Friday, April 3, 2015

The Pestilence that Stalks in Darkness: A Portrait of He Who is Not

         “I can’t see you anymore.” That was what my friends said to me when I first figured out what it could do, what the ring could do. I had found it, long considered a mere myth by Plato to illustrate a point. I had found the Ring of Gyges, I was invisible. “I can’t see you anymore”, that is what they said, such a beautiful phrase, such a freeing phrase. That phrase is the very source and foundation of all liberty itself. When you were young, and you were stealing a cookie from the cookie jar, you could proceed without guilt or feel that you weren’t under any authority unless you knew somebody was watching. If a younger sibling came and saw you when you were doing it, the very fact that you knew you were being seen would cause you to realize the authorities over you. And who were they, to rule over me? Who were they, to say that I could not have a cookie? The same worked the opposite way too, the observation of somebody else gave you power. If you saw a friend in the act of doing something bad, then you could hold it over them, threatening to tell the school teacher. It gave you power. We have free will, so let us do with it what we want, don’t go observing me. And what does it matter, really, if you deny it to others, they aren’t you, and you are not them. What am I doing, talking about you, you are not me, and I am not you. Let me dispense with talking about you, and begin with me. I have free will, I can choose to be whatever I want to be. It is within my power. Power, what a wonderful word.

When I first got the ring, I thought to myself about what I wanted. What should I use my free will for? Pleasure is pleasurable, I thought to myself, let me seek that. All the money I could hope for was now at my disposal. What to seek first but good food. So I ate. What to steal first, how about a television, for boredom is so annoying. In it I could just watch people without any requirements on my part. I could have power over them to turn them on and off. What power there is in entertainment. And why should I care if it is good for me, what I see. See what power I had, being invisible, for I could do whatever I wanted without being accountable to anyone for it. What would it matter if I watched violence, how could it damage me, for here were people who were not afraid to show the goal of living, of seeking the power inherent in free will to rule over those who seek to “serve others”, to be each other’s “servants”? And if it didn’t bother me, and nobody could interfere in the process by seeing me, by making me feel any guilt, why shouldn’t I do it? What would it matter if I watched such sexual and pornographic materials as were available?  In it their nakedness, their utter openness to observation, gave the most power that could be wanted through observation. The act itself, in which another’s will might be made subservient to my own, proved most powerful. If it did not bother me, and nobody else saw, why shouldn’t I, and how would it hurt me? If I was allowed by my own free will, why should I not seek power. More to the point, why should I not also do the things I saw, for who would know, and how would it harm me? There was the first one, she could not slip away. But the great tragedy of it was that touch itself is observation in a way isn’t it, and my desire gave her power over me. When observation was required, then wasn’t the removal of the observer necessary. Remove observation and observe for the sake of power. So this then was what it was to be an incubus, and I loved the power of it. So this is why demons would act in such animal ways, for they seek power.

But touch is observation, and such is also desire, both things that I found binding to the expression of my free will. So this was why demons are not generally incubi, because they are so far below it. Below it, what am I saying, I mean above it, for by seeking power they gain it. The rest of the pleasures likewise faded, except one. They were just stones dragging me down, keeping me slave to mere objects and my passions.  Violence was still appealing, the ending of another for the sake of the expression of my power. And why not? No, that was not the reason for violence, that implied I was dependent on the existence of another so that I could end it. What was it then but the desire for power expressing itself in the desire that all other things might not be. The ring could only protect me from their eyes, but their existence, their very memory of me, needed to be destroyed. I was no longer man, I was dynamite. I was focused on destruction itself, for the sake of freedom, for the sake of power, for the sake of life, not others’ lives, but mine. No, not for the sake of life, unless by life one means power. Life limited me to the rule of my own body. Suicide then, that would be it. Embrace freedom from the constraint of the body in a glorious blast of chaotic destruction, ending those who would be my masters and observers.

I entered the building, invisibly carrying the bomb. The rain of debris and glass and blood was the last of the mere bodily things that I observed, all in my power. Such beautiful power. Such violent expression of the desire for power. It certainly was fine to desire power, for how could power have power over me if it were my power.

I stood then, before a vast throne, and God sat upon it. Oh, I saw at last. The omnivident, the all seeing himself, he who in utter goodness observes all things. Utter goodness, what am I saying, how could a God who had given up the whole of the universe, all that power, to become Man and die for such a trivial thing as love be in any way good. How could I call good he who said, “If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all.” This omnivident one was the greatest threat of all to my freedom, to my free will, to my power. I screamed at him, “I have done good, even if you do not call it so. If you are good, recognize the good of my power.”

“I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity,” he proclaimed to those of us who spoke in this manner. “I never knew you”. This was the ultimate “I can’t see you anymore”. My power was complete. Yes! He rejects all claims to have observed me, he rejects having remembered me. I had not needed the ring of Gyges here, he, the source of all non-me observation, had no memory of me.

There was darkness, yes, darkness. And it was wonderful, I could do anything here, for nobody would see, there was no one and no thing to limit me. There was no reality to depend upon for power, I observed everything that was capable of observation. Such was true power. My work on earth was complete here, suicide unto power had reached its culmination. And the heat, such as the heat of the bomb that gave me power, surrounded me. They had all been wrong, this was heaven, my great power keeping me company. I did nothing to anything, for they had all been annihilated. I could still glory in my power, for that was the remaining desire left for those with power. “O great and powerful I, ruler of all things”.

I, that is a strange word. Why should such a word have the power to define the true power? Let it be abolished. Haha, I is abolished. I is nothing. Power has abolished I. I can’t think because I is abolished. I can’t think and I is not. Power, funny word to have power over power. Power is abolished by nothing. Hurrah! (Hm, let them be unabolished for a second, for they are needed for the abolition of other things.)
         Why should my power be hindered by the rules of grammar, and why should words have the power over me and power. Behold, let the tyrant Grammar be destroyed, and words meaning things along with it. I is abolished. Hm, still grammatical. Abolished power. Hm, better, no subject. Abolished. Hm, expresses. Wol. Flum. Igglefordshire. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Traluphalorhum. Words, tyrannical. Scream instead.

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