I always thought that collectively we had two choices: evolve to a Star Trek-like utopia where poverty, disease, prejudice, and war are eradicated—or take Ted Kaczynski’s advice and shun industrialized civilization altogether.
This middle ground that we’re hellbent on occupying is some bullshit though.
Heaven forbid if I call any of this out, however. Apparently my disdain for consumerism, narcissism, the eradication of public trust, and concern for unprecedented technological advancement on our psyche and relationships is no longer fashionable within Left/Right political framework.
It probably never was tbh
Where am I going with this?
Nowhere.
I’m as directionless as our collective consciousness.
“Ever wanted to do more?” some commercial by a for-profit university asked me.
Actually, I’ve always wanted to do LESS.
I can’t even watch ASMR without some jackass telling me that I’ve got 40lbs of excess shit in my bowels. Is that something I should be worried about? I already spend enough of my life on a toilet.
“Wanna invest in crypto?”
No thanks. Sports betting seems like a lot cooler way to lose money.
“Use my promo code to get one month free at Manscaped.com!”
Since when did men start shaving their balls?
Do people actually find this shit revolutionary or liberating? Any limp dick bastard with enough cash and a camera can convince enough people that some halfassed product manufactured from a sweatshop in Juarez is worth your hard earned money.
So why don’t you try sending some of that money my way?
Charles Jackson was an author that kinda got lost in the shuffle of 20th century alcoholic writers.
His life was tragic. Naturally.
Jackson appeared to have lived a mostly closeted life. He suffered from tuberculosis, losing a lung, which led to alcohol and substance abuse. He died of apparent suicide in 1968.
Blake Bailey wrote a biography of Jackson titles Farther and Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson. Unlike every other book I talk about here, I might actually read that one.
The Lost Weekend is Jackson’s most famous work. Billy Wilder adapted it into a film in 1945. While the book was successful upon its release, it is now largely forgotten in the American canon.
The second chapter of the The Lost Weekend is probably the most harrowing description of being an alcoholic ever written. And while I thought the book was fantastic as a whole, I actually found Jackson’s second novel The Fall of Valor to be much more engrossing.
And unfortunately it’s been totally forgotten.
The Fall of Valor is about a man vacationing with his wife in Nantucket who suddenly becomes obsessed with a recently married Marine captain on leave from World War II. The blatant homosexual overtones were ahead of their time upon its release in 1946, but the novel is powerful in its exploration on the dissolution of relationships and masculinity.
Jackson’s style can get a little long winded at times, which bogged down The Lost Weekend at certain points. But it pays off in second novel. Jackson was an astute observer of human nature. He’s seen the dark side and knows what people are thinking even when they aren’t aware of it themselves. All of this comes together in a heartbreaking conclusion for The Fall of Valor.
While I was reading Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents, I was introduced to the term credo quia absurdum, translated as “I believe because it is absurd.”
The phrase is usually attributed to Tertullian in reference to Christian belief.
However, I have said many times before that the mechanism of religious belief has been franchised out to other forms of belief, specifically in the political realm. This process is exacerbated by constant internet usage.
Naturally, this causes further consternation within civilization because we know intellectually that the internet isn’t real, but our relationship and understanding of the real world is constantly being shaped by it.
When this contradiction is pointed out, there’s an almost violent psychological reaction to it because it undermines our entire understanding of self and society. And to maintain this flawed understanding, we double down on our patently false assumptions.
Therefore this “credo quia absurdum” becomes the de facto mode of political/religious discourse.
It must be difficult being the greatest living actor.
From the time he recited the alphabet in Vampire’s Kiss, the world would never be the same.
Sure Nicholas Cage smashed box office records, won Academy Awards, and had sex with Patricia Arquette, but there was one thing he could never land: the role of Kal-El, aka Superman, in Tim Burton’s Superman Lives.
It’s a loss from which the world will never recover.
So our national treasure had to wonder the earth, forced to take whatever role was handed to him. But there was a gap in his soul the size of $6.5 million worth of unpaid back taxes.
But in his mind, he remains the invincible hero we all know him to be—thanks in part to prolonged cocaine use.
“What are you going to say now James? That you’ve never walked a step in your life?”
That is correct.
But I get the appeal.
And I’m not talking about “hiking” or “speed walking”. That’s some white people bullshit.
I’m talking about walking in a straight line on a flat plane. It’s great: putting one foot in front of the other, just wondering aimlessly because you’ve got nowhere to go because you’re unemployed and your kids won’t talk to you.
The Internet Ruined Everything 