On doing stupid and bad things

Men lust for the power the devil possesses.
but did you ever ask yourself what the devil wants?
The devil wants to be let back into the kingdom of heaven.
So it seems to me wouldnt it make sense to cut out the middle man and go for heaven instead?
Yes it would, I hear you say.

Except life aint like that. In fact by my calculations, and to some extent this was agreed at one of the meetings of the Anti-deluvian Order of the Rat, a part of life is all about experiencing what it is like to be the devil.
There is no short cut. That is the point.
You dont get to Heaven until you have been through Hell.

Ergo, never trust a churchgoer who hasnt committed every sin in the book because he must before the good lord will admit him. And for that he must have come to terms with the devil inside himself. You dont stamp it out, you dont deny it, no, you experience it, then you master it, and only then will it let you go.
Anyone who doesnt follow this path, is trouble waiting to happen
because there is one other clause in the rule of life and it is this;

if you dont deal with the devil, then the devil wins by default.

It is logic my friends.

Twisted and sick I agree, but I didnt make this universe, I just play by its rules, as we all must. But I have been to the crossroads and been given but one hour to sing for my soul. Despite this I do not believe in God, nor do I believe in the Devil. They are but allegories to the mind of man.
Though I do believe in prisons of hell, and I do believe there is the possibility of ultimate liberation; a heavenly freedom.

So my route through life has been into hell. I think any man worth his salt, any character worth their salt, has been forged in the prisons of hell on earth. The trick, and I dont pretend to have figured it out, is to find a way back out of them again. To get to heaven you must pass through hell, just most people cant find their way out of the labyrinth, the floors are sticky and none of the inmates seem to know the way. And it is a labyrinth of infinite proportions. In hell, a man becomes truly lost. Except hell is not really outside of him, but inside, therefore, a lost man, is lost inside himself.

I do talk some shit, actually. But there is a thread of sense in there somewhere.

*

I was with a friend and she knew a few of my darker stories and she had a few of her own, but she dealt with her secrets in a wholly different way to me. I couldnt understand her motives. I felt and still do, that she was maybe a little colder than I , a little more calculating, maybe even a little more dark. I felt I was just an adventurer who had gotten lost along the way. She was something else but I think she was a good person. Our conversation had been about a stupid thing I had done which had hurt a few people. Rather than smooth the whole thing over and try to forget it I had confessed to all in my attempt to find some kind of redemption. That was my way based loosely at the time on the theory I outlined above. Which was, to summarise;

we fuck up in life, it is what we do, we create hell for ourselves, but then the art is to find your way out and in doing so, one assumes one learns and doesnt do it again. Eventually maybe one becomes free.

'I dont understand why you told everyone' she said
'I didnt want to carry it around like a cross to bear' I told her
'But now a load more people think you are an asshole and you dont feel better' She surmised correctly.
'Hmmm' I said. My plan wasnt working out, she was right.
'What would you suggest?' I said
'Well you are likely to do it again if circumstance occurs that way, right?'
'It is my nature, I think' I replied.
'So do it, but dont get caught, and dont tell anyone' she said. I squirmed. Maybe I was evil.
'I feel like I opened Pandora's box and now I cant shut it.' I was whining. She gave me a look only a woman can, they were always so much better than guys when it came to self control. Some of them at least, the smart ones, the ones men feared.
'Oh, sort it out. Behave yourself, you dont have to fuck everything, and you dont have to fight everyone. People are basically nice, they just want to feel good. Help them with that instead. You'll make less enemies.' She said.
'I dont seem to be able to control it though. I get caught up in the flow and find myself going wrong.' I whined some more.
'That's a pathetic excuse. You are using excuses for your behaviour, you're basically lazy and selfish.' She said, again rather too accurately for my liking. Still it was good to talk to someone who didnt just hang their jaw when I told them of my antics.
'How can I get out of this mess? Give me something practical to work with, something that makes sense' I said
'To work that out, you have to work out what you really need, what is motivating you, causing you to do these things, then address that key thing. What do you need?' She asked.
'Thrills.' I stated, more to myself in trying to work out what the root problem was, 'I get bored, I get opportunities, I take them. I have good intentions at the time but somehow afterwards it ends messy. I am needy. I annoy myself with it.' I said, feeling a little dejected and stupid. It hurt to admit.
'I think you just need to grow up a bit, really people deserve to be treated better, I think you are basically lonely too, you have been hurt too much, you are vicious because of that.' She was good at this, I almost hated her. The thought crossed my mind that I wanted to fuck her. I found myself looking for sexuality in her eyes.
'Dont do that' she said, reading me. Christ, I thought, she's a fucking witch, knows what I am thinking!
'You are so obvious to women,' she said reading my look again. I was hornier than a five legged coyote now, I was convinced she could see into my soul, I had no idea she was so good at this. She had the potential of a fucking tarantula, I felt out of my depth. I felt like a fly in a web. I felt like easy food. My manhood was quivering in fear and anger at her dominance. I think the concept of hitting her even crossed my mind, I wouldnt have done it but it was my internal reflex, my ego, my terror at being usurped, found out, revealed. I didnt like people getting in.
'Jesus, you are scaring me' I said, 'and making me horny at the same time' I added trying to make a joke out of it. She didnt respond. I was some way down the intelligence ladder compared to her. She could run rings around me. She was out of my league, I didnt interest her in the slightest. I felt like nothing. The bitch!
But I appreciated her honesty, her wisdom, it was cold and direct, no one had ever been willing to cut me down to size, everyone always agreed with me or kept quiet. It dawned on me that she was saying what everyone else saw. I thought I had been camouflaged, it would seem I had not. I really was an asshole.
'Look,' she said. 'Women see you for what you are, you get to lay some of them because some of them like your charm, you are charming, but you are also a player, a flirt, you cant be trusted. We know that, even if we play along with you. Dont think that there arent 1000 men just like you but better at it that we can choose from. So, you get lucky with a few stupid ones who are needy, great. You may share a bed with someone, but you go sleep alone each night, and that cant possibly make you happy.'
I swear this woman knew everything. If she ruled the world men like me would be obsolete in week. I listened and quaked in fear.
'But love just makes me feel weak, I get bored of it, I need sex. That leads to affairs, which leads to shagging someones girlfriend, leads to a fight, leads to ...well, you know what happened.' I said. It scared me to think of it. I was in fear of my life at that point. I was being hunted and I didnt know how to switch it all off.
'You got yourself into the mess.' She said, but it wasnt helping.
'I know, I know. Oh fuck and bollocks!' I lent back. I was torn between my own burning lust and a deep regret of who I was. I really wished it hadnt happened. I really wanted to take it all back but it was too late. Someone was going to whack me and, well, I deserved it.
'I am fucked.' I said, and a feeling only a trapped rabbit really knows came over me.
'So learn from it.' She said. 'Maybe you needed it to get this serious to teach you a lesson.'
'I have to survive a lesson to learn from it. I dont want this to get any worse, I dont want to fight him but what can I do. I'll have to kill him to stop him. He's insane.' I said. I had no problem with killing him whatsoever. I'd happily screw his girlfriend right after too, and that was my problem; I could be so ruthless and cold when it called for it. The other problem was the law, the god damn legal system. I was still an asshole. A cornered and quivering asshole. I was scared.
'So take the beating, and then move on with your life.' She suggested.
'Are you kidding? what if he kills me or I end up a vegetable?'
'You fucked his girlfriend' she stated.
'I'll fuck him too' I said with pathetic false bravado.
'I doubt that,' she said, 'he's insane.'
'Oh Jesus!' I wanted to pewk. I was a coward and an asshole. How low could this go?

I thought of taking the beating, but opted to leave the country instead. I went to a monastery and tried to figure out where I was going wrong in life. It had been great right up until the moment I got caught out. It was at that point I realised that the person I had become was not the person I wanted to be. I had gone wrong somewhere, I was an ugly creation. It took a long time, but in the end I realised that the enemies I had made were my helpers in disguise. They still wanted me dead, sure, but it was the sense of death breathing down my neck that reminded me to keep to the path. To keep looking for the good, to keep trying to do the right thing. If I could out-pace them, out-run them, hell, maybe in the end I could make it. It took those devils to wake me up from my ignorance. They are still hunting me, they will bay for my blood until the day I die. That's the price you pay for knowledge I guess. I dont blame them, they helped me to move on. You cant ever go back, but then again, I dont think I would want to. The person I was is dead and it's better that way. The way to heaven is through hell, and hell is not a place you want to waste your time making friends.

'You cannot live sheltered forever without ever being exposed, and at the same time be a spiritual adventurer.
Be audacious. Be crazy in your own way, with that madness in the eyes of man that is wisdom in the eyes of God.
Take risks, search and search again, search everywhere, in every way,
do not let a single opportunity or chance that life offers pass you by,
and do not be petty and mean, trying to drive a hard bargain.' - Arnaud Desjardins