The Animal in Me (Letter from the Editor)

Many authors choose an animal to represent their persona. It might be a kangaroo, or a swamp rabbit, or whatever. Aesop used animals to illustrate his ideas, in order to make them more accessible. It’s easier to read things about animals, things that might actually apply to yourself, than to believe that a human being might think so.
I’ve chosen a human: Mr. Hellstrøm. He’s an animal too, of course; we humans are all animals. And that’s the point, in a way.
Did you know that animals smell sweet? Have you ever smelled the forehead of a young dog? It’s the sweetest smell imaginable, apart from the smell of your own baby. Of course, animals also sometimes smell like shit. Babies too.
In any case, when you present ideas, no matter how nonsensical or enlightening, as if they came from an animal, people are more ready to accept them. That is exactly what I want to avoid.
I don’t want you to accept what I present here, I want you to think about it. Maybe those thoughts will lead to nowhere, but at least you will have thought them. I don’t want to make it easy for you. Unlike Aesop, I am not trying to propagate. I may seem opinionated, and arrogant . . . and I am. But that’s just part of believing in what you believe in, and presenting it with verve; it’s not propagating. Now, don’t get me wrong here, I am not dissing Aesop. Definitely a cool dude, and I personally love his fables. But I want to go to a level beyond that. I am assuming you are able to deal with it. If you are still reading, then read on.

If you’ve read around here, then you know that Hellstrøm is a cynical animal. He is a sophisticated animal, otherwise he could not possibly be cynical. Cynicism presupposes a certain level of sophistication, a certain level  of self-detachment that is not, as far as we know, present in animals. Who knows, maybe the animals laugh about us for being so arrogant as to suppose that . . . but I doubt it. So, let us assume that attributing these feelings to an animal is unrealistic, though it may make said feelings more edible for the reader.
Uhh, where was I? So much for the editor being in control.
I’ll tell you one thing: in every blog entry is a sliver of truth, a tiny sliver of me. It’s like I am a loaf of bread, and I take a microscopically thin slice of me and turn in to an entire loaf. That is what makes it interesting for me, and, I hope, for the readers. Slivers of truth contained in wild stories and insanity and musings and ravings and fuck it all. But do not believe that you will come to know my soul, just because I let the little animal in me speak here. It’s just a slice of bread, dammit, it’s not the whole truth. It’s not my life, and you should not take it literally. Each blog entry is just a tiny piece of me, extrapolated upon ad infinitum by Mr. Hellstrøm.
So it would seem that Mr. Hellstrøm is my animal after all, no matter how he or I may buck up against the fact. He might as we’ll be a fucking kangaroo. He boxes when threatened, doesn’t that count? A drunken foolish kangaroo who just can’t stop writing crazy things. Well, if it’s easier for you to think of him like that, so be it.

Rock ’n’ Roll

How do you define rock ’n’ roll? I define it as sex. Indeed, it was originally a slang word for the sexual act. The sexual act? Which one? There are so many possibilities…
Which begs the question: is sex about procreation, or about eroticism? You may argue that the one has nothing to do with the other, but I challenge you to substantiate your arguments to a most surprising degree, for you will find it very difficult to convince me that the two are not inseparably entwined in the human psyche. Even though I do not wish to produce further children (for heaven’s sake, I already have enough of the little rascals), I still want to make love.

I? I want to…? Or is it my body that wants to rock ’n’ roll? Gotta be careful there, because there are animal desires which control you, you little porcupine. Basic human needs that are genetically encoded so deep in our psyches that we can’t grasp them intellectually. The need to procreate. Never forget that humans are animals… spiny, squishy, crazy little animals. Perhaps part of our craziness lies in the need for more than simple procreation. In fact, I don’t even think we are alone in this, in the animal world. Plenty of animals show a need for more than the simple sexual act. So perhaps we are at least not the only crazy animals. Perhaps all animals are crazy. Perhaps life itself is just an insane anomaly.
Yeah, but now rock ’n’ roll is just a kind of music, which is pretty damned funny when you think of the original meaning.
Listening to Na Hui from Leningrad.

Pacifism

Haha. Poor pacifists. Great idea, if it wasn’t for the fact that humans are the way they are. And, the way humans are, the poor fucking pacifists will always get a slug in the face and go down, in the end. I mean, I like pacifists and all, but I know it will never work in the long run. I am a pacifist myself as long as you don’t try to fuck me over, at which point I will do my best to stop you, with violence if necessary. Basic human tendencies go against the grain of pacifism. One should not forget that humans are animals, and that one of the reasons humans have survived as a species is because they are aggressive.
Okay, I know I am apparently contradicting myself here, as I’ve already written about refusal to comply, which is, if you will, a form of passive resistance. So I’ll admit there are very strong forms of pacifism. But, if we look at the big picture, passive resistance has had little influence.

The problem with pacifism is that it only works when many people hold together and pull it through. But I ask myself, and I ask you: who can you rely on to pull that kind of thing through? Don’t forget: humans are individual animals… aggressive animals, devious, self-serving animals. Our evolution has favored aggressive behavior. We are talking about basic, genetically anchored tendencies here, tendencies that have helped us survive and spread.
Or am I wrong? Can you really see us crazy apes living together in peace? Can you really envision a time when not a single one of us will be thinking of how to fuck all the other apes over, just so he can live a little bit better than he is living now? I’m fine living the way I live, but there are always going to be some apes who aren’t satisfied, who want more, and see violence as a way of getting it.
Sometimes all it takes is an aggressive demeanor. From raising you arms, expanding your chest and yelling out your will to dominate, to raising your voice ever so slightly at a damned meaningless meeting… ways of getting your way. Wrong or right, the loudest will be heard. Overbearing assholes… but I have to admit that they get things done, and how they want, at that. How I hate those assholes. How I hate this dominant paradigm.
But, much as I’d love it to be true, you aren’t going to beat them with pacifism. Not in the long run. You’re going to have to fight.