Where meaning may not.

Every time it turned, it sent a flurry of kaleidoscopic hues dancing across the ceiling. I sat there for hours playing with it, like a little boy lain in the grass trying to conjure images out of clouds. In Technicolor and fast-forward.

Scientists have all but proven that much of faith was in infancy, is the result of altered states of consciousness. Ultra-aware (or unaware) interpretations of shadows and plays of light. The unfettering of information contained in our many strands of junk DNA. Angels, Aliens, Apocalypses and Apostles. Through meditation, mind bending substances, masochistic rituals of self deprivation and exhaustion, the elders of our sapien brood, and in turn we, seek to find meaning in the world around us by looking through a crystal that distorts angles, softens corners and allows us to hope that there is more.

What if, and humor me here, there isn’t? Fortunately, this is not a discussion, so the argument is unilateral.

Would the inevitability of a final nothingness be too horrible to contemplate? Is the promise of an afterhere to the worthy that makes humanity human? Why would anyone want to own a Chihuahua?

In my humble (just kidding) opinion, there is nothing wrong with the concept of a void in the post mortem part of life (I know it’s an oxymoron you moron). The logical acceptance of the absence of The One would lead people to strip off their pretensions of piousness, be free to experiment with life, throw fear of brimstone induced caution to the wind and, perhaps, heaven forbid, be good to one another because it is the right thing to do. Not because cloud man said it was.

Pictured here is the book ‘God is not great’ by Christopher Hitchens. Buy it (this is not a plug).

May your universe never collapse into itself.

Malice.

P.S. A big “I love you” to K, who will absolutely hate this one.

Here comes the...rant.

Has there ever been anything as banal as love? It is the ultimate cliché, a Hollywood fallback that 4th rate hack writers revert to over the Valentine’s season to put bums in seats, replete with violins and a teary Kate Hudson. This cynical society, it of the speed date, 3 minute meal and instant gratification, is as overtly weary of love as a bearded man is of airport security at La Guardia. Approaching it with shoes in hand and arms over face for fear of being simultaneously stripped and maced. And yet…

And yet, we crave that cliché, we yen to yearn and prostate ourselves to perpetual pining in the hopes that we shall be plucked by the hand of happiness from the depths of disbelief onto the dizzying dreamweave of Dionysusian deliverance. Love is the saviour, love is the end all to all end, love is, well, love.

I, for one, hate love. I despise the fact that it is so intangible, deplore the pervasiveness of it, abhor the way it populates your every pore and dictates your every existential moment. I am, sadly, in love. When I say that I am in love, I don’t mean that I just fell into it like the proverbial mother goosish character descending suddenly off a hill. I have been sinking, gradually but steadily into it for a number of months. Like quicksand, the more you struggle, the more entombed you are likely to become, and believe me; I thrashed about for all my life was worth.

I will not bore you with the details, save to say that I have truly met my match, in every sense except the obvious (you can see that in the picture) and that I have surrendered, against my cynical will to this, most confusing of emotions.

To those of you unaware, I have asked Karen to marry me, and she has, unwisely agreed.

Your blessings can be addressed to me and your pities to her.

May your bowls be eternally curved.

Malice