It has become perfectly apparent to me that I am in fact a ridiculous human being. Not entirely superfluous, perhaps, as almost everyone is partially superfluous in the grand scheme of things. But because I am superfluous and hold onto the notion that I am a singular man, and that my actions hold greater consequences than the average man, that my suffering is unique and beautiful—that I believe these notions and yet know that I am a mere superfluous man—makes me utterly ridiculous, both to myself and to everyone else. That I strive for fame, but am unwilling to do the one thing which might gain me fame—namely, make a constant ass of myself and parade my egoism for all to see—this too makes me ridiculous. That I am completely incapable of having an original thought, yet believe my ideas to be original (I am basing this not on subjective reasoning but objective fact), that I believe myself to be a man of principle and yet do not know the definition of the word, that I am vain and yet terribly unattractive, that I lust in private and am chaste in public to the point that I won’t even allow myself to look at a woman in a lustful way, that I speak these words as if they were the truth when I know damn well they are all lies—all this makes me completely ridiculous. The fact that I have no shame about any of this only adds to the ridiculousness. The fact that I am proud of it perhaps makes me absurd, and that is what I really want—to be absurd. Being absurd is far better than being ridiculous, for at least there is mystique to it. If I were mysterious, I wouldn’t feel the need to confess all of this to you. But I am not mysterious. There is nothing absurd about what I am saying. It is all laughable in a very straightforward way. I am ridiculous. Should you flick my forehead in playfulness, I would surely break down in tears. So I am asking you, please, flick me. I want to weep. I want my ridiculousness to flow from my eyes in the form of tears. Shame on me. Shame on me for being so damn ridiculous. But what can I do? Kill myself? That seems like the easiest way out of my ridiculousness. Surely they wouldn’t find my death ridiculous, would they? Probably so. “Did you hear? Dan Senser killed himself.” “Really? Hahaha! Good for him! He was always looking for a way out, after all.” And that is the truth, my friends. I really am looking for a way out. And not just any way out. The EASY way out. But suicide is not so easy as you might like to believe. It takes a certain amount of will and conviction—two things I am lacking in my ridiculousness. So I will just go about my life as it is in the easiest way possible. Telling lies when I have to. Scorning attractive people and horrible people equally, imagining myself to have a certain beauty that raises me above both. Fear not, my friends! There is more ridiculousness to come…
But what does it matter? Shadows shake the courage from my soul. The truth is, I am in love with an inaccessible woman, and I believe she knows it. She enjoys my company, I believe. But she recognizes that I am ridiculous, and that my love for her is ridiculous, and therefore, laughable and easily shrugged off. How pleased with herself she must be with this knowledge! To be loved by a ridiculous man is like catching a glance of one’s reflection in a puddle of raw sewage, and being pleased by it. Yes! I am no more than a puddle of raw sewage! Soon to be dried up, of course. It’s all so laughable! Yet I am not laughing, I assure you. I am not weeping either. My jaw is clenched as I write this, and my head aches. I really ought to go to sleep. But you know, I am so ridiculous that this all sounds very intelligent and witty to me, so I will keep writing. For whose sake am I writing? What good does all of this ridiculousness do? Naturally, it is entertaining. At least it is to me. It is also painful, but I believe every good entertainment has an element of painfulness in it….
Do you not believe me when I say that I am ridiculous? Fine. I will commence to prove it. What is the definition of “ridiculous”? “Deserving or inviting derision or mockery.” What makes me believe I deserve to be derided and mocked, as opposed to, say, ignored? The fact is, I am ignored. I have spent the better part of my life being completely ignored. But that is only because I have not acted on my true nature. I am a firm believer that everyone ought to be treated in a way that reflects their true nature, as opposed to their behavior, which may or may not be a façade. Take me. I am a horrible misanthrope. Yet I smile at everyone as if I really loved them—or, at least, I attempt to smile. They interpret this attempt as a sign of goodness, respectability, kindness. But what it really is is a desire to be accepted, and to not be ostracized. Deep down I know that should I really be ostracized, I would not be able to survive on my own. I need people to care for me. But deep down I resent this very fact. I really don’t care for anyone myself, but I smile because I know that if I don’t, people will not pay any attention to me at all, and very soon I will be laying in a gutter dying of starvation. For I am truly helpless, my friends, without that little smile, as forced and false as it may be. I do deserve derision for this false smile, but I don’t get it, and therefore, I am—in the very core of my soul—unsatisfied. And what about being mocked? Why do I deserve to be mocked? Because I myself mock everything and everyone deep in the core of my soul. If you could see me, you would understand this to be the truth. If I meet Joe C., for example, and he extends his hand, my initial thought is, “Impudent bastard. With that hand he would gladly wring my neck on account of my dissipation and my soft features, yet he wants to offer peace simply because he doesn’t want to spend his life behind prison bars.” And I take his hand, and naturally we get along, both of us being huge hypocrites. Fear is the great enemy of honesty, my friends. And when I say honesty, I mean it in the truest sense of the word.
But why all this talk of honesty? It is actually an impossible feat to be completely honest. Even in making love, there is an element of deception. How many flaws must one overlook in order to express one's love? An infinite amount. And it is not as simple as overlooking them, one must lie to one's self and the object of one's love by stating, both to one's self and the object of one's love, that the flaws are actually not flaws at all, but assets essential to their supposed beauty. But in all actuality, they remain flaws. And no amount of rationalization can remove this fact. They are overlooked for the sake, definitively, of the self and the pleasures it desires. And that is actually the greatest lie of all: our every deed, whether good or bad, is done entirely and implicitly for the benefit of the self, and nothing else--not the world, not our loved ones, only the self. And I do not feel that I have to prove this, because I know that everyone implicitly already understands it to be true. Even the dog who watches over his dead master's grave knows this, for it was his master who fed him and cared for him, and who is the dog to learn to trust someone else? So then, you say, why even carry on with this diatribe when there is nothing honest about it? Again, I will tell you, for the sake of entertainment. I have many points, I assure you, which I can touch on before the night is through. The question is, when will I decide it is time to stop and go to sleep. That implies free will, and I will not touch on it. If I did, that would imply that there is indeed such a thing as free will, but I will not touch on it. And even if I were to touch on it, who is to say it would be a matter of choice on my part instead of the result of a conflation of an infinite number of factors that were beyond my own control? Time is of the essence, and I have some time. That is the only fact that I know.
The real key to any good entertainment is to be completely inoffensive, to be insulated in a bubble of inoffensiveness. There is no way to pop such a bubble, if it is properly formed. No one can know what is within the bubble, but its surface, its facade, is beautiful simply because it is so thin and round and translucent. It floats above everything, and everyone marvels at it, but should someone by miraculous terms come to understand the real content of the bubble's interior, one would be shocked by the monstrousness of it. And so it is with everything that is beautiful. Up close, everything is unbearably hideous, excepting only that which appears horrific from a distance. And so, I will keep my distance and refrain from giving too many details. If you want to be beautiful, refrain from acknowledging too many details. Details are the bane of any good artist's existence. Hell, they are the bane of bad artists' existence! But perhaps that was an unneeded detail...
Naturally, if there comes a point in a man's rant where he has nothing further to say, he must return to his initial idea in order to keep the discourse going. So I will say again, I am a ridiculous man. After reading this, could you possibly disagree with me? And if so, on what point? I am so lost, I don't know where to begin. But that's the thing! I have already begun! So perhaps the better question is, where do I end? I will end soon enough. But, before I come to a close, ask yourself this: are you better off having read this, instead of, say, "A Dream of A Ridiculous Man" by Fyodor Dostoevsky? The answer to that is obvious, but I dare not say what it is, because I am already sad, and I don't want to make myself any sadder. I am tired of dancing around the real issue. That being, I am in love. Hopelessly and joylessly in love. But really, that is such a bold statement that does not accurately assess the reality of the situation. I won't bore you with details. Again, details! The bane of our existence! How fun it is to dance around the details! How wonderful to be general and vague.
And yet, I am still unsatisfied...
I always want more. Perhaps it is the anger in me, or the lust, or perhaps they are one in the same. There have been so many moments in my life where I have walked away from situations where I could have satisfied my lust or my anger, and what for? Some kind of higher purpose? What could that be? Truth? Peace? Love? Ah, but these are mere ideals, gentle words that disguise the reality, which is that everything--good and bad---is rooted in sin. The very act of living is rooted in sin. If there were such things as truth, peace, and love, our mere existence would be in contradiction to them. It is our desire for these ideals that keeps us living, however fictitious they might be.
I apologize. My powers are waining. It is three thirty in the morning. I really ought to sleep, but I can't help feeling that I have so much to say...
But why all this talk of honesty? It is actually an impossible feat to be completely honest. Even in making love, there is an element of deception. How many flaws must one overlook in order to express one's love? An infinite amount. And it is not as simple as overlooking them, one must lie to one's self and the object of one's love by stating, both to one's self and the object of one's love, that the flaws are actually not flaws at all, but assets essential to their supposed beauty. But in all actuality, they remain flaws. And no amount of rationalization can remove this fact. They are overlooked for the sake, definitively, of the self and the pleasures it desires. And that is actually the greatest lie of all: our every deed, whether good or bad, is done entirely and implicitly for the benefit of the self, and nothing else--not the world, not our loved ones, only the self. And I do not feel that I have to prove this, because I know that everyone implicitly already understands it to be true. Even the dog who watches over his dead master's grave knows this, for it was his master who fed him and cared for him, and who is the dog to learn to trust someone else? So then, you say, why even carry on with this diatribe when there is nothing honest about it? Again, I will tell you, for the sake of entertainment. I have many points, I assure you, which I can touch on before the night is through. The question is, when will I decide it is time to stop and go to sleep. That implies free will, and I will not touch on it. If I did, that would imply that there is indeed such a thing as free will, but I will not touch on it. And even if I were to touch on it, who is to say it would be a matter of choice on my part instead of the result of a conflation of an infinite number of factors that were beyond my own control? Time is of the essence, and I have some time. That is the only fact that I know.
The real key to any good entertainment is to be completely inoffensive, to be insulated in a bubble of inoffensiveness. There is no way to pop such a bubble, if it is properly formed. No one can know what is within the bubble, but its surface, its facade, is beautiful simply because it is so thin and round and translucent. It floats above everything, and everyone marvels at it, but should someone by miraculous terms come to understand the real content of the bubble's interior, one would be shocked by the monstrousness of it. And so it is with everything that is beautiful. Up close, everything is unbearably hideous, excepting only that which appears horrific from a distance. And so, I will keep my distance and refrain from giving too many details. If you want to be beautiful, refrain from acknowledging too many details. Details are the bane of any good artist's existence. Hell, they are the bane of bad artists' existence! But perhaps that was an unneeded detail...
Naturally, if there comes a point in a man's rant where he has nothing further to say, he must return to his initial idea in order to keep the discourse going. So I will say again, I am a ridiculous man. After reading this, could you possibly disagree with me? And if so, on what point? I am so lost, I don't know where to begin. But that's the thing! I have already begun! So perhaps the better question is, where do I end? I will end soon enough. But, before I come to a close, ask yourself this: are you better off having read this, instead of, say, "A Dream of A Ridiculous Man" by Fyodor Dostoevsky? The answer to that is obvious, but I dare not say what it is, because I am already sad, and I don't want to make myself any sadder. I am tired of dancing around the real issue. That being, I am in love. Hopelessly and joylessly in love. But really, that is such a bold statement that does not accurately assess the reality of the situation. I won't bore you with details. Again, details! The bane of our existence! How fun it is to dance around the details! How wonderful to be general and vague.
And yet, I am still unsatisfied...
I always want more. Perhaps it is the anger in me, or the lust, or perhaps they are one in the same. There have been so many moments in my life where I have walked away from situations where I could have satisfied my lust or my anger, and what for? Some kind of higher purpose? What could that be? Truth? Peace? Love? Ah, but these are mere ideals, gentle words that disguise the reality, which is that everything--good and bad---is rooted in sin. The very act of living is rooted in sin. If there were such things as truth, peace, and love, our mere existence would be in contradiction to them. It is our desire for these ideals that keeps us living, however fictitious they might be.
I apologize. My powers are waining. It is three thirty in the morning. I really ought to sleep, but I can't help feeling that I have so much to say...
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