Here's an entry I once published on an old blog I used to have, several years ago.
Though much time has passed, and many circumstances in my life have changed, these are still thoughts I own. I'm glad to know some parts of me are consistent!
5.11 pm, may 19, 2005
Last night I almost got my finger chopped off while trying to shut my living room window. It's one of those windows that's just the huge sheet of plastic and it has two little tabs at the bottom corners that are always rusty, and you have to push them inward in order to unhinge the sliding mechanism - this is the beauty that post-modern suburbia affords - and, wouldn't you know it, the window was stuck so I had to pull it down while engaging these tabs. I knew, prior to conducting this exercise, exactly what was going to happen, but the sick part is that I continued, and succeeded in smashing my finger. I'm pretty sure I chipped the bone. And I screamed the f word so many times and punched the window so many times and with such force that it not only impressed the hell out of me but it woke my boyfriend and my mother, who were taking naps (not together, though). The f word proved to be the majority of my vocabulary for the rest of the evening, occasionally peppered by the c word, the b word, and the g/d word, almost like I was a synthesizer set on "SCREAMING SWEAR WORDS", being keyed arbitrarily like a John Zorn piece. What hurt the most was not my finger, although I was concerned because I had an incident when I was a kid where I banged my knee on a piano bench - no cut or anything - and ended up with a bone infection. Now, I like my left hand, so I don't want that to be repeated. But what bothered me about the situation was that I knew, I knew that this was going to be the result. And I still proceeded. Why?
I don't know about other women, but when I get hormonal, I need chocolate, sweets, and fat as though I know no other reality. While I'm at the Krispy Kreme window, chewing on a slice of pizza, I am fully aware of what I'm doing, and I know that it is not going to be good for my constitution. I'll get a headache from the sugar o.d., I'll get fat hands from the salt and the fat, and I'll just generally feel like I've been thrown against a wall when I come down from the high. But I still do it. Why?
One could, if they wanted to simplify things, simply call it masochism. But why does that exist? If we know that it's bad for us, but we do it anyway, fully aware that it's called masochistic behavior, well, why don't we stop? Alcoholics Anonymous has a term for behavior that we repeatedly engage in, even when we are aware of it's undesirable consequences: insanity. That still doesn't solve the issue. I know it's masochistic. I know it's insane. I know it's harmful. Maybe I do it because it's harmful. Why? Because I want to destroy myself?
Who are the people in the world who see evil in donuts, prostitutes, drugs, cigarettes, gambling, pornography, whatever, and simply say no? Really, if you are one of them, and you are reading this, please let me in on your secret. You have an obligation to mankind.
I think humans like to destroy themselves. I think we are, at any moment, fully aware of the implicit consequences in our harmful behavior, but we still like to live life frolicking about the pond, leaping around on the closed mouths of waiting alligators and swinging from the vines. If I feel like I've been "good," like I've been working out, eating well, reading philosophy, calling my friends, keeping my room clean, I decide that I can handle buying another pair of shoes or getting a slice of key lime cheesecake. But what I forget is that it only takes one step off the path and then it all goes to shit. Because I'm not going to just buy a pair of shoes, right? I need a skirt to go with it, and while I'm there I may as well pick up a new shirt, and some lip gloss, and since the sandals come in two colors... Similarly, you don't eat cheesecake in a vacuum. You eat it at a restaurant, where you want some cappucino to go with it, but then you're up all night from the caffeine blast, and you've just got to get a movie to zone out to while you're digesting the atom bomb of sugar and fat in your stomach, and then you stay up until 3, but whoops you have to go to class in the morning and on and on. This progression (or regression?) is amplified when you bring in things like infidelity, drug use, gambling, etc. Because who does coke at confession?
There seems to be this consciousness lately that it's not good to dichotomize good and evil. Well, if they were meant to be gray and fuzzy, they wouldn't exist as two seperate words. I prefer to know what is good and what is bad, so that I make no pretenses when I am about to fall. I don't know many people who can take one step down the slippery slope and walk that fine balance. But there's also a difference between those who take that step, and know it's just a step, and those who take that step and think "F**k! I totally messed up! I may as well just jump off!" I know I'm definitely the latter. I'm still waiting for advice from those who are the former.
However, I've noticed that when I do one good thing, it leads to another. I didn't feel like flossing before I went to bed last night, but I did, and then I decided to read a Martha Nussbaum essay, because I was thinking about a girl I once knew who a friend at the time said was better for this guy that I liked because she was "smarter than me" and well, I just won't stand for that, so now I have a philosophical basis, predicated on the writings of Cicero, no less, as to why we have a moral obligation to provide material aid to our international neighbors.
All that, just from flossing.
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