Radix Absurdum

[Dreadnought]

Large story that evolved out of the "Quit whinging" thread. Based heavily on an in-joke involving a cult, a vision, and a squirrel. Minus a squirrel.

I turned this in to my english professor as a piece of coursework, and got an A+.
My apologies to Kodachi, Misoxeny and Death-By-Minnow, who I have come to realize are actually intelligent, well-meaning people.

Please point out any errors, inconsitencies, typos, etc. This is the unproofed verion, the corrected one having been deleted, and I would appreciate it if someone told me where a sentence was incomplete, et aliquid.

[Dreadnought]

Radix Absurdam



The wood of suicide

I was sitting in my room one evening, absorbed in deep thought, when suddenly I became lost in the wilderness of despair. Visions of suffering people flashed before my eyes, of amputated limbs, ambulatory skeletons and bloody revolts. I saw children sold as prostitutes, I saw old men clubbed with bricks by smiling adolescents, and families evicted and executed at gunpoint. An overwhelming sense of crushing vertigo and sadness for the underdogs of the world filled my soul, and I feared I should be lost forever in the woods. Then, at the moment when it seemed as if the earth was straining its jaws to swallow me, a shining figure appeared before my eyes, carrying a flaming book in one hand and a mighty sceptre in the other. The blessed lips of that beatific face announced that he was the prophet Zarathustra, missionary of Ben, come to free me from the mires of sorrow. My heart leaped into the sky with joy for the words that left his mouth, for the following is a transcript of what he said.



The Prophet’s Introduction

He approached me and indicated his desire to say a few words of introduction, which I would write as a foreword to the Bible of this age. I drew near, so as not to miss a word of the new American gospel. For verily he sayeth:

“Happy is the soul who can trawl the internet without hearing the misguided help-pleas of the poor and neglected, of those who are at the bottom of the social ladder. If anyone in this land complains excessively about the forgotten and oppressed, in the vein of a bleeding heart activist hippie, it is advisable that they should seriously re-evaluate their thought process. Oppression and poverty hath been the lot of man since the beginning of society, and will always exist as long as there is inequity and/or disharmony in human minds. The impoverished and miserable are the basis of society, as their vital fruits of labour are snapped up to fuel the more powerful machines of the human herd. The strong will always crush the weak into the stone, albeit with minor periods of revolution to swap the playing roles, until both shall have ceased to exist.
If thou art unfortunate enough to be one of the disenchanted poor or a bleeding heart sympathetic to such wretches, violence will not change thy plight in any way shape or form, nor will it decrease thy suffering. But behold, reactionary violence should be encouraged after a fashion, for keeping the system of tyrants cycling.
The best philosophy to subscribe to as one of the downtrodden is to embrace the existential big picture; eventually thy seed and the seed of thine oppressors will be ground into the dust, and the shaking remnants on this inbred race will collapse into the fires of a glorious new paradigm: Earth minus Human.
To the conquerors, I offer a warning: Do not grow complacent on thy lofty throne, for the proletariat hath built thy pedestal to be narrow and tall, and thou can’st not maintain thy position forever. Every conditioned state contains the entropy required to bring it to an end, and history and time rub out all men. All the money and power on this planet will not protect thee from thy inevitable fall from grace, so when our time comes to receive the bullet, take it gracefully.
So until that glorious end time, quit whinging, keep begging, and sit dreaming of that glorious day when the bombs start falling.

For this is the will and thought of Ben, Lord *** of Awe.”


Enter the Philistines

No sooner had these words escaped the prophet’s throat did a throng of demons appear from all sides, great horny beasts with curly red beards and wicked tails. As the prophet fell silent, a cacophony of howls erupted from their hairy hides. The air was filled with greasy wails of dissent like smoke from a corpse fire. Chief among the opposition were the abominable Kodachi, the blind idiot Khaos and the Australian Richaod. They screamed horrible blasphemies, sullying the reputation of ***’s chosen prophet, and my soul would have fled the clearing if Zarathustra had not commanded me to remain behind and transcribe their abhorrent shrieks as testimony of the ultimate truth. In the name of Tristan, the demons proclaimed:

‘Oh wizened greybeard, things will suck, we should not complain! Loser!
Oh fat-nose, your words comfort me with their mind-numbing banality! Oh, yeah that's comforting. "Life may suck now, but quit complaining because we'll all die soon." You really have no idea what you're talking about, do you? ‘

The prophet raised his sceptre and proclaimed that the time of his temptation had come. He gave to each demon a mark upon the fore-brow, indicating each to be a symbol of his greatest critics, and declared that he would interview each in turn, to compete for my soul. What was to follow could only be paralleled to the temptation of Christ, on a vast and epic scale. The demons fought to vex the mighty Zarathustra first, and the greatest among them, the hateful Kodachi, won her primal right.

The trial of Kodak

The demon sat before the prophet and asked shrieked to the night air: you basically said "we're going to all die, so quit whinging and live with whatever forsaken life you are dealt." How stupid. Work for a better life, no matter what it takes. If complaining is needed, then do so. If work is needed, then do so. Don't just sit back like a retard and accept things. That's just retarded, and if anything, brings us all closer to death, which you seem to enjoy. Here's an idea: If you love the idea so much, why not just shoot yourself, and keep your stupid thoughts away from people who don't think it's a bad idea to want a better life? Ugh.

To which Zarathustra calmly replied: Oh foul temptress, thou art in error threefold, one for each point thou madest. The power of *** will refute them in sequence, yea, in thine own language for maximum impact. A heavenly light seemed to grace his brow, and

Firstly, your main beef seems to be my acceptance of the unsatisfactory quality of life. It is true that I enjoy the prospect that all effort hastens man's demise, because death is inevitable, and 'rage, rage, raging against the dying of the light' does nothing but waste your last breath. I believe that this race is doomed to failure and extinction, and the fewer humans on this planet, the better.
Secondly, I fondle reactionaries and terrorists, and spit on bleeding hearts and hippies. If you want to change something, be violent. You will either cycle to the top and earn your right to stomp on the plebs, or you will be crushed. Both ways people leave the planet, and I am happy. 'Quit Whinging' is directed at those misguided philanthropic fools who believe they can improve the overall quality of life of humanity. It is rarely the case that someone can make a vast improvement even in their own lives, let alone the lives of others. Effort is wasted on other people.

Thirdly,?
Actually, I do know what I mean when I say “quit complaining, we’ll all die anyway”. Buddhist scripture claims that life is by nature suffering, and the noblest of undertakings is that which seeks escape from the cycle of existence. Besides, your reduction of my message still makes a perverse kind of sense even in its bastardised form.
If you are a miserable crushed wretch, with no hope of improvement, your strongest emotions will be aggression and loathing for those who oppress you. That being the case, the prospect of their eventual decline into oblivion has to be delicious and your own death should mean very little. I don't see why this is not making sense to you.
I mean, why should we work to improve our stances, if nothing, in the end, matters? In the absence of *** or any other fixed immortal ideal, extinction is the only foreseeable end to this little game we play. Why bother?

The Kodachi replied to each statement unfazed. In a menacing tone she cried “Blabbering idiot! You yourself are thrice wrong! I defy each of your maxims accordingly!” and she began in the same verse-like mode as the prophet, but each time was defeated. [[Apostle’s note: whenever this part of the lesson is read before the congregation, a fellow priest must read aloud the role of kodachi, or, failing that, this section must be pre-recorded.]]


Kodachi: Yes, but that time is not now. You seem to think that time is as good as here, so we should all do nothing because it doesn't matter, right? Wrong. You're just giving that same old trite "Nothing really matters because we're all going to die" attitude. Where does that get you in life? Nowhere. It gives you a miserable life. I suppose since you believe we're all doomed, wouldn't it be nice to have a good time until then?



Zarathustra: I see what you mean; if there be ****e in the water, have a ****e party! If you cannot bathe in the big picture without crying, Hedonism and decadence are noble alternatives. What I cannot accept is when partying and pleasure become substitutes or supplements for meaning. The end fact is that the universe does not care whether or not your life is happy or if you live it right. It would be nice to have a good time and relax, but to become absorbed completely by it would be deeply and soulfully dishonest.


Kodachi: Speaking of trite... that "I hate all humans" thing is really just becoming an annoyance. Sure, one person may rarely improve the quality of all life, but that's not what's important. That's not what does most of the improvement, anyway. It's the efforts of everyone combined. You just seem to think of life as a waste... something pointless. You don't understand how great and priceless life is. The world could do without people like you.


Zarathustra: No disrespect intended, but the combined little efforts of everybody would still add up to a pitiful sum. I believe life is a waste of cosmic energy, for what is it but a self replicating DNA strain of…pointlessness? What is life but a screen full of biological white noise? I think life is priceless because it is inherently worthless. It often seems as if life and consciousness were created for the purpose of recognizing their own absurdity. I think the world could do without people in general, no discrimination needed.


Kodachi: And Buddhism is proven to be absolutely correct, right?


ZarathustraBuddhism is an infinitely more rational and believable faith than any western religion I can think of. There is no authority to blame the world’s failings on, other than the illusion of reality and oneself. They explicitly declare that life is suffering, and that all conditioned states are unsatisfactory. I recommend Buddhism to my followers as a source of inspiration, and I say this as an atheist who hates all religions for their deceitful qualities. Once again, our lot is nothing but pain and absurdity.


Kodachi: No, not necessarily. What about ambition and hope? There is nobody without any hope at all, because without any hope for improvement of their life, there would be death. You can't possibly know if there are people like that, anyway, and you certainly can't know what they are thinking. You also don't know if there is a *** or not, if there is reincarnation, and if we all, in fact, will become extinct in the end. You just don't know, and to act as if there is none, and throw what little life you have away seems to be the only pointless thing there.



Zarathustra: So you are arguing that I am wrong because my points cannot be proven? I assume you do not realize the fallacy ingrained within your logic, namely, Fallacio ad Ignorantium. An appeal to ignorance is never a valid or sound statement. It’s like saying there is no light, because you sit in the dark and cannot know. I personally base my (dis)belief in *** on a sheer lack of credibility to the ideal of “Benevolent creator” and “supreme ordered plan”. The only thing we have proven in relation to the afterlife is that when people die, they break down. I see no reason to believe that anything else happens, but if you can convince me with incontrovertible proof, I will welcome you, for between the two of us we make one hypocrite.



Kodachi: Why are you so adverse to the idea of immortality? Why can't you understand that because the outcome may even be the same, that doesn't make everything done before worthless?The destination isn't the whole journey. Much of it is the process of arriving at your destination. If one person went to Florida by bus, one by foot, one by plane, and the other dragged through shards of glass would you say that their trip was identical?



Zarathustra: Erm, wasted effort? I can think of no destination worthy of the dark, terrible journey mankind makes as a whole. When my inner eye gazes into the future, all I can see is a long dark tunnel lined with sharp, painful events before dropping off into a bottomless pit. The problem with the voyage analogy is that you cannot control the ultimate destination.




Eventually the demon fell silent, the well of discourse having been poisoned by the vicious circle of defeatism. The prophet rose aloft his sceptre and smote the demon on the brow, and entered her secret name in the burning book. The stunned Kodak, murmuring quietly where she lay, was instantly thrust aside by a more exuberant but less powerful spirit named Khaos.

[Dreadnought]

The trial of Khaos

Beating his putrid chest, the imp tugged the beard of the Mighty One and roared impish little questions from his impish little throat. The discourse between the divine and the obscene that followed was at once vapid and epic. [[Apostle’s Note: the second reader may come in handy at this point, or another pre-recorded discourse.]]


Khaos: So you say that when the Bush dynasty ***** stomps your face, what are you going to do about it? Sit back and take it? I'd be mildly amused.



Zarathustra: I encourage revolution, because with it we cycle into a new period of oppression. I think you will find in my earlier post that I did mention 'brief periods of revolution' which herald the beginning of a different tyrant.



Khaos: So when someone starts to destroy the oppressors in a revolution, they're going to be turned to dust? Take a look at bleeding history, man!

Zarathustra: Society is not explicitly divided into oppressors and oppressed; it is more grouped into the strong and the weak. The strong tend to oppress, and the weak tend to be crushed. Occasionally the strong are on the bottom of the equation, and a revolution takes place.

Khaos: You sorta just contradicted yourself, because if the oppressed are going to be crushed, how will the weathly [sic] leaders fall? Figure that one out and get back to me. This is not a two way street.



Zarathustra: The caution I proposed refers to the strong/weak cycle. The strong will grow complacent, and be replaced by the next generation of strong, who will again continue to rule the weak. Also, it is a reference to Ozymandias; the pillars of civilization are not immortal, and will be swept away by the sands of time. Man's hour is brief.

The Khaos monkey released the prophet, dumbstruck. It took the book of fire, inscribed his sacred name, and ran far into the hills of night, never to return.




The Australian Trial

The third heretic to come before my master was thoroughly unimpressive, unlike the abominations preceding him. This demon appeared as a petulant boy of thirteen, with crossed arms and a short black tunic proclaiming that he had briefly stayed at the ‘Theatre of Dreams’ and had been rewarded only with a poor-quality overshirt. Standing in the shadows of a clicking tree, the demon voiced his contempt for the Bridge to Solace. [[Apostle’s note: again with the dialogue. You know what to do.]]




Richaod: I hope you (and Landon) become poor and die from refusing welfare. Then would you complain? Or would you be happy being the basis of another person's riches?



Zarathustra: Chances are high that I will become poor and rot away, however I would die content in the knowledge that those who defeat me in this silly game of life will not gloat long. He who has the most when he dies, still dies.

Richaod: By the way, if the world were crumbling around me, I'd probably use some mind-power on the majorly {{sic}} st00pid idiots surrounding me. That or I'd just force them to understand the meaning of sympathy.



Zarathustra: Where does sympathy come into it? Do you feel sorry for other people for their utter insignificance? But since you raise the question, you can’t force people to become sympathetic, unless they want to. All human drives are based on selfish aims; they will "feel your pain" because it gives them some deeply hidden psychological satisfaction, a goody-two shoes feeling.

Richaod: Considering the presence of a Heavy Metal song in your book of “divine” scripture, this is probably a legitimate case of music gone wrong. Or something like that, anyway.



Zarathustra: My taste in music is influenced by my thoughts and feelings, not the other way around. If I am depressed I will listen to something depressing, but I don't become angry from listening to an angry song. You couldn’t be expected to know why I put “Defenders of the Faith” and “IndoctriNation” in the bible, because you have no sense of irony or poetic cheesiness.



Richaod: Also, the reason why we should feel things such as sympathy is for the present. No one wants to feel pain, not even you. Perhaps it'll go away, but are you willing to take it until it is only a memory?



Zarathustra: Nobody wants to feel pain, that is true. However, as I said earlier, Buddhist scripture outlines that life is pain. Sympathy+ Entropy = Destiny. I, for one, would rather inflict pain than receive it, but sometimes pain can be healthy. Pain is how we define our existence, to quote the Matrix. Schopenhauer wrote that "The measure of pain greatly outweighs that of pleasure, as one notices the barest ache in the little toe more than the combined health of the entire body." If you think about it long enough, you will come to realize the ultimate silliness of optimism. But then again, I suppose that is what being human is all about: Silliness.



Richaod: Did I ever even mention that I'm an optimist? Because I'm not. Work for the best and expect the worst, that's what I say.



Zarathustra:Your young age and utter juvenility (that and your extraordinary aura of Australianism) contribute to that illusion.

Richaod: Twatrag, You still haven't answered why you're not dead if you think life is so pointless.



Zarathustra: Hm. What do you want me to do, kill myself? Such is not the only fruit of fatalism... Suicide would be equally futile. However, if threatened with death (i.e. , political reasons, armed robbery, capital punishment...) I would not be mortally adverse to it; I will remain relatively passive and sedentary (assuming adrenaline and panic remain subdued), and let nature take it's course. Certain allowances have to be made for the imperfection of primal instinct under the circumstances of natural disaster, however.

-Narrator- It was at this stage that the Australian kid was forcibly squashed by a gigantic little girl with burning pink hair. In an incredulous tone, she ejaculated thus at the incarnation of Interest:


Death-By-Minnow: Hey, were you beaten as a kid or something? Your outlook on life seems to be incredibly bad. I suggest you look for a good reason to improve life. Find yourself a girlfriend or something man, either you're depressed or something's wrong with your head.

Zarathustra: I'm 15, and no, I was never severely beaten by my parents. It's just that I find everything human and ordered to be naturally absurd and illogical. I admire Buddhists for their tenet that all conditioned states are unsatisfactory, and all unsatisfactory states lead to suffering.

I also enjoy the prospect of ending the cycle of Life and Death. Nirvana can literally be translated as "cessation of existence". This Buddhism reference may seem fallacious for its irrelevance, but it is as relevant as the issue of my childhood to my philosophy.

Girlfriends, while desirable, don't alleviate the burden of existence. They exacerbate it with their addictive properties.



Death-By-Minnow: You're said to the Aussie that you have no natural drive to exist? The very function of life isn't to accomplish anything more than to continue its existence. There is no greater goal I know of, and I personally think religions are bull as well. However, the one drive that I have noticed evident in all creatures is a will to keep themselves alive. With the knowledge that is born into every creature that they will not live forever, they turn to reproduction in the hope of another carrying on the act of living. Based on what I've seen in any living creature (minus you, apparently) the reason of life is to live, and when you cannot, to ensure that another will live instead. Thus, the point of life... is life! By saying you would not make much of an effort to preserve yourself in a crises, you've given up on that purpose, which is likely the reason why you question anything's meaning to begin with.

Zarathustra: Well done, Admiral Obvious!

Death-By-Minnow: Humans, in our struggle to survive, discovered something that I'm sure some animals have discovered, as there are animals other than humans that "play." I believe this is done to make our lives better, as added incentive to that natural drive.



Zarathustra: But someone has to lose this game, and the fun and frolicking comes to an end at last. Decay is inevitable, as is dementia, so why make the memories in the first place? Who will remember them?



Death-By-Minnow: Maybe this was helpful, maybe not. I'm sure you'll argue that living is not a good point to life, but in all actuality it is. Since the universe doesn't give a sh*t about whether we live or die, we live for ourselves, and for others. It's not that bad a deal, is it?



Zarathustra: In anticipating my argument, you reveal insecurities and uncertainties in your Ideas. A thing’s designed is not a vindication of its reason for existence, for a Torture wheel may be meant to break its victims, but that is not a good reason for it to be used. I remain unconvinced.

[Dreadnought]

[[Here endeth the dialogue]]


The impact of Zarathustra’s sceptre on the skulls of the demons silenced their stammers of protest and shook the earth for miles around. The sound of his scribbling pen in that tome of flame was that of the conqueror worm gnawing upon the last of Adam’s children. He looked at me and with his gaze lifted my spirit into unknown spheres of rapture, and he told me that I was to follow him unto a small river through the wood. Dizzily I followed, until we had reached what, it became apparent, was the headwater of the river of pain. Up on a high hill was a monstrous square congeries of pipes and dynamos and from a wide tube poured a pestilent torrent of filth, containing every evil odour known to man, and many never inhaled by the foulest of urban mongrels. I felt my knees buckle, but the Final Comfort supported me with his shoulder and urged me “Disrobe, my son, and bathe in this irradiated font of cess; for from it shalt the illusions of this world melt away, and your despair shall be burnt like a cross in northern Alabama. For this is the covenant of those who would forsake this world for the Great Peace, which is made for you and for the select few who have the fortitude to throw off the shackles of optimism.”

As he lowered me into that stygian rivulet, I heard the wails of Cocytus drown out my thoughts. The fires of Phlegethon blazed hot within my cells, as the refuse of a thousand broken lives swept over me. I know not how long I remained submerged in that accursed swell, but I heard a voice calling to me, from below. Through the muck I could just barely make out a light, and from directly behind it came the sound of someone beckoning me, proclaiming that my time had arrived to come home. Unfortunately, the fish-hook became silhouetted against the spotlight, and I swam upwards to my glorious master, that I might rejoice with him in the completion of the Covenant of Truth.

When I broke the surface, Zarathustra pulled me onto the banks of the river, and dried me with his cloak. His face revealed a triumphant pleasure and love, and he said to me “Hallelujah! Truly thou art the greatest of my apostles, for you have successfully avoided ensnarement by your last remnant of faith! Let us give thanks to Ben, when we see him, for sending you the necessary energy, through planes both familiar and unknowable. We shall remember the Deified Jew’s greatest revelation, and then I will return you to your natural habitat, that you might multiply and hasten the extinction of the painful light.”

And we knelt upon the river shore and said, as one:

“And there may or may not come a day of mild reckoning, when some vague, unmentionable happenings I might have hinted at in casual conversation some time or another could conceivably come to pass; And a man could quietly appear from some inconspicuous, out of the way area who will be somewhat inclined to gently guide the somewhat nice and rather intelligent to the relative peace of probable non-existence. However, due to the probable ambiguity of the paraphrasing of these events, there could possibly be some slight confusion and puzzlement as to what I might have meant during those somewhat brief periods of relaxed discourse; And the great *** Ben might conceivably sit on the sidelines and chuckle quietly, or not. And you might perhaps notice the Lazily Selected Individual by his relative emaciation and mildly interesting American accent, but nearly everything is almost total conjecture. For this is what Ben almost certainly said.”

When we rose, the hill from which the poison river flowed opened wide to receive us, and as I passed through it’s yawning jaws the world around began to fade. I found myself back in my room with a new book of pseudo-scripture, and I telephoned Ben to give a quick prayer of thanks for providing the basis of a completely unassailable faith.