I was woken up this morning by my tooth hurting…. so I ended up working on a horror novel I’ve been reading…. in the end it drove me to the edge. A few minutes ago I reached the point I stopped reading the detail, and started skipping about trying to get some answers, only for most of those answers to be out of reach. That’s what appeals to me about horror; often enough there are no answers, or the answers are up for interpretation.
It bugs me that humans as creators of narrative prefer to create a world of happy endings. Happy endings are a lie, everything tied up neat with a bow, does that ever happen?
Life is a horror novel, long stretches of unrealized tension, interspersed with moments of extreme pain and terror, followed by a grim acceptance that whatever the monster wants to do it’s going to do. We want to make the pain mean something, we want answers. There aren’t any.
There must be some way to exploit it, man’s desire for meaning and satisfaction, a way that gets me free of this absurd farce. Often enough the monster just wants to be left alone, why does humanity persist in disturbing such things?
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“Happy endings are a lie, everything tied up neat with a bow, does that ever happen?”
–>Yes, for the rich, for the corrupt, for the liars and manipulators, for the selfish, and for those who are heartless and ruthless who don’t care who they have to screw over to get what they want. YES, for THOSE people, there are happy endings, bc they usually do wind up getting what they want, at the expense of others.
ah, but those would only be happy from their perspective. It’s not satisfying for the rest of us, and most of us lack the moral flexibility to get into that position so it’s not realistic for us to experience either.
I’ve looked down that path though, and I tried to contort myself into a position to do it, because the money was substantial. When I worked for the state, the one I live in, I found out that most people doing my job were collecting data, then after a few years they’d start a “charity” performing some essential function that the state refused to.
The catch is that they usually really tried to do it, but it lacked oversight, and what it really was is a way to line your pockets at the public’s expense. I was ambitious enough to want the money, but too ethical to take that path.
yes, hence my morose lament on life- that those who are shitty or amoral get good lives, whereas the moral and good people generally get screwed.
yes, the way American society was designed, it rewards the few “winners” and screws over the many “losers.” That’s the reality of life here.
“The American Dream: You have to be asleep to believe it.”