# Endless Gifts



## Selene (Aug 2, 2009)

Alice gave without expectation.

I don't know how she did it. I can give endlessly, but at a small cost: you must acknowledge that I am giving. If I am kind, I expect not to be ignored. But, of course I'm not being ignored. People know I'm doing it. Maybe, it's just that some people aren't quite as expressive as I am? They probably are grateful. They just do a good job of hiding it.

It's a bit shameful though. Because this isn't even the most difficult obstacle my generosity could encounter. I could find some bastard who not only ignored my good intentions, but actually got angry at me for having them. Got angry at me for caring. That would be worse, yes?

But Alice has handled that too. Even with tears streaming down her face, she continued to view Joe as wonderful and deserving of happiness, even though he was a gruesome spectacle. She must have imagined in her peerless mind that the infuriated, shouting, middle-aged, balding bastard in front of her was a small child. And inside, he was crying--"Leave me alone...please don't come near me...leave me to my thoughts." Those weren't shouts, they were screams--"help me". And she saw that though demons may be brutal and cruel, they are still inhabitants of hell just like the tortured souls they punish. They are not exempt from suffering.

But when I look at Joe, I just see a grumpy old misanthrope. He's not an innocent, fragile fawn--he's just an asshole. I can't feel anything for him. But I can't even feel anything for the average person who is not quite so malignant and wretched. The normal, average guy who's too dumb and dull to feel anything. I'm not even sure why they drink, because they see things so blurry and fuzzy to begin with. They're too busy laughing at inane shit to feel anything real. They complain, but they don't really suffer--their inner eye doesn't magnify quite the same way. How can I have compassion towards someone who feels less pain than I do? But I can't share your happiness either and say, "Oh, how wonderful that you are in bliss." Your pleasures are coarse and pointless, and I'll have no part of them. All you do is endlessly distract yourself, and then try to sleep it off. Get a life, dimwits.

***

Eh. This is going nowhere. Being part of the elite is not so easy, heh. It looks like I was that grumpy old man after all. Perhaps if I was bigger and stronger when I was younger, I'd have learned how to beat up on people instead of having to resort to class warfare. Weak people like me have to use more subtle forms of abuse to hurt others, to overpower the strong without using power. The miserable person has to make sadness into a virtue, or else he feels inferior. The calm person hates the angry person, and the angry person hates the calm person. The aesthete thinks himself better than the moralist because he is not bound by silly rules. And the moralist thinks himself superior to the aesthete because he doesn't disregard and wickedly spit on the good.

Nietzsche was certainly onto something. Pride is the driving force behind all of my actions.

***

I just paused for a moment. I noticed I got distracted from my original thought. But when I started again, my mind was like two armies waging war. And a voice appeared in the middle of the fray, and bade the warring forces to drop their weapons. And it said, "Stop talking, fools. Just shut the hell up, and wait for all of this to blow over. Stop fanning the flames. Dumbass. Yes, not 'dumbasses', because you are not enemies. The two are one, and the one is nothing, and the nothing is everything. Nothing's wrong--just shut the f-- up."

And then the scene became dark, like the lights had just turned out on the set. It was just a scene, nothing real. And I had to tell it to you here. But now I really must stop. Stop fighting the current, and let all of this fade to nothing. Stop trying to solve it, stop trying to explain it, stop trying to show off. Just give all of my sins to the heavens as a sacrifice.

"I offer these to you--my failures. I left them untouched. You will see that I have covered nothing. I accept it all. It is out of my hands. I have faith that you will take good care of them for me, because I am too wicked to be good, too idiotic and malignant to find your ways. When I try to manipulate, I distort. When I distort, I destroy. These sins are all I can give right now, but it is me. I give myself. You have my soul--do with it what you will. Please save it. I have tried, but this has only brought misery. I surrender to the chaos. You give continuously, though I scorn you. I can't speak anymore. I ask your forgiveness for my delusions."


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