Demonic Paradise

I've always liked many facets of the Hindu religious subculture, I just wish I didn't sound so incredibly like a demon to them. Even their idea of punishment of being thrown into the ocean of material existance to attain repeated birth among the species of demonic life doesn't sound so bad to me.

With only a few expections, I've seriously never read a broadscale summary of my thoughts written so well as below.

"Those who are demoniac do not know what is to be done and what is not to be done. Neither cleanliness nor proper behavior nor truth is found in them.

They say that this world is unreal, with no foundation, no God in control. They say it is produced of sex desire and has no cause other than lust. Following such conclusions, the demoniac, who are lost to themselves and who have no intelligence, engage in unbeneficial, horrible works meant to destroy the world. Taking shelter of insatiable lust and absorbed in the conceit of pride and false prestige, the demoniac, thus illusioned, are always sworn to unclean work, attracted by the impermanent.

They believe that to gratify the senses is the prime necessity of human civilization. Thus until the end of life their anxiety is immeasurable. Bound by a network of hundreds of thousands of desires and absorbed in lust and anger, they secure money by illegal means for sense gratification. The demoniac person thinks: "So much wealth do I have today, and I will gain more according to my schemes. So much is mine now, and it will increase in the future, more and more. He is my enemy, and I have killed him, and my other enemies will also be killed. I am the lord of everything. I am the enjoyer. I am perfect, powerful and happy. I am the richest man, surrounded by aristocratic relatives. There is none so powerful and happy as I am. I shall perform sacrifices, I shall give some charity, and thus I shall rejoice."

In this way, such persons are deluded by ignorance. Thus perplexed by various anxieties and bound by a network of illusions, they become too strongly attached to sense enjoyment and fall down into hell. Self-complacent and always impudent, deluded by wealth and false prestige, they sometimes proudly perform sacrifices in name only, without following any rules or regulations.

Bewildered by false ego, strength, pride, lust and anger, the demons become envious of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is situated in their own bodies and in the bodies of others, and blaspheme against the real religion. Those who are envious and mischievous, who are the lowest among men, I perpetually cast into the ocean of material existence, into various demoniac species of life. Attaining repeated birth amongst the species of demoniac life, O son of Kunti, such persons can never approach Me.

Gradually they sink down to the most abominable type of existence. There are three gates leading to this hell-lust, anger and greed. Every sane man should give these up, for they lead to the degradation of the soul. The man who has escaped these three gates of hell, O son of Kunti, performs acts conducive to self-realization and thus gradually attains the supreme destination. He who discards scriptural injunctions and acts according to his own whims attains neither perfection, nor happiness, nor the supreme destination. One should therefore understand what is duty and what is not duty by the regulations of the scriptures. Knowing such rules and regulations, one should act so that he may gradually be elevated."

Bhagavadgita Ch16.1-22

Optimism

Let's talk about happy things for a while. I always seem to tetter on the manically depressive when I write, which might be viewed as strange because that's not how I see myself at all. I've always been rather proud of my optimism, as if it's an achievement to be touted. I always endeavour to see the best in people, and I strongly oppose the IT driven philosophy that everyone in the world is stupid, present company always excepted of course. I believe that Global Warming will not be our end, and that everyone has the capacity for love. I have seen beauty in simple things and laughed along with anyone who will join me. Yet if I actually try to put any of my thoughts to paper and I'll come up with something like:

The life of us is limited to our smile
But suddenly a great pause
Settles over our lives
As if we've run into a dark room

Where yellow bubbles are floating to their brains
Y-shaped glasses and X-shaped women
Discuss their work, their children and their books

But the phone rings once and it's gone

The glasses are dropped and the women grow fat
The sounds of traffic and music are stopped
We fall in its softness and be alone

While freshly cut tears are taped to power poles
And the skid marks are washed away in the rain

So I hereby make a pledge: With the exception of the Grim short story that I'm posting (which is already far by gone pretty depressing), I shall put enough effort into my posts so as to shine an optimistic light. It shouldn't be too difficult, should it?
I think I'll start in my next post. Well, maybe the post after next.

I've stopped reading so much as late and I think that might be why I'm writing a lot less. I used to want to be a poet, or a writer. I used to want to be Bukowski. I've found myself thinking less and less nowadays.

I've found myself settling into the day to day effort of waking up in the morning, going to work and trying to win fictional prizes then going home. I'm going to Singapore in September where there will be five days of training, marketing advice, presentations (including a couple that I will have to run) and product releases. The brand in question has a sales target of around half a million dollars every year, and that is just one of my smaller brands. Every day, I struggle to push these products into the mindset of our sales team so they sell my products as well as the three hundred thousand other products that they've got available to them. Last year, I only hit 91% of my sales target. This year, I'm already 40% behind where I should be.

When I first arrived in my customer service role, three years ago, I wrote a poem about my co-workers, the first stanza says:

The grey single silent seconds
Has glazed the eyes of the worker many
They measure their successes by their heartbeat
If it stops, they lose

I've found that I've become so wrapped up in my fictional prizes of sales targets, inventory targets and potential wage increases that I've literally become what I hated. This is an idea that scares me.

There is a concept that I like to think about when people talk about feminism. I see the great success of feminism was that it broke women from their traditional gender roles. Women were to be born pretty, marry young and bare many children for the rest of their lives. When women broke away from this role they were able to fight for more equitable rights. I see that by doing so, they also aided men in breaking away from their own gender roles. Men were to be born strong, get a good job, and provide for the family for the rest of their lives. This has led to a stereotype-full of men living miserably - stuck in dead end jobs with dead end conclusions.

Every time I think about my new fictional prizes, every time I think about how I'm writing less, that I'm reading less, that I'm thinking less, I can't help but feel that I've got my fingers on my wrist measuring my heartbeat as I fulfil some kind of traditional gender role.

I thought I might start off with better words than mine, as I've been told it's desirable to give a good first impression.

“Who was I?

I had grown from the soil of Australia; its promise of greatness was my own; it was unique, as I was; in a sense it too was an outcast, like I feel I am; it is alone in the world in a special way, as I am alone; it has a strength which has not yet been tested, not yet been developed; it is young, like me; it has resources in its body; like me it doesn’t quite fit with the world as it is, though it yet may do; it waits, gathering its strength, which is its enormous silence about it like a coat, waiting for an idea friend, a lover, a spouse – who does not come.

The country is a virgin, as I feel I am, essentially. The hidden place in me has not been touched; my trivial adventures have not touched it. Besides, in a larger sense I am not the person who did those things; I am different.

Am I perhaps Australia?”

-David Ireland, “A Woman of the Future”