GOD, MASTURBATION, AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN
This morning I woke up with heaven on my mind. Or rather, I woke up with “I Woke Up With Heaven On My Mind” on my mind. The sweet husky tones of the Landis family have been dogging my mind’s ear ever since I spun the gospel home-recording relentlessly for days on end in a fit of Godliness. Or unGodliness. Does blind compulsion suddenly become Godly if it’s Gospel? Is Lust okay if it’s Lust for God? Not checking. Certainly not asking Google gemini.
One of the least Godly feelings is that hot sweaty aura around the genitals after a morning of repeated masturbation, when you’ve finished your session but not yet hauled yourself into the shower. Not that I think such a state is necessarily the realm of the Devil; religious types are so hellbent on avoiding the fiend that they refuse to enter Hell even for a second for fear they’ll never escape. And that’s probs when you become the fiend yourself a bit, eh. I like to think that a good person knows they’ll make it out again, just as a detective can think like the killer without actually becoming one, or Jesus Christ can pop down to hell for a bit after his crucifixion (I assume you’re all as excited for Passion Of The Christ 2 as I am).
Meanwhile the zealots will assign the endless divine objectivity of Good and Evil to any mundane actions that they find tasteful or not; such behaviour sounds not only like an insult to the LORD (most of their judgements aint even mentioned in the holy books), but also a pretty illogical forced marriage¹ between the objective and subjective, no? Gold and dirt. The ethereal infinity of God, and the squalid creation of the demiurge. Light light light forever and ever in the great ever-expanding blackness of space, and whether it’s your wife or your brother that gets to keep your goat after you die.
I think my convoluted sad little point is that all this moralistic metaphysics breaks down when applied to actual touchable reality, like the collapse of the waveform. No action has (or lacks) inherent morality without the unique context with which it’s surrounded. In essence, if I came five times this morning to increasingly depraved images with the self-forgiving faith that my love will radiate from me purely and blindingly one great day, I’ve really spent my morning akin to something like a monk. I’m not gonna abstinently wait for wifey like the Buddha starving on berries in a cave. Recognising the horned (and horny) beast inside of you is surely the first step to a meaningful life. Loving it is the next. God knows what the third is, I’ve barely managed the second so far. But at least in achieving step one I can already morally distance myself from my fellow countryman and personal favourite milestone of evil, Josef Fritzl.
He really thought he was doing his daughter good, and only now as his appetite dwindles and his health declines can he reflect one iota on the demon inside himself, grown so big through decades of denial and always getting its way (a dangerous thing for a man indeed). If he’s to quit doubling down - purely in his own soul of course, as the world wouldn’t care one bit - the horrific trauma, baked in with unanimous vilification from more-or-less the entire human race, place any form of self-acceptance at the top of a vast mountain. I spose rotting in prison he has all the time to climb it. God only knows how many steps he’ll make before the altitude suffocates him. Fuck, I’d hate to have his nightmares.
Back to reality, and I’m just a mammal encrusted in his own cum, hungover and over-pontificating on the morals of Man. In a few hours I’ll be right as rain, after a second coffee and a nap and a shower and a breath of fresh air.
The prospect of contacting my ex-bandmate, ex-housemate, and ex-friend (all one person) looms over me like a mountain I’m not sure I even need to climb. Did our relationship really hold much positivity outside of the music? The purity of that joint goal brought out the best in us, but the pressure of it snapped us back into our very worst. It’s a rock’n’roll tale as old as time. If time began in the 60s.
the gents in question - photo Gerald Collins (@iamroyalart)
I don’t think we trust each other. As my anxious sensitivity and his devilish self-centredness flowed to the forefront of operations, we each became quietly aware of our own characteristics in the other, and the others’ in ourselves. We spiralled together - from above we would have looked like Yin & Yang².
My fear of hurting his delicate feelings, his urge to hurt mine and awaken my devil, sabotaged our first great chance at artistic success. How this unfinished business will resolve I don’t know. I just hope there isn’t too much rotting in a cell.
¹they love these though
²not a racial comment