6/22/2007 The Smell Of Food, Fear, And Pleasure

6/22/2007 The Smell Of Food, Fear, And Pleasure

The cool thing about never cleaning your condo is that everything begins to smell like food.

That might be why I am gaining weight again. Those reading this might be inclined to yawn at that. Fat guy gains weight, what else is new? Most wouldn't understand the pain I feel every time the scale goes up. After all, what pleasure do I have in life other than masturbation and food? And what is life without pleasure? When I am on a diet, I often become depressed and cannot figure out why I should get out of bed. I am caught in a trap; either eat moderately and gain 40 more pounds, or starve myself and be thin and miserable. My body was poorly designed.

But of course, my pain doesn't matter. I'd like to bring up now another television show I watched yesterday. The show is called “The Inferno” on MTV. In it we have a person named “E.V.” or Evelyn. The show is a reality show in a similar mode to “Survivor”. The contestants face a new challenge every show, and every other one a new contestant is eliminated. Evelyn is an Olympic caliber athlete and is generally the top performing female in the show, even competitive with the males.

But the last show I saw featured Evelyn being grilled by the other girls about selfish performance. They called her out for trying to achieve only for her own personal glory, at their expense. Evelyn defended herself, but I felt so bad for her. She pointed out that she hadn't done anything wrong, and she is correct. But of course, that doesn't mean anything. People find reasons. They don't care deep down what is right or wrong, they use ethics and social proof to defend themselves.

Evelyn's critics are motivated by fear. I hope that in time she realizes that this is true and comes to expect it. Usually, anger is motived by fear. If people see something in it for them, they'll root for you. But when people see someone excel, they are generally threatened by it. Most of them feel that they could be the same way if they had worked harder. But more than that, anything exceptional must always be interpreted as threatening because it is unexpected. If we don't know what to expect, we don't know how to live our lives.

Someone who achieves greatly must not only be an achiever, but also a leader. Otherwise, people will try to establish their power over you before you can use your power on them. One who achieves must always be working to build trust, and let everyone else know that their success is intertwined with your own. An achiever must not only be a better athlete, but a better person as well. If not, they will be an outcast.

But putting the responsibility on Evelyn's shoulders does not excuse her critics. Listen to the radio, watch the T.V. We are all looking for reasons to criticize. We are all looking to assign evil motives to those who displease us. And it's not just the talk, it's the action. What's going on in Darfur? IN Iraq? All of it based on fear. We are all trying to carve out a safe existence for ourselves. For some that means charging across borders with weapons. For others, it means going to work in jobs we hate. It could mean we spend hours thinking about how selfish our spouses are, so we can disarm them with our criticisms and accusations. None of you are getting it right, I assure you.

How am I above this? I am not. The preceding post was exactly what I am railing against. I only typed it because I have no problem being a hypocrite. In fact, I aspire to a higher level of hypocrisy than anyone else. After all, hypocrisy is one of the defining characteristics of human nature. Thus, if I am a hypocrite, then I am more human. And it's the only way to tell the truth. Why should the fact that these judgments apply to me stop me from saying them? If it is true, it should be said, right? We are humanists here. Knowing that I am going to do the wrong thing is knowing I'm human.

And to know human nature is to be disgusted, at least much of the time. If I, too, am not motivated by fear, then why am I a 36 year old virgin? Of course I am motivated by fear. More so, not less, than others. The only ethical ground that I can claim is that I use my fear to hurt myself, not others, as evelyn's critics do. The fact that she is an attractive young woman makes it even harder to watch. We attack the best among us out of fear. We attack the next city-state out of fear. We attack the ones we love out of fear. If not for fear, nothing would get done. One can be forgiven, then, for forgetting the humanist's idea that we all have a responsibility to work for the betterment of humanity and retiring to our room to keep a little pleasure for ourselves. Only those who are out of sight are immune. Only those with access to pleasure are happy.

Now I've got a nice lather worked up. I think I'll go back to my marriage list. Yes, I said in my prior post that I wouldn't be posting it, but then, that was out of fear as well, wasn't it? Plus, I feel unpredictability is a feature of mine. But don't take that to mean I'm trying to impress you. I started this blog to both share and make a public record of the thoughts that I, and thus we, think but don't say. So there is nothing better than to post this...