“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.
