Why bother with this shit ? What is your point? Is this "satire" supposed to be funny?
I already wrote about The Secret Life of Toddlers, in my story about CJ. I really do believe it's a story worth reading. I have tried to edit it as best I'm able and if you want to know about why people embrace fake identities and make-believe and fantasy personae, I dare say you'll find at least part of the answer in CJ's story.
The Secret Life of Slaves
Better Bar -"home of The Artists!"
For months in Manila, I kept hearing about these famous Artists; everyone kept talking them as if they were out on the town 24/7 but no one had pointed them out to me so I had no idea if I'd even seen them let alone been introduced to them. I'd ask about them whenever someone would mention them but I'd get blown off or waved away as if I were stupid (possible) or just being a jerk (not possible). People would act as if they thought I was mocking them or something but my inquiries were in earnest; it seemed as if everyone knew The Artists but I.
I didn't even know what kind of art they produced until I met CJ. CJ is short for Christina-Joy. There are a lot of trailer trash names in the Philippines but you couldn't call someone "trailer trash" in the Philippines because it wouldn't make any sense; only a tiny fraction of the population of that country will ever be able to afford a luxury like a trailer home.
Well, it is a Catholic country so...
So they're hard-pressed feeding themselves and their families every day (far too often, it's the other way around of course).
Well, it is a Catholic country and if you know nothing about religion then you need to understand; that's what children are for.
Hey dude, I don't make the rules. The Bible does. But it's time the rules changed because we're not doing ourselves any favours exploiting children, that's for damn sure. But hyphenated first names like Billy-Bob or Christina-Joy are kinda cute, if you think about it. What is it really but agreeing to disagree?
CJ is a tiny little girl (or "woman child", if you're religious) who is very agreeable on the eye, and she was booty calling me only every Tuesday night (or Wednesday 'morning') for a few months when I was in Manila. The reason she only ever called on Tuesday was because CJ was hiding a dark, shameful secret that she'd have died rather than 'fess up to. All her babies were dead. Why else would she try so valiantly (if ultimately, utterly redundantly) to keep her relatively recent C-section scars hidden from the guys she's having sex with?
The only other alternative is that the children are alive.
As she was a little too full of joy and in love with life to be the former mother of recently deceased young children, I presumed her children to be alive but simply classified information that she had decided I did not Need to Know about. So that was that. She just didn't want me to know that she was a mother. I'm not sure who she imagined she was fooling however, because I'm not sure anyone has ever managed to hide the scars of a C-section from someone they're having sex with, in all of human history.
I never did find out for certain; but when we first hooked up (at 4 am on a Wednesday morning) one of her first questions inquired after what I "normally" did on Tuesday evenings. I tried to think but I didn't really know, truth be told; so I just told her that I didn't have a set routine for Tuesdays. Of course the question itself warranted inquiry and with curiosity, I asked why she wanted to know my Tuesday routine.
As it turned out, she had no reason. How about that? That was her position and she was sticking to it. There was no reason - whatsoever - for her wanting to know what I normally did on Tuesday nights. She was just curious, is all; but for no reason in particular.
I snickered. People lie a lot but the thought has always struck me that if they didn't, they'd be a lot more impressive; if for no other reason than people suck at lying. Though I suppose, these things are relative.
And so every Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning for the next 2-3 months, CJ called at some point to ask me what I was doing. As it turned out, I did have a set routine. I'm a filthy liar as well; though I'd argue, never intentionally nor with malice. But lying is lying and I was lying to CJ. As it turned out, my Tuesday evening routine was Not Doing Anything. Then it became Fucking CJ. Well, that's not entirely true. It was still Not Doing Anything but I would take a 15 min break at some point to fuck CJ before returning to scheduled programming.
CJ, for her part, might only have been interested in sleeping with me for my FHM and Esquire magazines. She loved those magazines. I almost asked her why she didn't get a subscription before catching my stupid, thoughtless blurt in time. Obviously, she would have had her reasons and the vast majority of flippant questions asked of others in this world are entirely unnecessary. What was I hoping to achieve by asking the question? Did I think she wasn't subscribing to them because the idea had never occurred to her? It's really quite an offensive question, if you think about it. Clearly, she had her reasons for not paying for what gave her so much joy; one can only speculate as to what her reason/s might have been. They say Money cannot buy you happiness and that is true, but only indirectly or should I say, only directly? Money can buy happiness for others and you can back door into happiness by thinking outside the narcissistic bubble of ME ME ME.
It's the only way to be truly Selfish. YOU YOU YOU will be miserable if you only feel in terms of ME ME ME.
CJ's disadvantage was my advantage, but then I wasn't hoarding wealth from her to get to sleep with me. I wasn't using the magazines as leverage to get her to do something she didn't want to do. That's what the wealthy do. They hoard the cake from those who want cake and dole out the crumbs to whomever finds favour in their eyes or pleases them. I understand the sentiment but I think it's really dumb for a few reasons; primarily because I don't think you can hoard your way to happiness - it's a hijack and no one is fooled by your 'charity' - they're going to resent you for withholding the cake which leads into the other reason why I think it's a really dumb idea.
"Let them eat cake."
I'm not entirely sure why the ladies who said that have been vilified by history; when considered without the clouding of emotional smear, it sure sounds like she or they were telling the hoarders of cake how to save their necks. No doubt predominately focused on saving their own necks but when it comes to saving necks by getting the answer right, does it matter?
It didn't, as it turned out or at least, it never has. The hoarders of cake have always failed to heed the women who told them what they needed to do with their stockpiled cake and it matters little who said it first or who repeated it or who repeats after I've repeated it now because - for as long as there is hoarding - the answer will be the same.
Let Them Eat Cake.
They didn't. They don't. They won't. No one ever has. And so the heads have rolled into the bloody dustbin of our miserable history. They will roll for as long as there is hoarding for the purpose of hijacking the Without's into doing something they don't want to do for the With's.
The only thing we learn from history is how to lose our heads. Over. And over. And over again.
There is almost no one who truly believe racial apartheid benefits Society; but it's flabbergasting how many people on the wrong side of economic apartheid would take up arms against wealth redistribution (conducted for the betterment of the welfare of everyone). It's something to think about and if you think there's a right side to be on when it comes to any kind of apartheid, you're not especially bright at all. It would be stupid if you were hoarding a lot of cake; for those who are hoarding no cake at all, it's batshit insane.
In Manila, I was on the preferable side of the poverty line but if it were up to me, there wouldn't be any divisive lines or divided sides. Period. It's not in my best interests for there to be inequalities; I don't need to lord my fortunate birth over others but perhaps you do need to belittle others in order to feel big? I didn't need the magazines for CJ to want to sleep with me but perhaps you would need to pay girls to (pretend to) want to sleep with you? I'm not here to tell you what to do because I have no power and wouldn't want any; I'm here to make convincing cases for why people should act in their own best interests. I can categorically tell you that, much like every other girl (or boy) in all of living history, CJ would resent anyone who leveraged her into being a whore. Do that and you won't get CJ. She might marry you but you will not have CJ. You'll have mere married a (grossly inferior) version of CJ.
Treat humans like whores and whores are what you'll get. Leverage CJ into marrying you for your wealth and she might, but you'll have married a whore. I would never - ever - need (let alone want) to do that but perhaps you need to turn humans into whores?
In the eternal dispute over who or what is sane v insane, you can actually break it down very easily and solve the dispute once and for all. It's a question of need. Whomever needs less, wins. I have no need in a very needy world where people do a great many unpleasant things to each other not because they like unpleasantness (outside of Hollywood, who does?) but rather because they don't. No one likes chopping heads. They just don't want to be leveraged into doing things they don't want to do, like - for example - die from starvation.
But no one ever listens to what I have to say. One can't shake the feeling this is a leak that Society has. I have some intelligent things to say. Try not to get lost looking for them, mixed up as they are and camouflaged by other intelligent things which are being said.
But I would say nothing when CJ started reading those magazines; she loved those magazines and I was glad to provide them. She'd lie on my bed and aside from some soft giggling, I'd hear nothing for hours before a delighted shriek announced her imminent racing over to show me something entirely uninteresting but then these things are relative. I wouldn't fake interest in what I wasn't interested in because I don't think anyone would ever want such a thing so it's a little patronising and offensive; but I was interested in CJ so I'd engage her to discover why she found delight and joy in what I mostly felt was pretty generic and mundane. I would never belittle her capacity to find joy in something I couldn't; on the contrary, I was envious of her capacity in this regard. It's a matter of perception, really; and perception is perhaps the most relative of all subjective qualities.
One Tuesday evening, I didn't appear to have any magazines when CJ walked in - I think the maid threw them out or stole them or something (i.e. stole them, but I used to have a problem with thinking positive) - and I was 20-30% certain CJ was simply going to walk straight back out. She was not a happy camper. CJ really loved (her) magazines.
But CJ loves other things as well. She's a complex and layered girl; her idea of a swell time isn't limited to glossy magazines and disappointing sex. One Tuesday afternoon she called to ask me to take her to some specific club and I wasn't interested because it was far from Makati (the CBD) and I'd heard it was a dive but CJ wasn't taking "No" for an answer. Unfortunately for everyone who has ever tried, I am not one of those insane people who says "No" but really means "Yes". You know the type.
I'm unique in that I say what I mean and I mean what I say and when I say "No", you cannot twist my arm in order to get me to say "Yes" unless you're like really powerful or terrifying; in which case, I'll say whatever you want me to say however and for as long as you want me to say it. But under normal circumstances, when I say "No", what I mean is "No". It's amazing how everyone gets confused.
This is not to say I don't change my mind; I often do, but you'll need to bring in new evidence or increased incentives or rephrase your argument to make it sound more appealing. You need to improve the strength of your case to persuade; this is what it boils down to. You cannot simply repeat the rejected terms in a more persistent or whiny tone or - and you won't make this mistake twice - by simply DIALLING UP THE DECIBELS AS IF I WERE DEAF BECAUSE I HEARD YOU FINE THE FIRST TIME AND THAT WAS WHY I SAID "NO". No means no. I don't care what girls say.
Once I've said "No", you need to come up with something more or you have to let it go. I will be unmoved and everyone will be the worse for wear if you attempt to force me to do something I do not want to do. When people do this, it's terrifying how persistent they are. What I do whenever someone is trying to twist my arm is imagine I'm a frail, uncertain girl who has had a few drinks and a few items of clothes removed and I imagine they're trying to get me to have sex with them when I've said "No". When you look at it that way, you really start to understand how often girls must get raped. The fact that they submit at the moment of rape doesn't really change the fact that they said "No" and were struggling to communicate the fact that No means No to whomever wasn't getting it, and only stopped struggling when it became apparent they were going to get raped one way or the other.
When it comes to girls and rape, I think their overall strategy might be something like "We can do this the easy way or we don't have to do it." The idea that there is heroism in fighting redundant fights is really more of one of your mother's insanities, truth be told. In reality (where you live), you can resist or you can submit and girls who submit aren't making the mistake you imagine. Survival ain't as black and white as it should be.
It's unfathomable how many people will attempt to rape their friends by twisting their arms to get them to do something they don't want to do; it's almost as if they imagine they Know Best. That's the hallmark of a sociopath, you know? It's a dead give away; only sociopaths Know Best.
CJ was not an arm-twister because, in reality, everyone would always want to do what CJ wanted to do and perhaps, in hindsight, this might have been why she wanted to do very little with me. But realising she would need to be more persuasive if she was to get me to take her to this specific club, CJ whispered conspiratorially (for effect, I guess; if my phones are tapped, it would be news to me and if they're tapped they would hear whispered conversation anyway), "You know, they say you can meet The Artists there."
I had been about to fake a disconnection and the right way to fake a disconnection when talking to someone on the phone is simply to hang up when you're in the middle of making an emphatic point, and then you turn off your phone. Simple. I've been hanging up on people for over a decade with that trick and never once have I raised any suspicions. There was no chance of my pulling that trick once CJ mentioned The Artists; suddenly, she had my full attention.
I yelled out excitedly, "WHO EXACTLY ARE THESE MYSTERIOUS ARTISTS I KEEP HEARING ABOUT?"
To my surprise, CJ wasn't able to tell me. Not exactly. Confused, I allowed CJ to steer the conversation onto less important things (which is to say, I let her ramble on speaker-phone whilst I gave something else the vast majority of my divided attention). I semi-consciously scanned her incessant babbling for bits of information but for the most part, it was just standard meaningless babble. Almost childlike, which made me gulp on more than one occasion because CJ might have been 35 kg? She might have been less. She was a tiny little girl with children though and I'd have to remind myself of that when her childlike chatter matched her childlike frame and the entire thing suddenly took on an Amber hue.
As I scanned her babbling for items of interest, I noted she was irrationally thrilled about a new dress she'd purchased on account of its prestige (or heritage, depending on which way you look at it I suppose and personally, I'd look at it as second-hand or pre-loved or used). I don't really get how people attach inflated value to things which may or may not have been indirectly linked to someone famous (or infamous); like (for example) their biological children.
This grizzly, bloodied, insane world has got to get away from insanity like the constructs of heritage and hereditary title and property rights; everything needs to move away from illogical and unjustifiable 'entitlement' so that everyone can benefit. It's collective v exclusive and in trying to exclude the world, humans did something unfathomable. They succeeded.
But we need to abolish the filthy insanity that is the sociopath lie of exclusive love and turn away from all intangibles in order to embrace what is real; our surreal reality. We need to return to arguments that can be defended using logic a little stronger than "It's mine so I can do what I want with it."
How is that supposed to make sense?
You cannot destroy what has collective value just because a piece of paper says it belongs to you, like (for example) your children. Nothing belongs to anyone but everything belongs to everyone and things should belong to whomever can make a logical case for best use (it goes without saying that use will need to be sustainable; we cannot use up the world and then discard it for another one because we only have the one). When you die, what right do the biological children of hoarders have to what was hoarded? The land a standing army can simply take and reassign? No one has any exclusive right to property. Throughout all of (known) history, standing armies have done exactly that with land. It is simply taken from its rightful owners and parcelled out. We might as well take it from its wrongful owners and reassign it for the benefit of the collective. Property rights are a (really dumb) Confidence trick; they're as valid as they can be imagined to be and if your imagination doesn't include a standing army or friends in the judiciary or legislature defending your property 'right', then lol @ you and lol @ their property. It'll be 'yours' if you want to pretend that it is; but it will never be yours in a world where power takes what it has no right to by virtue of having (invariably, merely illusory) might.
A Confidence trick is simply a bluff and when it comes to Confidence tricks, you're all getting steamrolled.
And it's embarrassing at how easily they run over the top of you weak-tight faggots.
CJ had a new dress that she was losing her mind over; except it simply wasn't new. It was pre-loved. She had bought it for a steal at the second-hand markets and at that, my interest was piqued as whenever I bought pre-used clothes - and I have often needed to - I was never this enthusiastic. People don't throw out good clothes. They let them hang (largely unused) in a closet until they die, at which point they're given away to Salvation Army or St Vincent's. But CJ wasn't ashamed. She was almost as giddy about telling me the story of her 'new' dress as she would've been about the dress, so I waited for her to accommodate us both.
CJ had a 'new' dress that was formerly owned by one of The Artists. The elusive Artists! So they sell clothes? Were they all girls? Why would they be selling clothes at the markets? I had a dozen questions I wanted to ask but first I needed to address the obvious fact that CJ had been taken for a ride.
"CJ, how do you know it was actually owned by one of The Artists? Whomever sold it to you could have just been saying that."
Not quite. CJ explained.
One of The Artists had sold the dress to her.
My head was spinning. This made no sense. Why would widely-celebrated Artists need to sell their used clothes at the markets to little star-struck girls like CJ? Suddenly, I was laughing. I asked CJ how an "Artist" might be distinguished from a "Celebrity". I was laughing as I was all but certain I'd solved the mystery of The Artists. CJ confirmed.
Artists are pre-celebrity.
Or in other words, The Artists were and are simply regular people like you and I. They haven't created any art, per se; but gosh they'd sure like to. These sorts of Artists work very hard to get their big break; because all they need is for their intrinsic talent to be recognised. It often is, for whatever it's worth; only to be thought better of in the cold light of day. It is an unfortunate irony that those who recognise The Artists' 'talent' in order to sleep with them only serve to cruelly validate their delusional dreams. But then they are hard to pity because what on earth are they thinking?
One might wonder whether the after hours scene is really the most appropriate forum for an aspiring Artist wishing to show off their artistic talent, but of course they're not really Artists. They're just whores who've been led to believe in delusional dreams. And this is why you can find them being used on weeknights and it's why they're at the market on a weekend morning selling the clothes of their shattered delusions to CJ and other celebrity-obsessed children; all of whom, it's worth noting, will have children of their own. They must have children to be celebrity-obsessed. You appreciate the prerequisite, surely? If they didn't have children, they'd be Artists themselves.
The celebrity-obsessed all had big dreams. They know the only thing stopping them from pursuing those dreams is their children. If it weren't for their kids, they know they'd probably be on the cover of the glossy magazines they're obsessed with. The reason they are obsessed over the lives being depicted as glamorous by those deceit-obsessed magazines is - quite simply - they're the lives that got away from them. The lives the CJs of the world imagine they were destined for (one can only speculate how a pretty girl gets such an idea into their head).
But then they got knocked up. Au revoir, big dreams. Bonsoir, gossip magazines.
That's because dreams come but they never really go, do they? Some get retired but they don't stop working altogether; they'll still randomly show up and punch the clock at 9am years after they were retired by reality.
As it turned out, I had come across The Artists before. I'd seen them perform all over the world, as a matter of fact. And I'm not being snide when I say the truth is, they work so tirelessly and intensely, it's almost hard to ridicule them. Almost.
In reality, most work harder trying to get noticed than most of us have ever worked in our lives. For all the effort they put into getting that big lucky break, you'd think they'd be better off investing in (I dunno) acting classes? Singing lessons? Learning how to walk down a runway whilst drunk or high without falling over? But they don't want to put in that kind of real work. They all want the shortcut but I'm not entirely sure there is a shortcut; I think the stories of shortcuts are all lies, fabricated for what should be transparent motives.
Whether or not pretty girls actually get discovered in bars is beyond my capacity to know, but I know for a fact that attempting to impress the entertainment industry is fraught with disappointment. Artists who aren't put off by inconsequential things like the fact they don't have any talent are going to come up against one of the following; queers (pretty boys have a much easier time of it than pretty girls; and this is why almost all the pretty boys are bisexual - when you're a whore, does it matter? How badly do you want your dreams?); existentially-depressed, cynical, no-nonsense straight pricks (inevitably filled with self-loathing, which they routinely take out on whomever fairly warrants it and in that industry, there will always be a glut of people who fairly warrant it - and unfortunately for our Artists, they are part of the talent-less glut); bullshit artists / liars (hard to hate the player when you're playing the same game.)
"Oh you have talent, you say? Aren't you in luck; I'm [insert bullshit here]."
To be fair, the Artists started it.
They're not prostitutes; that would be unfair. Prostitutes demand payment; prostitutes are transparent and honest and WYSIWYG. The Artists simply give their 'favours' away and to be fair to The Artists, the only reason prostitutes or whores can trade on their bodies is religion's corruption of the marketplace. Still, The Artists do give what they have away with a flippancy nearing honesty. And as far as dreams go, is it so bad to not want to work when there's a chance you could simply fuck your way through life?
I don't think it makes them bad; merely stupid.
They will fuck literally anyone who they imagine can be used to launch their dreams. If not a launch-pad, they'll fuck a stepping-stone or a ladder or stepping-stone to a ladder leaning against a launch-pad. All this fucking is called networking.
Artists are dreamers so they are desperate to please. It's just, and I'd have to say this is the predominant issue I have with lies, fantasy, dreams, emotions, feelings, etc; it's just not...real. Everything comes back to real. Lying is the purest form of insanity because you're attempting to deceive someone about what is true and valid and sane and real. You're withdrawing from Humanity's value when you lie; and giving absolutely nothing in exchange. You just suck the sanity out of life. Artists have no ability. They have no talent. They're just whores trying to parley their bodies into a shot at stardom. They hang out in nightclubs and bars where they imagine they might meet someone who will fuck them and then - who knows - maybe give them a spot in a toothpaste commercial? Or introduce them to someone who might fuck them and - who knows - maybe they know someone and so on.
CJ explained all this to me, albeit in an entirely different way. But I understood what she was saying, perfectly. When CJ was finished explaining, she paused to confirm that I understood the difference between an Artist and a Celebrity. CJ loved to teach me things. She was unfailingly patient with me. One gets the feeling she would make an excellent mother, if only she had children.
And only for as long as they remained under the age of 5 or 6, for life. Otherwise, CJ and her children are going to have to agree to disagree on a great many things. If CJ Knows Best, she's going to have to put her foot down.
CJ is a sweetheart, don't get me wrong. It's not that she's a tyrant who would enjoy torturing her children. CJ will just torture her children for her children's sake; you see, CJ - like every mother in the world - knows that the Secret to Happiness was _not_ the path CJ took to her Secret Life of Misery. CJ knows her mother failed her but she doesn't hold it against her mother; after all, CJ knows she was a handful. Every single mother in the world knows that. They also know they're not like their mothers; they won't make the same mistakes. CJ will not fail her daughters the way CJ knows her mother failed her, by letting her get away with way too much. CJ will know, with perfect hindsight, what her mother needed to do to keep her in line. CJ would know she needed her mother to put her foot down.
There are no hard feelings, of course; because CJ knows what a handful she was and also because raising children isn't as easy as it seems. She would finally understand what her mother was trying to explain to her and couldn't, about raising children and how it's not as easy as it seems. CJ and her mother will have reconciled; but true reconciliation is only ever possible once daughters have children of their own. That's the only way they can see that raising children isn't as easy as it seems. And this is why every mother of a daughter of child-bearing age is desperate for grandchildren. They just want to reconcile with their daughters; and for that to happen, they need their daughters to understand the truth about raising children.
It's not easy when you're an imbecile.
Imbeciles understand this, but they can only learn things the hard way. Still, they will know where their mothers went wrong and they will resolve not to make the same mistake with their daughter, who might be an entirely different human being to themselves but this is a fact lost on every imbecile who perceives the world through the binoculars of ME ME ME. But mothers aren't evil; they're not villains or tyrants or ogres by nature. It just pans out that way because they're imbeciles.
Mothers genuinely want the best for their children (as perceived by the mother and never the child) and mothers will know that they are not happy (how could they be, having been robbed of celebrity so cruelly). So mothers put the foot down on the extensions of themselves out of love; they know that putting the foot down is what they needed in order to live the life that they know what would make them happy; being a wild success, a triumph, their achievements celebrated.
The women who buy tabloid magazines all 'secretly' know they've been robbed. So they buy the magazines to live in fantasy; to look at the Public Lives of Celebrities and have their opinions validated. Those opinions are more or less:
"She's nothing special."
"She's no better than ME."
"She just got a lucky break and I didn't."
The thing is, it doesn't matter whether they're right or not. Chances are, the celebrities they love to see get taken down a peg aren't any better than them. They're very rarely Special. And they did get 'lucky' breaks. But in failing to actually believe their own rhetoric (they don't), they miss the forest of misery and unhappiness for the solitary tree of ME ME ME.
Celebrities are not happy. The fact that this world fails to appreciate that fact is one of the most alarming realisations of all.
I've vaguely aware an RnB superstar is copping hell over lip-syncing a national anthem?
The irony of valuing what is real (but not at the expense of fantasy)! You will sing on stage, but you'd better be inhumanely pitch-perfect. You will ride drug-free, but you'd better win with superhuman endurance. You will do whatever it takes to win, even if it kills you; but you're not allowed to do this, this, this, that, this group of medications, that and...
What the world is really communicating is this:
You will do whatever it takes to win, even if it kills you; but you'd better not get caught.
Did anyone seriously believe Armstrong was riding clean? If you did, you'd be advised not to leave the house without a grown-up chaperone. There isn't a single rider on the professional tour who's clean and you can extend that to most tours. You think golfers don't take beta-blockers to calm their nerves? They'd be moronic if they didn't. Beta-blockers are brilliant. I literally do not know why Xanax (Alprazolam) exists on this planet. It's a mystery and you can bet your laffy taffy at the end of that mysterious rainbow, you'll find a pot of steaming corrupt turds.
It's not the lying that people get emotional about; it's the admitting to lying or the caught lying or (I guess you could say) it's the truth that gets people fired up. You can lie as much and as ridiculously as you like, just don't admit it and don't get caught. CJ lies literally non-stop; she doesn't even know when she's lying any more because everything is a fabrication. She's role-playing, forced into juggling multiple roles like so many tragic humans who are literally arm-twisted by Society into the conformist mould.
CJ is sweet and kind; it's not in her nature to hurt a fly. She will simply Al-Qaeda her children for love. She will torture them because she will know - she won't know how she knows but she will just know - that if her mother had put her foot down harder, and more emphatically, when CJ was a little teenager splitting her legs for fun...CJ knows she wouldn't be trapped in the miserable life she has now. CJ will know her mother was too easy on her, too manipulable, too weak - a pushover - she won't want to make the same mistakes with her daughters. They're mistakes because Society says sex outside of marriage is sluttish and mothers of sluts are sprayed with acid if they're not willing to spray; but Society needs to be ethically-cleaned of all ethnicities before being deloused of deceit before it will ever be in a moral position to tell anyone else how to behave.
CJ is miserably unhappy, and that's the truth. CJ will not want her reality to be her children's. She will want to give them a better shot at that glass ceiling; it's just, that glass ceiling is either illusory or the fabrication of women who were girls who wanted to be treated Right. CJ would have been treated Right a lot; but she won't blame her own preference for being spoiled. She won't teach her daughters not to accept the creepy little favours of men. She won't teach them to pay their own way, especially when that means they have nowhere to go but into the books where they really belong. A body without a mind can be appraised for value and bought and soul; but a mind (no matter what body holds it)...you cannot put a price on a serviceable mind.
But CJ won't teach her children to value their minds because what does CJ know of any of these things. CJ only knows what she knows and she knows she's unhappy. So in not wanting the same for her children, she will destroy their chances for happiness out of love.
I know all this about CJ's Public Life because I was CJ's Secret Life. You can know a great many things from establishing only a few titbits of information (upon which you build and construct as new information and clues come to light and if you know what you're doing, you can build an entire replica of reality that might surprise with its accuracy). I knew CJ had young children and I knew she was exorbitantly happy on Tuesdays (it would actually make me a little sad, because unlike CJ I do not live exclusively in the moment of now). But I can dots like that all day and build from there.
Thank God it's Tuesday.
No human should be forced to be a slave in order to live just one day a week. It's an outrage that humans are cool with this sort of thing. It's horrifying how many humans are forced to do this; many don't even get the single day off.
CJ is a miserable wife who is bored of her miserable husband, who has been bored of CJ for as long as he can remember, but his memory is selective. He won't remember how strongly he felt whilst living in fantasy immediately prior to his delusions dying down into plain old reality; but only because his feelings were artificially-inflated. They weren't real. And reality itself can be illusory. CJ's husband will have wondered what the hell happened to the CJ who knocked him off his feet and out of his mind. He'll have spent hours wondering where that fun, playful, precocious (impossibly stupid but kinda adorably so), pretty little girl went; all he would remember is her wrapping him around her finger to get him to (willingly; what gall religion has) sign a Catholic Contract of Boredom and Misery, for Life (and in Catholic Philippines, they make it stick).
CJ's husband will know she's changed. She'll be nothing like the girl he fell in love with. He may even wonder whether he might have been the victim of a swindle and of course he was; he would only have his eyes fixed on the wrong suspect. He was a victim of a swindle alright but if he's looking for someone to blame, he could do worse than start with his mother (who conditioned him to disrespect honest girls and to respect whores who trade sex for marriage instead) and finish with himself (he is his mother's son; all his misery is the product of his own corrupted perceptions and values and twisted morals and insane emotions).
Lies, lies and Catholicism. No one does misery better.
He won't dwell on it all for very long, I'd wager; guys who are married and come back to reality quickly adjust and move on. They start chasing tail, getting into affairs or frequenting more discreet establishments but all CJ's husband would be doing (trust me) is chasing for versions of his lost wife. That's the comical tragedy. His wife hasn't changed at all. People don't really change, they merely change roles. His CJ only appeared to became a mother with important responsibilities and a lot of terror she felt compelled to juggle on extremely limited sleep.
CJ herself got moved to Tuesdays, where she can be a child again. In the reality of CJ where she isn't tied down with marriage and children, CJ is free. She can fuck whomever she pleases, do whatever she wants, act on impulse, be treated by guys who give her compliments and buy her things; CJ is basically banging but she's never grown up. Growing up is not something that automatically happens as you get older (but isn't it just so cute how religion fools Toddlers into imagining otherwise).
As far as growing up is concerned, who says anyone needs to?
CJ on Tuesdays is who CJ is supposed to be. She was living two realities and the Tuesday reality where she's free of Society's chains (used to control her, binding her to her life as a slave) is the correct reality. I have no doubt CJ is intolerable and unpleasant for 6 days of the week but all of that is the incorrect reality; Society's imposed reality. The Catholic reality. In the correct reality (which has been relegated to Tuesdays), CJ is kinda fun.
It's tragic that her children will never get to know who their mother truly is because she's an amazing girl; it's just that CJ doesn't know who she is. She's filled with Catholicism's shame for doing the things she does on Tuesday where she runs away from slavery to be herself. What she was doing with me, you have to remember, is a crime punishable by death. Not for me, it wouldn't have been; I could afford to pay the token monetary fine but she'd be stoned to death. This is religion's idea of sanity. Then Jesus came along (like a sleazy champion full of sweeter lies; it's Terrorist Cop, Bad Cop if you think about it) and said:
This is about CJ and me and I'm afraid I'm gonna have to interrupt Jesus there and give him a fucking dressing down because where the fuck does he get off calling CJ a sinner?
Except of course I wouldn't because I was in that position and I didn't. I know where CJ gets her prescriptions for Shame from; I can see the creepy steeples. It's outrageous because she's not hurting anyone so her crime is basically that she's having fun being who she's supposed to be. Catholics will leverage shame onto that luxury, and so CJ lives in shame for her crime of wanting to be herself.
But then if you think about it, she's only Girl # 53,349,346,323 who has been relegated to feeling that way by religion.
Religion's motive is quite simple; our misery and our suffering brings us closer to God (a sociopath).
All our misery and all our suffering has been manufactured entirely for this reason. It's by design they impose suffering onto the world. They just want to bring us closer to their god (which we all know - or bloody well should - is them, in their minds).
If humans didn't suffer in misery, what use would we have for leeches like the Middle Men of Religion? They will manage your misery with pleasure. Priests are all the same; whether they're chaplains, padres, monks or ministers or even - gulp - Martin Luther King (though he was a better one than most).
Then he contradicts himself over and over:
And the function of religion is to make sure that doesn't happen.
And the function of religion is to produce beggars. Religion is the edifice. Jesus Christ himself gave loaves and fishes away (dependence) rather than teaching the needy how to fish and bake (independence).
Indeed. The lie was couched in His Majesty's Finest; that's His Majesty King James, who commissioned an English version of the Holy Bible for the masses to read (perhaps, foolishly imagining they would perceive the tricks and lies used to enslave them and shun religion but something else happened instead).
Many have not connected religion with bigotry, prejudice and exploitation. All three are sourced entirely from religion and you wanna pretend a Baptist minister didn't realise any of this, be my idiotic (evicted) guest.
Religion is the problem. It has always been the problem. All the problems in the world are sourced from religion's disturbance of the peace.
You can let religion's Middle Men minister to your pain; whatever relieves your suffering temporarily. But if you want to stop feeling like shit, you should stop taking your car to the mechanics once a week. You might be surprised at how much better your car will run when you stop paying people to have an incentive to invoice you. Call me crazy, but whenever I paid for pain to go away, I couldn't manage to get it to stay away for very long.
What would you do if someone paid you to go away, without fail; every single time you bothered them?
CJ's misery was my misery but she would not share it with me. I was supposed to pretend to be oblivious to the cycle of time. I was not supposed to watch CJ grow up a decade when she's got her age around the wrong way. CJ has never grown up at all. She's role-playing her way through a fraudulent motherhood. She just doesn't realise she has nothing to be ashamed of. I tried to tell her once but you can't tell CJ that. CJ knows she's a mother with important responsibilities, and nothing you can say can change that.
I didn't want to change that. I wanted to change her perception on shame. She is terrified because she a mother who is still a child and she knows so little (next to nothing, really) but she knows she is supposed to Know Best. But she doesn't even know why she hates - and loves - and hates - and loves - the little teacup humans that bring her so much joy - and so much misery. But I know these things; I could have explained.
But CJ is a devout Catholic, which means CJ is a very private girl. She blocked me out. She'll take her shame to her grave with her, and perhaps that's why she needed all the ludicrous lying in her Secret Life on Tuesdays with me. The lies might not have been for my benefit (Christ knows who she imagined she was fooling); they might have been to fool herself. Her obsession with keeping everything fantasy, hiding everything; refusing to concede even the fact that she'd ever had children let alone conceding the truth about her children being cared for at home; her entire lifestyle was a lie, her hobbies were always lies she'd rapidly tire of, her marriage, her real life friends, even her name was a lie until she suddenly became CJ one day (I think, by accident). She'd introduced herself, pretty and giggling, as Kathy. "With a Special K."
*giggle*
It's the Secret Lives of Slaves who don't realise they're not regressing into being themselves. They regress into who they are when they drop the acting and fail to keep up appearances and play the roles assigned to them. Until they start lying about their shame, they have almost nothing to be ashamed of. They just don't realise this is how slaves are made. They don't realise they've been conditioned and everything has been literally set-up to trip them up and trap them into making the mistakes they've made. The illusion of control is one of the most powerful illusions of all to shatter when it should be the easiest.
Slaves believe they're in control, but they're not. They think they've got choices, but they don't. They've been led to believe they were given options, but they weren't. They've been lied to from birth and they cannot even tell what is real and what is imagined. They cannot even tell Right from Wrong. CJ knew how Wrong her Tuesday choices were (when she'd hurt nobody and simply had fun), and there was nothing I could do could lessen the sting of self-flagellation. Once you start beating yourself up, only the truth can stand a chance.
She's not going to get it from a Catholic leech. They'll just dial up the shame.
I would watch in shared agony as she hated herself in the hour or two before she'd race off on Wednesday mornings. I would watch her put on a decade of maturity and inflict more self-hatred than anyone could possibly warrant in a lifetime of being malicious.
I watched CJ grow up from a girl into a woman and a mother this way almost half a dozen times, when I was awake early on Wednesday mornings. The same process. The same same routine. She was bracing herself to return to her traumatic reality. As the third eldest of 12 children, I have a vague idea of how chaotic and noisy and misery-inducing that reality might be for a child who doesn't realise she was never supposed to be a mother. Not yet, in any case. CJ is supposed to be having fun but religion and the State and Society need her to breed misery. And misery is bred, though it's hardly the confused children who are to blame for their parents having them without having the first clue why they were even having children (their roles called for it) let alone having any clue about how to raise happy children (I understand this is a common gap in the Knowing Best of children who were made to have children for no reason more sane than It's Expected Of Us or It's The Done Thing).
The Secret to raising happy children is not to lie to them. They need a lot more than that but if you don't lie to them, everything else can be figured out between you both.
Breeding children you're not in the position to care for it the thing that is done. That's not a reason to do it. Slaves become parents by following the template laid out for them by those who breed slaves by tricking children into having children of their own. Before they know it, their life has been thrown into chaos. If you don't know what to expect from children, then you'd better expect the worst because that's what you're going to get if you don't know how to communicate with them. The reality of fighting a war against your own children inside your house is that you're going to lose. You're going to be destroyed. You're going to have psychotic thoughts. You'll be a mental wreck because children are exhausting. They take up literally all of your attention, if you let them.
CJ was quite lucky to have me, truth be told. I know how amazing and virile all you stud-muffins are under the sheets; I've heard your lurid tales of heroism (narrated by the hero). I know how amazing yall are at sex. You would likely keep a pretty girl like CJ up all Tuesday night and long into the early hours of Wednesday morning with your legendary stamina. But with me, CJ got to relax on her one night off with my (her) magazines before getting a full night's sleep. Her only night of sleep, I'd wager. Children only ever sleep, at best...intermittently.
When I told CJ I was leaving Manila, her fears were reserved exclusively for me. She was worried about how I'd fare without her. Would I be okay? It's funny, I don't know what she imagined I did the rest of the week but I have a sneaking feeling that, in her mind, I didn't. I only existed on Tuesday in CJ's mind and that would make her my entire life; which would explain her utterly nonsensical and irrational concern for my welfare. CJ is so patronising; it's really quite adorable. But this is how she's trained herself to be. This is the role-playing CJ. She needs to care to play the role, but she doesn't care so it plays out in hilarious and ludicrous ways. The truth is, CJ is just a little girl who only cares about having fun. Everyone seems impossibly stupid to her, but only because she always 'fools' everyone.
She is given very little reason, I imagine, to believe otherwise. I gave her very little reason to believe otherwise, in hindsight.
And so I was always a little stupid, in CJ's matronly mind. After she had explained to me the difference between Celebrities and Artists, she paused to ensure I understood prior to continuing on. She wanted to know if she'd explained it satisfactorily.
I understood. And she had.
As luck would have it, I knew The Artists rather well. I bragged about this to CJ, intending not to impress her but to depress her. When reality is ugly, you cannot make it prettier by denying it. You cannot live in fantasy and illusion. This entire world needs to be disillusioned, STAT.
"Yes, CJ. I understand perfectly, thank you. You've solved the mystery for me. As it turns out, we actually have The Artists in Australia as well, only they're predominantly called something else."
"What do they call Artists in Australia?" CJ asked, with genuine curiosity.
Btw I woke up this morning in a great mood, went outside to get the newspaper, and then the Catholic church rolled up and snatched the paper right before I could get to it. Now I'm suffering.
Why do you use the word Catholics instead of Christians?
They are a more insidious, power-hungry, ruthless, choirboy-obsessed brand of Christian. And there's a lot more of them. Aren't they something like 80% of Christians? I wouldn't really know but it'd be something crazy like that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rum Dick
Btw I woke up this morning in a great mood, went outside to get the newspaper, and then the Catholic church rolled up and snatched the paper right before I could get to it.
How do you know they didn't?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rum Dick
Actually now that I think about it the Union-Tribune sucks balls.
They are a more insidious, power-hungry, ruthless, choirboy-obsessed brand of Christian. And there's a lot more of them. Aren't they something like 80% of Christians?
only in the phillipines and the mafia bro, regular americans think they are creepy as fuck and probably closeted homos
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