What do we need to make our world come alive?

[oneirophrenia]

The answer: loathing.

Not hatred. Hatred is used only to destroy--that's what it's designed to do. Far be it from me to denigrate the moon-shattering power of one of my alltime favorite emotions, but hatred is not the commander of the hour because now is not the time to destroy: now is the time to create something with the ashes of past miseries, to spit into the still-cooling embers and mix a gritty paste that can be smeared on a musical canvas. You can't do that with hatred. Hatred only burns up more things into ash. When you want to wake a sleeping beast and finish it, you can't turn a blowtorch on it; you need to funnel a much more subtle and gracefully savage emotion. Loathing will do just fine.

Earlier this evening, I went out to dinner with a lovely and very talented friend of mine. Having not seen one another in months, we talked of our respective academic hells, art, sci-fi, music, and so forth....It was very refreshing and very pleasant. At some point, we found ourselves discussing past relationship horrors in a rather lighthearted but sincere manner, and I briefly mentioned the whole unbelievably miserable "Jessica Experience" of earlier this year which fueled the rebirth of Malpractice and has so far formed the foundations of more than half its tracks. I simply haven't had time to work on that goddamned album for months now...but being too busy with schoolwork was a good thing because, quite frankly, I'd lost a lot of the impetus I'd had when I'd first begun it. Simply put, I was just not miserable enough to really work on it properly. The whole album was originally conceived of as a sharps container to fill with the medical waste of my many failures with other people. You can't really work on that kind of stuff with the same intensity when most of that intensity has simply burnt out with time. Hatred burnt it to ashes and now the agony is gone....Of course the burn scars remain--my emotional capacity is quite disfigured because of them--so I always knew I'd be able to finish the album, but it's not quite the same to use numb sheets of scarred tissue as inspiration as it is to use bleeding, festering wounds stinking of necrosis.

Hell, I was even joking with kaspellsgoddess and halcyoneffect at Ceremony that what I needed was someone to fuck me up some more so I could really get this monster rolling and be done with it over the X-mass break.

And then Jessica showed up and Ceremony tonight.

I think.

At least there was someone there who looked a lot like her, but that's not exactly unusual since her features are actually fairly common. Regardless, the sight of "her" turned my stomach. It didn't stir up a nice eruption of rabid hatred--the time for that is long past: it had its moment and now it's done--but it did inspire a certain chilly, clammy feeling of disgust. Sheer revulsion that such an unimaginably damaged person should still be in circulation when she should've been mulched and spread around Schenley Park years ago. Loathing. I can honestly say that I don't have a shred of steaming hatred left for the girl: I was involved with her very briefly, and even though she positively wrecked my sociability and sent my cynicism level straight into Jovian orbit, I can't say her contribution to the Pegritz Misery Fund truly lasted more than a few months. Now I can think of her without the intervening clouds of smoke and sparks exploding from the furnace in my gut, and all I see is...a loathesome waste of meat. This woman has a daughter who will grow up to inherit, by default, all of her mother's poisons: another ruined, emotionally mangled young woman who will probably be pregnant by sixteen or seventeen to continue the cycle of dissolution by repeating the same shit over and over and over again until, eventually, some descendant fortunately dies before puberty. I've seen it happen before. I honestly thought Jessica had the strength to keep that from happening but I was completely and utterly deluded by the simple fact that she was so ridiculously into me--for a time--me, the emotional equivalent of the Elephant Man!--that I refused to acknowledge what the evidence right before my eyes is suggesting otherwise. I was completely blinded by the sheer, stupid lust for pussy and--worse--by what Olga calls a "savoir complex." I thought I could save her. I wanted to save her. Maybe to prove to myself that I could actually be worth something to somebody, for once. But all it did was blinker me when all along she was telling me to my face, in no uncertain terms, that she is a "lost cause." Yes, she is. For more reasons than I can count.

And the worst thing is...I'm sure she could fight her way out being a "lost cause"--if not for herself, then for her daughter's sake--but she won't do. She seems to like being the human equivalent of a massive liver sarcoma.

Hence the loathing. A person like that doesn't deserve hatred. She earned it for a while by treating me like a goddamned...I don't even know what she treated me like--but once I realized that the only person who truly fucked up in this situation was me for not realizing that the biggest problem with the "relationship" lay with me and my inability to admit I was feeding myself one atom at a time into her black hole, the last coals of hatred cooled to nuggets of the usual self-disappointment and more cold hard cynicism than a heart can truly hold. Malpractice was born in the 200-bpm IDM heat of that fire and many of the finished tracks are nearly radioactive with it. But that part of the whole charade is finished now. Now comes the heavy, sludgy, turgid 70-bpm loathing that such a person breeds in me.

Despite everything, I actually owe the girl a nod of thanks. Now I can finally finish this damned album! And I think I know what Skinny Puppy song to cover for it now, as well! I was really leaning toward "Hospital Waste"--duh--but I think "Sleeping Beast" may be a little more apropos. Witness:

early one morning shattering life in the face
the finest creative loss of grace
out of heartshot with no hope meet the people try to cope
nod the head with distraction faces flirt for your reaction
with a grin over again start the day anothers whim
nice to nightmare she's a sleeping beast
lie the same dear anguish is your feast
frighten the peaceful powerless thought in the head
with decree attorney singe my dread
in the darkness know it well siege of face love to tell
how and why its indecision notice change by shapeshifting
from the real sacred seal rip with sex intelligent sneer
resist the useless aggravation kicked in teeth
the blankness created forms a wreath
slap the coffin hear no shout feel the courage seeping out
plunge the knife with no reason slash the name within season
slump retreat run again ride the pain going insane
very same morning shattering life in the face the finest creative
loss of grace find the truth far to down bring it up sense will drown
inside review sense elation can't regain the motivation
piercing probing is disturbing drove to me i'm not worth knowing

See what I mean, yo?

Other than that, Ceremony was pretty fun tonight. Got to boogie to some Garbage, Sisters of Mercy (obviously), and some other stuff that I forget. Matthew is to be highly commended for kicking out the jams most righteously. But, christ, enough of this crap already--I'm going to program a quick beat for "Sleeping Beast" and then go to sleep. I've got papers to grade tomorrow and a Stillerz game to watch! Goddamn you, Willie Parker, don't be fumbling that shit this week or Doktor Pegritz may just have to take care of any field injuries you're dealing with...knowhuti'msayin'?

Comments

[dj-lollidrop.livejournal.com]

I thought I could save her. I wanted to save her. Maybe to prove to myself that I could actually be worth something to somebody, for once. But all it did was blinker me when all along she was telling me to my face, in no uncertain terms, that she is a "lost cause."

Wow...I'm definitely feeling you on that one. I think I saw myself as Ben's savior for a while, until I realized that he hates himself so much, he's perfectly content to continue his slow self-destruction until it actually does kill him. Some people, I think, truly fear the possibility of happiness, and they will destroy anything around them that is good whether they realize what they're doing or not. He turned his back on someone that he repeatedly said made him very happy. We are only human, and I know that I don't have the power to undo that kind of damage no matter how much I care for him.

At any rate, I'm glad you've found the inspiration to finish the album! I think it won't be long before I've found what I need to write the perfect story...

[blankkittyblack.livejournal.com]

Evil makes me feel alive.

[onepartsurreal.livejournal.com]

Ugh, people who seem to revel in their self-pity (and worse, for an extended period of time, not simply the healthy wallowing period every person is allowed) are so exhausting. They really are so goth. I dated a few people like this and even recently pursued someone like this, and I just get more and more amazed that there are people like this, who dredge through life and simply refuse to live it to its fullest.
(This coming from the girl who changed her LJ because she was so SICK of herself after reading entries of the past few weeks...)

Oh well. There's my 2+ cents.

[oneirophrenia.livejournal.com]

I that some people truly want to die, but are far too terrified of the act of putting a bullet through their skull...so they live the most destructive life possible in the hope of someday stumbling into death, or forcing someone else to do them in.

I'd gladly hack this girl's head off her shoulders, but that would be giving her just what she's wanted all along--a way out of existence--and furthermore: 1) I do NOT want to go to ass-rape prison for some stupid ho; and 2) it would involve waaaaaay more effort than I am willing to expend on anyone. Let me tell you, it ain't easy to cut someone's head off!

[oneirophrenia.livejournal.com]

Sometimes it is damn near impossible, if not completely impossible, to overcome the damage of past events--I know this all too well--but even in the face of something you know to be insurmountable, you owe it to yourself to TRY...because there's always the chance that you're wrong about the difficulty of learning from some past horrors, and may very well succeed! And even if you fail, you will always know that you tried and can then begin to deal with things with a clear, unblinded mind. I truly despise people who just give up and decide that it's easier to wallow in their miseries. It is easier, but that's what makes giving in to the beasts in your own mind such a good indication of weak character. If you're not willing to fight for yourself, I am not going to fight for you....

Anyway--only one part surreal? That's a bit of an understatement: I suspect your at least three parts there....Be careful once you hit four or five parts, however, because by that point you'll realize that you are now the human equivalent of a melting clock or a fish head wearing a party hat. I've longsince rocketed past that point myself, alas. I think I've become the living embodiment of dada.

SCINTILLANT FISH SCALES AND PINK FEATHER BOAS SURROUND THE CORPSE OF ARTAUD!

[onepartsurreal.livejournal.com]

Now for a non-sequitur response to your sequitur-bleeding-into-non-sequitur.

Do you know Dreamweaver/Adobe Image Ready? I need those programs to create a small website portfolio with image and sound and a bit of video and I'll probably need some help. I also need those programs, if you have them...>_>

So... any help you can offer would be BRILLIANT.