when hearts attack

butts

one is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. so I am told; I have not noticed it..
you find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world..
my own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race. I cannot, however, deny that it has made some contributions to civilization. it helped in early days to fix the calendar, and it caused egyptian priests to chronicle eclipses with such care that in time they became able to predict them. these two services I am prepared to acknowledge, but I do not know of any others.

—bertrand russell

i explain the same thing to everybody: it all seems pointless in light of the fact that we’re all going to die eventually. why do anything—-why wash my hair, why read moby dick, why fall in love, why sit through six hours of nicholas nickleby, why care about american intervention in central america, why spend time trying to get into the right schools, why dance to the music when all of us are just slouching toward the same inevitable conclusion? the shortness of life, i keep saying, makes everything seem pointless when i think about the longness of death. when i look ahead, all i can see is my final demise. and they say, but maybe not for seventy or eighty years. and i say, maybe you, but me, i’m already gone. no one seems willing to ask what i mean by that, which is a good thing because i don’t know. it’s not that i’m fixing to die any time soon, but my spirit seems to have already retreated to the netherworld, and i figure, hey, how much longer does my body have? people talk about the way disembodied spirits roam the world with no place to park themselves, but all i can think is that i am a dispirited body, and i’m sure there are plenty of other human mollusk shells roaming around, waiting for some soul to fill them up. at any rate, i don’t really explain what i mean when i talk about death, but i am keenly aware that i am frightening people more than a little bit, and i realize that this is the only small delight i get anymore: knowing that others worry, watching them get this sad, discouraged look on their face, like, Shit, bring in the professionals. i take pleasure in the pain i cause others: my life has become a tearjerker movie, and i am glad to be having the calculated effect.   -elizabeth wurtzel

i explain the same thing to everybody: it all seems pointless in light of the fact that we’re all going to die eventually. why do anything—-why wash my hair, why read moby dick, why fall in love, why sit through six hours of nicholas nickleby, why care about american intervention in central america, why spend time trying to get into the right schools, why dance to the music when all of us are just slouching toward the same inevitable conclusion? the shortness of life, i keep saying, makes everything seem pointless when i think about the longness of death. when i look ahead, all i can see is my final demise. and they say, but maybe not for seventy or eighty years. and i say, maybe you, but me, i’m already gone. no one seems willing to ask what i mean by that, which is a good thing because i don’t know. it’s not that i’m fixing to die any time soon, but my spirit seems to have already retreated to the netherworld, and i figure, hey, how much longer does my body have? people talk about the way disembodied spirits roam the world with no place to park themselves, but all i can think is that i am a dispirited body, and i’m sure there are plenty of other human mollusk shells roaming around, waiting for some soul to fill them up. at any rate, i don’t really explain what i mean when i talk about death, but i am keenly aware that i am frightening people more than a little bit, and i realize that this is the only small delight i get anymore: knowing that others worry, watching them get this sad, discouraged look on their face, like, Shit, bring in the professionals. i take pleasure in the pain i cause others: my life has become a tearjerker movie, and i am glad to be having the calculated effect.  

-elizabeth wurtzel

but all the magic I have known, I’ve had to make myself.

— shel silverstein