know what sin is. I'm a sinner. I've seen the vice in this world, in my own house for heaven's sakes.
But I also know what goodness is.
I know what is right, and I know what is wrong.

And the very fact that I am doing my freaking best to live righteously in the face of everything...

The very fact that I am trying to be a righteous person when so much of the world is doing the wrong thing...

The very fact that I am trying to do good in spite of it all keeps me innocent.


And that is what innocence is.

Stay innocent.

Stay righteous.

Don't give in, don't lose faith, and keep looking up.



Good night.


-s. cannon