Member-only story
Nothing perfect is alive; perfection always comes at the cost of the mysterious thing called life. So much of modern life, modern striving, seeks to extinguish life in favor of perfection — in favor of smooth, clean, pretty optics, experiences, theories, experiences. The messy, sprawling plurality of Life is always the victim of Systemization: homogenization, bureaucratization, spiritual vivisection.
The more life dies, the more it resembles an advertisement for Life; experience becomes Experience — the game of experience rather than the real thing.
I’m late for work — for making money; I have conditioned myself, or let myself be conditioned, to act as if this really matters. No, it doesn’t matter, it’s fairly arbitrary; if I said ‘fuck it’ to this gig, I could easily find another. I maintain coherence in my life, structure, order, by will, by fiat — by illusion.
We distinguish ourselves from lab rats by means of ennobling concepts — soul, self, personality, Being, and so on. It’s a neat trick.
