Ticking boxes (good & safe)

Dear diary,

I need consciously to remind myself to relax. I’m becoming too stressed. I’m like that boy in that story who asked his grandma “Grandma, what’s that beautiful hill over there? I wanna run down it!” & grandma answered “You know very well what the doctors said about your condition: You were born with a faulty heart, which will explode if you overexert yourself. Therefore, don’t run down that hill or you will surely die, because your heart will explode.” And at the end of the story, the boy runs down the hill and his heart explodes.

But, at the risk of over-taxing myself, I want to address a variety of topics in this entry. First is the question: Was there ever any good in the world?

Topic 1:
Was there ever any good in the world?

The answer is: NO. There has never been any good; not even Jesus was good — the world was created BY evil, FOR evil. Basically, the rule of thumb is: If it exists, it is not good. So here is the way to check your math:

Let us say, for instance, that you are in a meadow, and you espy a puppy (an infant wolverine) standing nearby & wagging its tail. You can ask yourself, “Is yon puppy GOOD?” Now answer yourself by reasoning internally: “Well, does this puppy exist?” Then go & pet the puppy & it licks your hand: This proves that it does indeed exist and that it is evil.

So you can then mark that datum down on your chart: Simply do as follows. Write the word “Puppy” on the left-hand side of the notebook, under the heading “Items of Inquiry”; then, on the right-hand side of the page, under the column titled “Results”, place an “X” in the box next to the word “EVIL”. You can then repeat this test ad nauseam:

• chair → EVIL
• balloon → EVIL
• tadpole flame in ovum of antichrist → GOOD!!!
• construction mogul from New York City → EVIL
• angel coupling devil in Heaven’s library → GOOD!!!
• oatmeal for breakfast → EVIL
• (& so on & so forth)

Once finished, fold your page of data and place it in an envelope; then mail these results to a scientific trade magazine. Now you’ve contributed to knowledge! Treat yourself to a sundae.

*

The point I tried to make just now is that there really is no good and never has been any good in this world — HOWBEIT, our vision of good is like a seed that could change everything if we allow it to grow: At present, no tree exists; but if we bring about the good that we yearn to see — that is to say, if we plant the seed and nurture it — it could be that goodness, which has hereto never existed, may take root and manifest.

Now, here, you might think I’d allow myself to turn this into a cheap joke and say: If the good becomes real, and is officially existent, then, by definition, it will therefore have become EVIL.

But NO: I won’t say that, for that is incorrect. The truth is that if goodness is allowed to enter into our world, by way of our acting in accordance with our superior imaginations, then we will have augmented the fabric of reality. We will have expanded possibility. It will be like the birth of Venus; you can pencil it in on your calendar: Prior to such-and-such date, there was no good; Subsequent to that point in history, etc...

I do feel a little guilty, however, about allowing myself to write above “Not even Jesus was good.” But I really do mean what I say: I’m not trying to take a cheap shot at the man. I love Jesus; it’s just that if we hold him to have been the only speck of good in the eyeball of God, then we render everything else a sort of “failure to take” — I mean this in the way that one might say “The tree is not quite taking to its environment.” And what’s the point of goodness if all you can do is wait thousands of years for it to come back again? I prefer goodness that we can summon & fan to ubiquity — I mean this in the way that one might say “Fan the flames of good till the world is engulfed.” That’s why I evoked that image of the tadpole in the ovum, who is at once a spark or plume of fire as well as a milt. (Correctly or not, by milt I mean “a female flagellate zoa; a mobile girl-sperm”. And I only mention gender because the imagination is inherently feminine: being a receiving, creating, advancement-oriented superstructure. It would be male if it were hellbent on killing & breaking shit.)

So that covers the first thing that I wanted to talk about in today’s sermon. Nonexistent goodness. The next topic on the agenda is: The safeness of my house.

Topic 2:
The safeness of my house

I love being inside my house, because it is safe here. When the sun is shining, and all the neighborhood children are outside playing, and their moms are weeding their gardens or repairing the vinyl siding on their supply sheds; and the dads are waxing their hot-rods; and gorgeous dogs as big as ponies are gallivanting about in the yard, within the confines of their invisible fencing; I myself remain indoors, downstairs in my basement where no one can see me. And if a neighbor wonders why I’m not outside repairing my own home’s siding, or putting a coat of wax on our snow-white hybrid, he can ring the doorbell and knock with the gargoyle knocker (the metal instrument shaped like the face of Moloch — Satan’s comrade from Paradise Lost who argues in favor of engaging in another full war against God — hinged to my front door and offering itself to be rapped by visitors so as to attract the attention of Yours Truly the homeowner), yes, my neighbor can ring and knock all he wants, but he won’t gain entry; for I’m never going to budge from my spot in the gloom. I remain calmly waiting in my underground chamber, for the noise to cease and for the intruder to leave.

Yet here’s where we run into problems: We’ve grown too cocksure.

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. (Proverbs 16:18)

Cuz my neighbor doesn’t just grow tired of knocking on my door: he proceeds to the window, cups his hands at either side of his eyes and gazes inside, looking to see if anyone’s home. He then takes a large stone from my yard, almost too heavy to lift, and hefts it right thru the glass. With the help of a step ladder, he bodily trespasses the rupture. There are no sirens, no alarm, because I never installed a security system—why should I? my house contains nothing of value.

My nosy neighbor now lurks thru my upstairs hallway. (I’m still downstairs, cowering in the corner now; my heart is beating rapidly.) The intruder uses an ax to chop thru the door of my bedroom. He snoops around, picks up an old compact disc that was lying on the floor (hand-labeled with red marker “BRYAN’S RAP DEMOS”), tosses it at the wall like a frisbee; then crouches down and grips my bed frame and lifts it with all his might, flipping the bed on its side. (Is he looking for treasure? Does he think I might have stashed my life’s savings under the mattress?)

All that is revealed, underneath the bed, is a small stack of paintings. With his boot, the invader nudges the top three canvases, in order to view them. Their appearances are as follows:

1. a bird, large & gangly, against a pink background;
2. a portrait of “Inky”, the cyan-hued ghost from the video game Pac-Man, flatly haunting his gold-dotted maze;
3. an abstraction, but having the colors & forms of a nature scene, with the raindrops falling upwards.

These things hold no interest to my neighbor, the invader. He kicks the stack and the canvases slide against the upturned bed. Then he slams the bed back down on the carpet: WHAM! ...This makes me jolt in terror, & a whimper unintentionally escapes from my throat... My neighbor hears this and calls out:

“Bryan? Was that you? Are you here?”

Now I don’t know what to do: I left my phone upstairs, so I can’t call for help; thus I remain silent, trembling with fear. After a tense moment, finally I answer:

“Yes, sorry, I’m downstairs; I didn’t hear you knock — I’ll come right up.”

Rising to my feet, I ascend the staircase as casually as possible, trying to seem as tho I’d really just been preoccupied with a task.

“What were you doing down there, that you couldn’t hear the doorbell?” says my neighbor. (I don’t wanna give his real name, as that might get him in trouble with the authorities, so I’ll call him Clyde Otobokee, after the orange ghost from Pac-Man.)

“Oh, Clyde, hello! I was just reading a science journal & performing some experiments, so I didn’t hear the door.”

“On a nice day like this, you choose to stay inside and work in your underground lab, cooking up who-knows-what types of potions, instead of landscaping or replacing your wood siding with vinyl or waxing your vehicle? When are you gonna procreate offspring so that my kids can be blessed by God with some clients to prey upon? For I plan on corralling my lineage into the family business, which is the world of finance; and you know what they say: Ya can’t collect hidden fees & usury without a desperate underclass in need of loans,” says Mr. Otobokee.

“Sorry about that—” I say.

“Nah, I’m just ribbing you,” says Mr. Otobokee.

“I know,” I say, and then I fake a laugh.

“Well, I gotta get back to my suburban tasks & outdoorsmanship; I can’t stand around gabbing like this all day. Lemme know what time you want me to stop by later, so I can help with your repairs.”

“Repairs?” I ask, genuinely confused.

“I mean all the upkeep that you need to do. You got this house, right? Well it’s got a roof, and walls, and floors and doors, and plumbing — all those aspects need to be maintained, and I’m your neighbor, so it goes without saying that we’ll be spending a lot of time together, working on stuff: ya know: fixing things: sweating it out, and then drinking beer afterwards. You also inherited a yard with really bad grading, as was evidenced when the whole thing flooded this spring, after the winter snow-melt. Your backyard was basically one enormous swimming pool, ha! Remember? Oh, but you probably don’t know what ‘grading’ is: I don’t mean ‘grading school-papers’ as you think, cuz you’re a bookworm — I won’t even ask you if you’re familiar with this expression; I’ll just assume you’re ignorant and explain it to you pedantically. ‘Grading’, in landscape architectural construction, means ‘ensuring that the ground of your yard has a specified slope, to facilitate surface drainage’. So I can help with all your troubles. In other words: Your free-time is at the mercy of my free-time,” says Mr. Otobokee.

“I understand,” I reply.

Then, while leaving, Mr. Otobokee turns, points, and says with a big bright smile, “Looks like your window needs fixing!”

*

Dangit. I only got thru two of the six topics that I planned to cover in this entry; but it’s already sunrise, so I should really get going. — I guess I’ll just cover the rest tomorrow. Talk to you later!