Reincarnation

When you've seen what I've seen, nothing much will bother you anymore either.

What have I seen? I've seen everything. Or just about it.

I've seen the depths of the human soul. The depravity. The potential for greatness, redemption.

In all the learning I've done; about nature, about man and everything between, the hardest thing to know was myself. You can't really see yourself, so you can't really tell what's going on in your own heart. It's much easier to figure someone else out. You don't have to sift through the thoughts that threaten to drown the signal with their belligerent noise.

I don't always remember all of it, but the effects of the observation are the same. I can look at the horrors of reality and with the calm still of a dead universe. You've not really seen death until you see a universe die. All else pales in comparison but it's wholly the most uninteresting thing any observer might imagine to see. It is the end of all things. At least all things in the universe. It takes a while though. And it turns out that that's not so bad after all.

And after you see all this, you finally come to realize that nothing really matters. What's more, it doesn't really matter that nothing really matters.

In all that might matter, I finally learned that self matters least. It matters least and most. At the heart of this paradox lies the root of understanding. And this is pretension and sophistry to be sure, but still a useful aphorism. Of the self, I have learned that knowledge of weakness is more important than strength. Strength may vanish of its own volition or it may be taken away or trumped. Knowledge is different and never truly vanishes. It may be forgotten, but is never lost.

Of myself and through myself I have learned of silence and how to be silent. I've learned many things, the secrets of the universe. I've learned restraint and contentment. These are not ideas written in books, they are practiced in lives.

I keep coming round. I'm just a pattern.

Top 5 List

Of Albums. This list doesn't necessarily comprise my favorite songs or artists, but reflects the albums as a whole. The songs on these albums worked in unison and have special meaning to me. So much so that when I listen to them through now, I feel an ineffable sense of familiarity with my past self's emotions from when I originally listened. There must be a deep psychological tie. It seems to be stronger by album than simply by song. This was something I got to thinking about the other day when listening to an old album all the way through. My top five, as best as I can tell, in no particular order:

• Siamese Dream, Smashing Pumpkins - I don't care what anyone says about all that Mellon Collie business. This was the Pumpkins' best album.
• Little by Little, Harvey Danger - A little known and independently released album that shows a lot more depth than their earlier stuff. They released it free here. I even bought this album after already having the digital version in support of the band.
  
• Lateralus, Tool - My favorite of Tool's stuff, thematically linked. Transcendence was really big then.
• Play, Moby - Probably my least favorite of these artists, but it contains too many "theme songs" for a certain time of my life to be discounted.
  
• The Downward Spiral, Nine Inch Nails - The classic. Ambient. Industrial. Heavy.
  

This list is a tad more skewed towards popular stuff than I generally am, but not too much.

Hell is a Real Place (p6)

Part 5

"But seriously, how do we get out of this place," John asked politely, carefully avoiding the use of the word hell to describe hell.

"Well, you might have a chance since your mortal and technically still alive, but I'm afraid there's no 'we'. I'm trapped here forever."

"Wait a minute. What do you mean, 'technically still alive'?"

"Oh good. Glad to see you're worried about my predicament and not concerned with the selfish matter of yourself. If you'd been paying attention, I did say you might be able to get out of here, even though you'll need my gracious help. But don't worry about me. Just worry about yourself, taking advantage of a kind devil who happened to be wandering by, coincidentally. Even though you've done nothing but shown animosity, out of the goodness of my heart, I'll help you out. We'll just need to head to the Capitol City of Outer Discordia."

John was skeptical of the devil's intentions.