There cums the neighbourhood.

The other night me and the girlfriend were reliving shared but separate childhood memories by re-watching The Neverending Story. It was a spur of the moment type thing, so we got started rather late. As we were approaching the half-way mark we found ourselves getting the mid-night giggles. That stage of tiredness when everything seems rather funny. We were chatting in hushed and clipped tones and having a laugh at how poorly some of the elements in the movie had aged. During this most pleasant of times we get interrupted by a loud banging on the wall followed by an equally loud yet muffled voice. - "I'm actually trying to sleep!" Or something to that effect came pouring through the wall we share with this apparently grumpy denizen. Most rude. That I had been forced to overhear said person have loud and obnoxious mid-day sex just a few days prior is of no concern. Apparently. Clamorous Afternoon Boinking - Perfectly acceptable. Average Nightly Conversation - Horrendous. We weren't having a rip-roaring booming time, with rowdy cheers and boisterous applauds. The volume was in every respect, reasonable. A bit too reasonable even. Had it sounded like twenty-odd burly men performing heavy construction in the middle of an ongoing party as a gaggle of geese were set ablaze for the party crowd's amusement I should think my keen and sharp neighbour would have hesitated before bothering me with information on his sleeping habits. The silly git. The addition of the word "actually" in his improvised and analog cross-domicile radio theatre opens up a whole other level of  possible interpretation. Did he actually expect us to know that his and our headboards were adjacent? What then must be his point with such rambunctious three o'clock sex? I dare not speculate any further into such perverted goings-on that must be...going on. I quite often over-complicate things. He's probably just a self-centered asshole. Which is an interesting idea, in and off itself.

Sexually Transmitted Vengeance.

Finally, we have our revenge.* Nobody messes with humans. Especially not our junk. When we were asleep, in the jungle. And in no way molesting monkeys of any sort. So you hear that you damn dirty apes? We're coming to get ya! It is only a matter of time before we perfect the virus. Don't try and disguise yourselves by wearing hats and monocles, as amusing as that may be. We can tell one bipedal primate from another. Most of the time. Unless they're some kind of minority or something. *It is commonly believed that humans originally contracted HIV from monkeys. How is yet unknown, but sources inside of my head tell me that it happened through inappropriate sexual contact.

Accessorize, exercise, jizz.

Sex as a subject has become rather pathetic, to be frank. The myth that those who sleep with a lot of random people are really confident is complete and utter horse shit. In my experience men and women who behave in this way are in fact incredibly insecure. Constantly seeking confirmation and reassurance that they are as beautiful as they have convinced themselves. Is that acting secure? Turning sex into some sort of power game or just immediate gratification drains it of all passion. I don't want sex to just be pieces of meat flapping against one another. Marinated in alcohol and anxiety. People shouldn't be picked up like accessories. You are not the centre of the cosmos. Your fleeting happiness is not the answer to the mysteries of life. Get over yourself. And the two of you clumsily jamming your genitals together on your room mates well-worn old couch is not passionate and sexy. No matter how many times you repeat this lie to yourself in an attempt to maintain that  hard on/stay wet. I gave up one night stands some time ago. At first it wasn't a moral choice or even one that came out of any deeper introspection. It was just a path taken out of a practical nature. People in general are absolutely terrible at fucking. Just awful. The quality was never as good as with someone I got a little bit familiar with. People who have such low self-esteem that they pathologically need to swallow another human beings bodily fluids every weekend tend to not have been in many meaningful relationships of any greater lengths. Therefore they have, out of a strictly numerical standpoint, fucked far fewer times. Practice makes perfect. There appears to be a tipping point where the quality of the bedroom shenanigans and the quantity of sexual partners converge and then invert. Both in a grander scheme and in specific situations. Taking pride in appearing sexually attractive to people who will fuck just about anything is like being proud that you are Garry Glitter's search engine of choice. It's at best quite meaningless, at worst loathsome. Tickling the fancy of someone you find to be truly unique. Having them share their innermost contrivances. Being able to disappoint in a painful way. That is sexy. That is beautiful. Poking someone in the groin while trying to refrain from spewing because of the motion and too much tequila is not. Unknown people are not. Acting tough will never be.

The Sociopath In All of Us.

Reading an article like this makes me uneasy. It also makes me ponder what exactly a sociopath is. Does it just constrain to this mold we have been hearing (and some of us reading) about? A person who lacks any and all sense of empathy for others. Seems like a pretty extreme example of alienation from humanity to me. What if they are not all on the fringe? They would be undetectable. Like a fart in a paper mill.

I cannot possibly be the only one who feels the harsh and pungent (get it?) sting of selfishness from other people on a regular basis. I'll construct a little example: Say someone dumps you without a hint of compassion, they just feel sorry for themselves, for this tinge of guilt which they cannot quite explain. Is that sociopathic behaviour? Emotions are not chosen according to the situation as if they were a hat.

See also; ignoring someone in need See also; cheating See also; theft

Another characteristic of a psychopath is the constant search for personal gratification. A point seldom raised. Perhaps because it comes dangerously close to home for many of us "normal" folk. Surely our enjoyment of random sexual encounters, binge drinking, feeling superior, and aggregation of money and things for their own sake has no connection to the violent tendencies of a deranged loon? Maybe the serial killer/rapist is just more goal oriented than most. If narcissism was an extreme sport Ted Bundy would be its Tony Hawk. In place of grinding the paint off a half-pipe he's grinding on someone's windpipe with an ashtray. We may not all be champions but many of us have owned a skateboard.

If you found the imagery disturbing there might just be some hope for you yet. My apologies.

Illusions of Purpose and Choice.

I have no idea where I'm headed in life. I have ambitions, sure, but very little skill to make these feverish visions of mine into reality. I'm not a demonic director, driven by my delusions of grandeur. Nor am I motivated by the simple joys of dominating other people. Letting them cower in submission as I madly stab at the canvas, laughing hoarsely and flinging my monocle at my assistant. All the while the critics will sing my praises. Women will want to sleep with me. Men will want to be me and some men will want to be in me. Monkeys will gaze at my grandness and wish they too had been blessed with a higher rank on the evolutionary scale. Not that I've given this much thought or anything. My point being, no one seems to have any damn idea what they are doing anymore. Didn't people used to have a higher purpose in life? Some sort of end goal they were striding towards? A glistening, bright future they pinned their hopes on? It just seems like everyone is adrift on the open sea these days. No point of reference, no horizon, no hope in their heart. Just being tossed about by wave after wave. Mercilessly at the whim of forces they cannot quite grasp. The forces of pointlessness. You don't have any more freedoms today than your great grandparents had. In fact, you might very well have fewer. That you can choose from fifteen different types of fussili pasta, twenty-three variations of toothpaste and four sorts of oranges (I counted all of these at one of those huge mega-stores) means absolutely nothing. These alternatives are all superficial, they only give you the illusion of choice. What real difference would it have made in my life if I had bought apples instead of oranges? Absolutely fuck all. You can in fact compare apples to oranges, believe it or not. It's just fruit. Individualism clearly has merits. The idea of self-determination without compulsion is one any non-cretin must cherish. It is not without its flaws though. Most people are ignorant. A very large portion of them are also dumb. Couple this with democratic governance and you'll see that some rather interesting patterns will begin to emerge. If everyone agrees to live in a community but then only look out for their own self-interests things will go awry. Of course, this is all very entertaining to a sick individual such as myself but it's not very productive. Pretty soon you'll have a government whose only job is to balance the fucking budget and keep the shit at shoe level. And people will think that's just awesome! 'Cause things are going so well now that we are finally free. Free from commitment of any kind, that is. To be free is not just to be without hardship. We have come to expect much from society, while contributing little. We carry a sense of entitlement so grossly out of proportion to our actual importance it's staggering. If you died tomorrow what would the world be like? Sure your mother would cry a little (maybe not as much as you'd expect or like) and that's pretty much it. She has to get on with her life, get on with the shopping. Forwards is the direction that indicates purpose. Don't ya know? This entire movement towards hyper-individualism has been touted as the solution to all of our personal problems. If you only concentrate on yourself and look no further than your own feelings everything will be alright. Well, people have been doing this for over 50 years now. Are we any more happy today? Hardly. Everyone seems confused and bewildered. We have become isolated, lonely and afraid. No matter how secure and centered we are. No matter how stoic in our outlook. No matter how free we are. We all want to belong, to something. I do not really believe in destiny. It always seems to lead you down the same path towards some sort of spooky space-god. Wanting to believe that a semi-benevolent dictator is behind the scenes of this macabre little puppet show we call life is a frightening thought. But if the only destiny we have is that which we make for ourselves, what exactly is it that we have made? Pointless consumerism, selfishness as a sacrament, meaningless sexual encounters and reality-TV? If that's all we can come up with I say: Bring back manifest destiny and tell it to stay away from the indigenous people if possible. Was anything better "in the good old days"? Almost definietly not. Maybe...