《The Damnation》


 Bonjour!

    It''s utterly disgusting! Just the thought of it sickens me. What a waste of time! Its very existence is a disgrace to all that exists. It¡¯s a facade! A superfluous object worthy of contempt! But what is it actually that makes me shiver with rage? No, it¡¯s not rage I suppose this emotion might more aptly be described as-fear, but fear of what exactly? I forget, what was it? Think,think, think, think, think! To hell with everything! Oh good God! What on earth is going on?


    Oh, it seems that I¡¯m not alone. I''ve got a visitor? Sacre Bleu! It¡¯s you, Monsieur! Please make yourself at home, Monsieur. Don¡¯t be shy; I shall be grateful to you for your graceful presence! I may seem to you quite an irritant, but can you blame me? I usually don¡¯t have many visitors, you know, not since my metamorphosis to my current state of being. Well, you''re here now, so I might have some company now! Please do forgive the inconvenience caused by my sudden outburst of anger. At times, things become too much for the mind to bear, or maybe too little to stimulate any sort of intellectual endeavour. Please do not hesitate to ask me for anything. I take it as my sacred duty to serve you to the best of my ability, Monsieur. Please take a seat. Maybe we could have a nice little discussion here. You know, it¡¯s quite something to be in the presence of someone. Solitude is often maddening, for the mind crumbles under its own weight. Oh goodness! Am I blabbering superfluously again? This loneliness has made me develop this vacuous habit, but it¡¯s quite liberating, to say the least, since it¡¯s just myself talking to myself about myself. Do not think of me as a narcissist, for I am, on the contrary, overtly dedicated to the cause of social justice! Well, I think I just might have the perfect topic for our discussion today-social justice! Well, please have a cup of coffee I¡¯m quite good at making them. After all, it¡¯s coffee that has kept me alive, so I, by sheer necessity, have to be superior at the craft of making coffee. Oh no! Do not think for a second that I underestimate your skill set; it¡¯s just that I am overconfident in mine.


    Social justice! Ahhh! The mere pleasure that runs through my veins every time I utter this phrase makes my heart euphoric to just think of it. Yes, but this sensation spans a short time, ridiculously short, but why so? If I were to be honest with you, I don¡¯t know. I¡¯m not even sure of the existence of the concept of social justice because it is just too tenacious to aptly define. Nonetheless, I''ll give it a shot. After all, what would happen to humanity if it gave up on everything and didn''t even try? We humans are pathetic beings and frequently think of ourselves as more important than we actually are. Social justice aims to reject this pathetic state of affairs. It seeks to enlighten us as mere futile beings by fostering equality and eliminating unjustifiable instances of discrimination. To be precise, it intends to reduce inequality among us. We usually overestimate our accomplishments, which we have worked hard for, but our accomplishments inflate our sense of worth, even when we are just mere mortals who, paradoxically, are ultimately worthless. Social justice tries to bring failure to society as a whole by placing everyone on an equal pedestal and by enforcing equality among those who are unequal. Even though social justice is thought of as being noble, on the contrary, it by nature is a sadistic concept, seeking to inflict pain upon everyone, making everyone miserable. That¡¯s what allures me the most, Monsieur. This diabolical pretentiousness is of sheer elegance in its ability to inflict doom while hiding behind a divine disguise. We don¡¯t deserve to think highly of ourselves, given just how lowly we humans happen to be¡ªour purposelessness and the sheer futility of our existence.


    Oh no, not again! It deeply saddens me to talk so much about... no wait a second, I get it now! It¡¯s this mindless blabbering that had me disgusted initially. You have my apologies, Monsieur, even though it¡¯s not something I really mean because, you see, I¡¯m not at fault here; it¡¯s just human nature¡ªwe just happen to be enamoured by pessimism, even though it results in existential angst, and yet in deep moments of despair, we truly experience life. We live when we wish to cease to exist. Yes, Monsieur, that¡¯s the liberating tragedy of human existence.


    Now then, something crucial has come to my attention. I¡¯ve not introduced myself to you, Monsieur, but perhaps you know me. Yes indeed. You know me very well. I think we¡¯ve met before. I assume you are one of them, or rather, we¡¯re one of them, right? Ha, I¡¯ve got you now, Monsieur! Your silence implies your guilt, but do not worry good sir,I was just like you-a naive believer. I don¡¯t believe it any longer. I still do, but with experience comes insight. I believe it while being extremely sceptical of it. I am repulsed by this irony, yet I feel almost obligated to follow it. Quite strange, right? I know, but certain things are the way they are, and there¡¯s nothing much that can be done about it.


    So Monsieur, I¡¯m certain that you are aware of the recent turn of events. Times aren¡¯t good, you know. Ever since the fall of the States, world order has been in chaos, or maybe it was them who initiated the process of their own damnation! Quite a funny thought, good sir. We humans are fond of digging our own graves, and it is all a function of human greed. Yes, greed is quite a gratifying sensation and is often understated because it has the power to change fortunes. Well, I¡¯ve first-hand experience, Monsieur! It was something of an event, but I shall reserve the story for a smoother day. You see, good Sir, certain things must retain their enigma in order to be of any use. Because if everything was revealed so quickly, you''d be bored out of your mind. So back to our discussion: this demise of the prevailing world order was destined to occur. Actions have consequences, and once you act, you become solely responsible for the consequences that follow. We are responsible for all the good and bad that happens to us, and that is a terrifying thought. Well, atheism has its downsides Given our society¡¯s outright rejection of divinity, we fundamentally bear the consequences of nurturing this poisonous tree. For better or worse, the world has not remained the same after the Great Revolution. I don¡¯t know; neither do I intend to, nor am I bothered much. It is just that something drastic has befallen mankind, and its occurrence is the only thing that matters. As to the societal aftermath of the event, it is superfluous to comment on anything regarding this, for my opinions would be inconsequential and would just be a worthless intellectual exercise on my part. Now tell me, Monsieur, will a rational man put his efforts into something that will not bear him any fruit? Does not a rational man act out of his desire to enjoy its consequences (which are desired by him, of course)? It is a question that needs to be pondered upon, Monsieur. You see, to the rational man, it is not the fruits of his labour that motivate him, for he knows of the inherent absurdity of life. No one can certainly predict the future, and a rational man is aware of this more than anyone else. Why does a rational man work when the results of his labour may not be in accordance with his wishes? The answer is simple-the rational man is not so rational after all. Even the most magnificent of humans, no matter how competent a man might be, must, after all, cling onto his sovereign master-hope. Yes, sir, hope is a dangerous thing, but it is what drives the world. Everything we do is accompanied by the hope that it will bring us the desired result. Humans cannot hope to survive without hope. For, in its absence, life itself becomes meaningless. Given the suffering that an individual endures, if he does not give in to hope for something better¡ªsomething that would justify all his agony¡ªhe will go insane. If he does not get what he wants, he remains in anticipation of it; he hopes for his longings to be satisfied; after all, he is a self-interested being, and if the chances of fulfilling his interests are taken away from him, he has no reason to live. I know Monsieur, I know that all of this might come off to you as superficial, and it''s okay Monsieur, for you are entitled to your own beliefs (truth to be told, I am indifferent to your opinion good sir) and I absolutely respect your liberty to do so. After all, not everything makes sense to everyone. You''re curious about me. You must have noticed something (after all, you wouldn¡¯t have stuck around till now if you weren¡¯t interested, and often interest sharpens observation) that I gave you my opinion on the rational man and his labor ( Even though I was well aware of its futility, I was quite reticent at first because I knew that my opinions, no matter how practically incorrect or correct they may be, ultimately do not matter, for they play no part in the larger scheme of things. Now you may assume that I might be a rational man who blurted out his opinions in the hope of evoking similar thoughts inside you, but you have blatantly misinterpreted me (if you were to think so)! I did it because I wanted to, and I didn''t think about the consequences; rationalism has its limitations. good Sir, you know, I too once was a rational man profoundly fond of reason, but that passion has withered away with time and experience-I know for sure the limits of passionate rationalism. The rational man follows reason¡ªhis own reasoning. He doubts and questions everything¡ªculture, art, religion, to name a few¡ªbut only within the confines of his own reasoning. His worldview is entirely tainted by his prejudices (even if not at a conscious level, but always subconsciously; for the rational man is supposed to be repelled by external biases, but what about those which plague a man¡¯s internal subconscious-the ones even he himself is too afraid to confront?). His rationality is nothing more than a cumulative aggregate of his own thinking, which by its very nature is insufficient to analyse any phenomena that the rational man intends to inspect, and yet with this destitute handicap, the man thinks highly of his rationality. preposterous! Is a redundant being trying to play God by flaunting his redundancy? What on earth could be more stupefying? When a rational man is confronted with reality, all of his reason fades into the abyss. His logic is met with reality''s monstrous claws, and he suffers intense trauma as he witnesses his own rational egoism crumble under the weight of reality. I pity them. I pity the rational man, for he can never experience life. His questioning reeks of uselessness and impending despair. I pity his faith in his own abilities. I pity the state where they would eventually find themselves, for when the world hits them, they would be maddened by their very own minds. They are nothing. Their reason is nothing. Their existence, too, is worth nothing. I can only offer them pity. They don¡¯t deserve anything else, because they claim to be the most liberal of people, yet they cling to their dogmatic egoism. I can just offer them pity. They are already too damned to be deserving of contempt or hatred.


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    Now you see, Sir! I know that I''ve once again engaged myself in relentless blabbering. I know for sure that you¡¯ve been exposed to some annoyance due to my talk here, but don¡¯t lie, Monsieur, I can see that you¡¯ve been pleasantly amused. See! We might be more alike than I initially thought. Well, I must reserve my comments for later. But I¡¯m sure that you¡¯ve seen the irony. I happen to be guilty of the very same thing that makes my soul filled with spite. I too am engaged in a sort of futile critique that I so claim to despise, but would you like to know what differentiates me from the rational man? I recognise the limitations of reason, and yet I exercise my intellectual faculties at times. Yes, I may come off as a hypocrite, but that¡¯s where I can claim my innocence Your Honor, are you not using your reasoning to label me as a hypocrite? Are you sure that following the common instincts of a man labels me a hypocrite? If yes, then wherever there is a reason, there is a fallacy; and if no, then neither of us is guilty (as long as we recognise the limitations of logic). Now then, good Sir, the thing is, I do not belong to the cult of reason, but I do have a slight faith in it, because it is helpful at times and often acts as a staunch old chap in times of solitude and despair. But I think of myself as superior to a rational man because experience has taught me things that even hermits of reason take a lifetime to learn. I am indifferent and unconcerned about anything at all. Everything concerning our lowly life form is of no interest to me. Why would I waste my efforts on something that is temporary in nature? Even if I take part in such endeavours, I do it simply out of the sheer impulse that drives me to it. I reason, but not for the sake of reasoning, but for the intellectual pleasure that I derive from such an act. I am beyond these pity rationalists. I don¡¯t try to force reason when I cannot do so. My role in the revolution has made me achieve enlightenment, and I can clearly see the fallacies of the human mind. My life has taken a turn, a gigantic one indeed, and for the better or worse, I do not know, and neither do I intend to know. For what benefit would I derive from trying to categorise my state of being? It would serve no purpose since my life is what it is. No amount of critical thinking will change the present, so I better not concern myself with it.


    See now, good sir! I know that I''ve once again engaged myself in relentless blabbering. I know for sure that you¡¯ve been exposed to some annoyance due to my talk here, but don¡¯t lie, Monsieur, I can see that you¡¯ve been pleasantly amused. See! We might be more alike than I initially thought. Well, I must reserve my comments for later. Till then, I have some work to do and don¡¯t worry, I''m well aware that I¡¯ve not introduced myself yet. Oh no, please! Don¡¯t think that I don¡¯t trust you enough! You are more trustworthy than anyone else on earth. I will make things clear in our next meeting. Until then, farewell, Monsieur!

 Superfluous Superstitions

    So, here we meet again Monsieur, I am deeply honoured by your presence and, of course, I vouch to serve you in the best way imaginable. To be frank, I am quite pleasantly surprised by your decision to revisit me. You see, I am too used to a solitary life now, so I feel ecstatic when I have someone I can talk to. The human mind is where the devil resides. Leave a man in his own company and he will devour himself with his own thoughts. It is quite paradoxical, the human condition. We long for recognition and company whilst ignoring our different selves, yearning to come to our conscious surface. It''s such a shame, don¡¯t you think, Cher Monsieur? We take pride in our ability to reason, which is a result of our superior capacity. However, it is precisely this consciousness that will torment us throughout our lives. Well, the assumption a priori to the existence of such a consciousness would be to think that we as humans even exist, for what would become of consciousness if our very being were to cease to exist? What would become of our being if our consciousness were to be eradicated? Could we even be considered beings in such a case? Perhaps this would be a good topic to start off our discussion for today! Do you think it would be a stimulating conversation, Cher Monsieur?


    A consciousness without being could not be classified as a life form, but then again, a being without consciousness cannot be classified as a complete being either, although the latter case does qualify as a life form. I¡¯ve lost many of my comrades in the great revolution, and a few of them retained their existence but were egregiously paralysed-though they were living life forms and yet lost perhaps the greatest part of themselves, which separated them from a silly fish. When I reflected upon their condition, I realised that death was far better than being an incomplete form of existence that was incapable of experiencing its own being. Existence without essence is thereby superfluous, utterly devoid of any right to exist in the first place. When I saw the damnation that had fallen upon my honourable comrades, I thought that I would do them a favour by erasing their existence; the men had fought valiantly for a just cause (that was my conception initially, but now I¡¯m quite sceptical about whether the goal''s being just or not); they had put their lives on the line for something greater than themselves, so they deserved a heroic death. If they weren¡¯t fated to such an end, they at the very least deserved an end to such a disgraceful state. I still remember that day. A dear comrade of mine named Toulouse had expired, and I had poisoned him, but do not assume for a second that I acted out of criminality! I did what I did as an act of mercy, an act that demanded the highest degree of nobility on my part! Toulouse had been shot eleven times, and one bullet had ruptured his spine, as a consequence of which he could neither say anything nor feel anything. A comrade who put his life in danger to save hundreds of us was undeserving of such a piteous state! I did him a favour! I did a favour to all the times we had spent together! I did a favour to his family, to his cause, to his comrades, and to the very history of revolution! How can someone blame me for committing such a noble act? I would personally have preferred to die than to kill a dear friend, but such was the circumstance that I had to do it! What I did was divine! I was above conventional ethics and morality; I was a remarkable man, a demi-God; how could a man of such stature allow such a useless vermin to live?His very life was so pathetic that it had me nauseated. How can anyone let such a lowly life exist? That would be an insult to all humanity. I killed him out of merciful disgust. Yes, that¡¯s the end of it now. Inferior beings cease to have the right to exist. Human existence is futile to begin with, and to think of a cripple must not exist. It must be relieved of its miserable life. This was an act of mercy, nothing less and nothing more.


    Now what about a being that is in possession of its consciousness and yet does not exist? Now, can such a scenario even exist? Is there a being that does not exist and yet exists at the same time, particularly by virtue of its non-existence? Well, the only case we can possibly think of is that of the supernatural¡ªphantoms and ghosts! I despise the supernatural because I believe it is nothing more than a waste of human intellectual activity¡ªin ancient times, people would come to terms with the limits of their intellectual faculties (which I greatly admire) and thus seek answers in a world that lay beyond, and this is how the supernatural came to influence our world. Well, don¡¯t you think, Monsieur, that we care so much about things that are beyond our understanding while carelessly handling things that are within our reach? But there is something that troubles me greatly. Are we ourselves not just something that is just too convoluted for our minds to decipher? We are so competent that we have now unravelled the great mysteries of the universe through science and rationalism, and yet, paradoxically, we are not in touch with ourselves. Can one who fails to comprehend the nature of his own existence be deserving of the opportunity to change the world radically? The answer to this is something that I have not found yet, nor do I hope to obtain it anytime soon. Perhaps I could offer a perspective¡ªa deeply flawed one, but still something worth a thought. Maybe we''re just phantoms, shadow beings who can vanish into thin air and then reappear; we''re phantoms of the underworld, and we''ll never be anything else, Hell!We are incapable of being ourselves, let alone anything greater. We are all merely existing within the perspective of others. We are not the subjects of our lives, but rather objects of observation for others, who are also objects of observation.In society, we all happen to be suffering from this congenital crisis¡ªthe lack of subjectivity. Our minds are constantly occupied with thoughts¡ªoften sickening ones¡ªand we think more about how we appear to others than how we truly are. Now, if we are products of a societal phenomenon and lack the profound level of individuality that we assume we possess, then how can we claim to be real beings? Are we not ghosts created by society, perhaps even worse? It is quite sardonic, actually, that we intend willingly to be looked upon from the perspective of someone other than ourselves. This is one of the greatest problems that plague our world, an all-consuming and mundane plague that gobbles our individuality. This onlogical conflict between perspectives, one and the other, is a troubling and tragic phenomenon, to say the least.


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    You must have noticed the repulsive double standards that I so shamelessly exercise. I will tell you my justification for killing a man and then proceed to talk about the phantom-like nature of our existence, thus further justifying my stance (for how can you kill a phantom? ), and yet displaying a strange sense of superiority over the incidental euthanasia perpetuated by me previously. Ha Monsieur! I am indeed a shameless man, incapable of taking a fixated stand. I always break promises I make to myself, and to be honest, I quite enjoy doing so; breaking something you promised not to break is a lot of fun!It feeds my narcissism; it assures me that as superfluous as my existence might be, I remain on a higher pedestal than everyone else (which justifies my vilification of human beings and their pathetic intelligence), for they are much worse, and my actions are the evidence of my apparent superiority! Yes, Monsieur, I am a sharp man because I know how to justify my position, no matter how hypocritical it is in reality. What I¡¯ve done to mankind will forever be remembered as the greatest feat any human has ever achieved. Such noble work certainly gives me more authority over humans, because no human can compete with my accomplishment!I am God to these pitiful creatures. I myself am more worthy of divinity than the rest of humanity combined! Yes indeed! But I am a humble and benevolent God. I keep my celestial status a secret because I am a merciful being. Humans are not capable of handling such an overpowering revelation, but I know that a time will come when society will be ready to embrace my greatness. Until then, I must not spit out this divine truth. Alas! I just revealed it to you! Well then, I have nothing to worry about. You see, I recognise that you are a man of virtue and are a lot like me, so I am assured that you will keep our little secret.