Page 4 of Lovely Violent Things

His tight smile holds a menacing weight. “Not sure how you didn’t punch him,” he says. “I would have. I like the concept of taking it back to our primitive roots.”

I sling the leather strap over my shoulder. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.” I halt at the door to say, “But if you do, record it and send it to me.”

As I walk the outside courtyard toward the parking lot, my thoughts churn deeper, the itch festering into an infection that digs beneath my skin.

…not every creation can be one of beauty…

Maybe not, but when beauty is created, it is always born from violence—that in itself is a horrifying reality to accept.

I’m proof of this. A beautiful creation fashioned by the sharpest blade of violent cruelty.

When my muse does arrive, she will come to me in this same, beautifully violent way.

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APOLLONIAN & DIONYSIAN DICHOTOMY

KALLUM: NOW

If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

The infamous verse cited by a mad philosopher has been pondered over by scholars for more than a century. Just what is the meaning behind Friedrich Nietzsche’s yawning abyss?

Is it our unavoidable death? Fear of the unknown? Paralyzing recognition of our own insignificance?

To one cocky, egocentric grad student, the meaning was all too clear:

The abyss was the pit of failure for the weak-minded.

My vanity knew no bounds once upon a time. I admit, while studying Nietzsche’s doctrines, I wrinkled my nose at the stench of his fear that practically fumed from the pages. I lampooned his duality dichotomy as nothing more than a desperate grasp from a defeated scholar to pad his bloated yet fragile ego.

In his last days, the philosopher penned such notes as: “It hurts me frightfully that in these fifteen years not one single person has ‘discovered’ me, has needed me, has loved me.”

How fucking pathetic.

I found him to be the worst fraud.Isolation was transcendent, he had preached, yet he was a hypocrite of his own principles.

The closer one gets to their own death, the more they’re willing to compromise their convictions. Thus creating their very own abyss, where their weak minds go to perish.

My belief system, my convictions, were never in any danger of being compromised.

Until her.

My beautiful muse.

Oh, how easily we falter when confronted with the veracity of our solitary existence.

I can confess now how mistaken I was in my first interpretation of Nietzsche.

No one wants to exist in solitude.

At the height of my achievements, I was an academic god. Envied by colleagues, worshiped by aficionado sluts. I had it all, and I wanted for nothing.

And therein lies the dilemma.

The sky was dulled gray, and flavors had lost their taste. Art was bland. There was nothing left to create. Sex was only marginally satisfactory, and only once I pushed to deviant extremes, when I was looked at with fear instead of desire.

The lust for life dried into a dusty wasteland and sat bitter and grainy on my tongue. I was ill with envy over anyone who demonstrated even a meager sampling of passion.

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