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Pain, Observed

Pain requires an observer. Grind up a rock, split it in two, and it does not complain; it might be called an observer of sorts, that may in quantum terms collapse a wave function on its own, but there is no “looking out” anywhere in a rock, nothing that sees, feels, no awareness. It cannot feel pain, no matter what you do to it. Simply put, there is no value to the measurement. Pain does seem to exist for a reason, of course. As negative reinforcement: touch a boiling pot and the bite of the intense heat should make you learn not to do such a thing. It is a learning experience. Pain keeps us from doing some stupid things, it warns us when something is wrong in our physique, it makes us run faster from what we fear will inflict itself on us. Pain is evolutionarily useful. But there does seem to be an awful lot of it.

It is not so that there is more pain in the world than ever has been. We are as if waking up to what has been happening everywhere around us. Civilization exists to protect people from violence, and we are starting at least to stand up to the threat of pain, for it not to have power over how we decide. It is an idea whose time has come, what I mean by this: the answer blowing in the wind is to touch down. There will be no end of pain, but the manner in which it is experienced we count on materially changing: that it will not anymore be a deliberate and negative infliction, but rather only come by accident, or perhaps in corner cases to be part of some experiential gain. Perhaps a far future. The dream is that coming generations will be greatly removed from truly comprehending the actual nature of such things as torture.

Even if it comes, though, such a frame of mind, universal—what of all the pain that has been? How about all the senseless pain? Impersonal, storms that struck and rendered grievous injury due to no seeming cause, that there were no particular sin that had caused the hand of nature to so render retribution… how about the animals, too? the numbers caught in steel traps who chewed through their own leg to escape? dolphins who drowned in nets? deer caught in cruel barbed wire who only made it worse by trying to kick it off? I cannot believe animals were guilty of anything that the powers that be would take it out on them for it. It seems so much a waste, that the experience that marks the lives of all who have something which looks out—that this is what the world has to show to them. The cruelty is a mocking of fate.

Pain seems to be the cost of doing business. No pain, no gain, right? And an artist needs to suffer to produce anything of worth. (That happened to be true at least in the case of me, mine.) It seems to be the price of having a world at all. You can actually think of everything, that it is all made of pain, all sensations merely a variety of it. But what if the price we pay—what if it’s worth it? As if we see pain as currency, and some of the good things in the world what we purchase with it? What if pain is the price of love? I recall I was in the school play in elementary school. The play was The Prince Who Couldn’t Laugh, and it turns out it was because he had not first ever cried. Is the sweet not as sweet without the sour? In a larger scope, U2 lyrics come to mind: “Don’t believe the devil / I don’t believe his book / But the truth is not the same / Without the lies he made up.” Maybe in this world, the pain gives the heart its depth?

Out of pain, sometimes out of a lot of pain, there can be brought into this world meaning. It is not a fair equation, it might seem, from gallons of suffering a few drops of it may be squeezed out. But this is our “safety net”. We want to find meaning in any other way besides it, but if there is nothing else, we can find a depth of experience in tragedy. To share sadness makes us more human. Makes us care. And if it doesn’t? Then how easily is the reaper to separate the wheat from the chaff. It is not always easy to find meaning, for in this sometimes horrible world there can be so much pain it seems an impossible task to find any kind of purpose meet to such suffering, seemingly disrespectful even to try. Out of the Holocaust some said the meaning to be found was the new nation of Israel. But other Jews simply said, “It is too much, I can no longer believe.” This is understandable.

Sometimes the feeling of pain itself is the meaning. It is to care, when the object of what you care for is gone or is in pain themselves. They say that love can be the greatest source of pain in this world. Love sometimes grows powerfully when watered by tears. Do you understand yet? It is not fair. The sense that we can make of all of this—any of this—makes no sense. This is the world, this is life. In our faith we must believe that the meaning that is collected as the “fruit” of pain is greater than the pain ever was. Even if, as it looks, that so much suffering seems to go unmet by anything like caring. Or half measures taken to comfort the bereaved, how they look to fall so short of what we would rightly desire for them as recompense. But truly, even if there be no God or Heaven, can we believe that there is indeed a deeper meaning that comes from a world’s, a whole history’s worth of pain?

Is there buried treasure that we might dig, a sudden purpose where we might fit the greatest of suffering, and have it make sense? This is the Holy Grail greater than the Grail. Perhaps it is in memory. In imagination, even. That we sit and wonder of those who have suffered, especially those whom history forgets, and it causes our hearts to feel, to be human, and to give it our best that we should not see something like that happen again. Even for the best of us, and the best of our abilities, we will fall short, but the attempt—that in itself is meaningful. It is to care, beloved. To try and remember what the dust itself forgot, that is a form of magic. The good kind, the real kind. What if we make of the world, this ugly, imperfect world—what if we make of it better than what it would have been had it been perfect, all along? That is the nature of the greatest thing of all: that is the sentiment of love. Which without it we would be lost, sitting still on a calm day. Which if we have it, we can stand against the hurricane.

Do not despair. We not only can change the world, we are indeed in the midst of changing it. Do you not see? Have you not heard? Things are getting better. Not everywhere, not all at once, and sometimes it has to get worse before it turns back around—but it is happening. We don’t live in the Dark Ages anymore, do you not see? Have you not heard? You don’t have to believe in anything to have the hope, hope for all the world. That each dawn brings us the light to build upon the light of the day before. Even the great dreams may come to pass. As Anne Frank said, “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” Amen. It costs you nothing to care. Nay, not just that: if you do care, how enriched you will then be, to have a heart. Don’t let that candle expire, beloved. Such light people have died to defend. We are what we care about… else we are worthless, indeed.



master sky

master sky breathed in storms to save them till it was dry
and it threatened never to come a day they would be useful
time is lighter than the wind is invisible
the mysteries are not dark, as we once had thought
and wanderlust surfaces, as dawn dews every surface
there are no crowds i can lose myself in, i stand out
at once to find me a saint and a thief, pretending otherwise
i will dream of far places, where moonlight escapes
fly on wings that no one can see, except as whispers
fly to horizons where the city is grafted to the sky
where i touch down, roses shall grow without end
master sky is not who i want to be, such poetry
for my way is the road, even as the wanderlust i bury
i shall dig it up again when i am shrouded in darkness
and the fires are holy that light unspeakable places
and the typography of the signs are unfamiliar here
i will emerge, i think, from my imaginary chrysalis
more man than fairytale, ready always to begin
the archer at the twilight distance, whose aim is true

Lucifer, Descending

I remember way back, when there was this time that for some reason, I thought that I was Lucifer Morningstar, God’s brightest angel. The twist, though, was that I was fallen from an evil God (of Gnostic myth), or that I was a version of Lucifer that never had fallen. The Gnostic one you probably never heard of, it was when Sabaoth rebelled against the Archons—the governing entities of the world—and Samael, the blind god, who was supposed to be the God of the Old Testament (but not the New). Blasphemy, that was, if you know your Bible and Christian canon; probably why there are so few Gnostics these days. Anyway, I wrote in the margins of the book where I read this, “the true Lucifer Morningstar”. That figure, though, I thought fit better with Jim Morrison, of all people. He always had a sort of “Lucifer” vibe to him.

So basically, I just thought I was hot stuff. It was actually a step down from where my working area was then, namely, that I was the (new) messiah. The answer man. Around that time, I was waiting for my “superpowers” to kick in, whereupon I was going to hover in the air above New York City, holding an electric guitar (which presumably amplified itself), and thrash some tunes out better that Jimi Hendrix ever played. And then I would disappear. That’s all I had planned. It wasn’t a very well thought out messiahood. Oh, I did also have this dream that world leaders would come to me to seek my advice for really important matters. So really, I wouldn’t have needed the hypercharge of power that an omnipotent entity would have. Power was not really what I wanted. So the higher-ups, I think this is what happened, made me comfortable in something a little (a lot) less powerful. And yes, I did feel rather at home in the role of Lucifer Morningstar. It was the top of the food chain, because what is above you just blows out any notion of scale.

Now there was this one time where I saw the spirits of people gathered in a sort of torso of mine, like what you see in the painting, Garden of Earthly Delights, near the center of the third panel, the Tree Man. Then I saw myself have an angelic spiritual form, circling above them, looking down on all the lower realities, each with their version of what happened anywhere they were aware of. I said to them, “I am Lucifer Morningstar, and I speak to you from the most high reality, and the most high God, where there was no Fall.” I tried that tactic, in fact, several times—it never worked out; where there was a Lucifer, there was a Fall. This was indeed a sign. What I didn’t know then about those “realities” was that the actual Lucifer was looking through them, seeing which one to choose to solidify, from his perch in the original Heaven. And of the “realities” only one became the One when he decided to commit his full forward evil to it.

And another thing: whenever I thought I was Lucifer, there was always a Michael. In the longest stretch of that belief, when I was the hypergenius Lucifer Morningstar, there was Albert Einstein who was Michael—and no matter what I did, I could see that I could not get past him, that he would ultimately defeat whatever I could muster. Indeed, it seemed by all counts to be intrinsic to the system that is the universe. And back then, you know, I always thought that I was one of the good guys, but maybe it could be true: I got caught up in the lies of him who deceiveth the whole world: the Dragon, the Serpent, Satan, the Devil. Who was once Lucifer, the greatest being in the whole of creation. Now the Father of Lies, who was a murderer from the first. I don’t remember exactly what it was that made me think that I was him, if unfallen. I recall that I certainly didn’t want to be Michael, the secondmost. I thought Michael lost the War in Heaven, and I didn’t want to be left out of all the stuff that was coming to me in Paradise.

Around that time, I remember curling up naked on the carpet, living in my head this one of several times, when the War took me over; I remember a voice that booming repeated, which I could have sworn was Walt Disney’s voice (because as you know, Walt Disney is God): “Michael… Michael… Michael…”: calling to me, like the sound of doom… Somehow I switched, the next step in my progression in powering down. Perhaps it had been all the psychological experiences I encountered when I identified with Lucifer, that it could never be what I had wanted it to be, since the Fall was written in the ground of reality itself. And I was then Michael. Of course, there was still a problem with this conception of things, as angels are not human beings and human beings are not angels—in fact, human beings do not become angels when they die and go to Heaven (a common fallacy). It was just a gradual talking me down, I suppose you could say, for I had once thought I was God, and Jesus, and then a separate messiah from Jesus, then Lucifer. I only had a couple steps to go.

Long story short, by turning me into Michael, the higher ups were curing me of my messiah complex. Michael is a faithful and humble servant of the Lord, whatever power he possessed. And from there to be a prophet, who of course is of the correct species of mine. And pretty much that’s it, since I am a prophet. But those days as Lucifer taught me a few things. Being called Lucifer in real life carries with it a sting, which I hadn’t counted on, because you’re dealing with the outside world, now—and Lucifer is not one of the good guys in that world. Nice in concept, horrible in practice. Also, if Lucifer is the good guy, and God is the bad guy, you cannot explain much of the world or the universe. It just doesn’t make sense. And lastly, it’s better to be second and saved, than one who cries, “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” No, just no. It’s better to serve in Heaven.

Lucifer has been glamorized, and it is understandable why. Being the being with the greatest of powers, he nonetheless is the underdog when he rebels against God Most High. Teenagers, especially, can relate: how it is that those in power (like the parents) just don’t understand, and the higher ups should listen to them for a change. But being like how teenagers have just enough knowledge to be dangerous, Lucifer was blinded by his pride. It was no glamorous thing that he did. Simply put, every bad thing that has happened, and happened to you, is due to Lucifer Morningstar, greatest and stupidest of all the angels, who actually broke part Heaven in inventing his magnum opus, which happened to be…? Well, what is the worst possible thing? Wouldn’t that be… pain? Also known as error, and most commonly, Sin. Then there would be Death, after Lucifer sexing it up with Sin: Death, the Son of Satan. Because they were embodiments, Sin, Death, and now Lucifer: Evil.

This is why true Satanism has no redeeming qualities to it. There was nothing noble in rebelling against a God who was truly all good. We look around here, on earth, and we can point to things that are unfair about the world, and we’re like, how about these, God? And then I tell you, those things are all Lucifer’s fault, to the least discomfort. God has never done you wrong, or anybody. That’s the Devil you’re thinking of. He does it to you and then blames God for it, then says to follow him down into his morass of iniquity. Remember, as it is written in Revelation, he deceiveth the whole world. How did the Rolling Stones song start? “Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste.” That’s the picture he would like you to have of him. The reality is that to behold the true being that is Satan would probably make you wretch, or worse.

And anyone who thinks doing evil is fun, that one would go out of one’s way to harm someone else for no reason, for evil’s sake—all I have to say is that I don’t understand you. There were times in the past where I wanted to get even with someone, to do damage back to its source, but to proactively do harm I have rarely desired, going back to childhood for instances. I grew up. Once I thought that evil was just a form of immaturity, but the levels that some people take it to outstrip the worst of what immaturity can explain. The immature stop bitching when they get what they want, but evil is insatiable. So go ahead, joke about it: be the Devil’s advocate, call him Lord Satan, sing along to heavy metal songs about worshipping Evil itself. I tell you from our end, Jesus understands (he gets you!), and that you know not what you do. But know this: the real deal is nothing to laugh at, and nothing to give your allegiance to. Do not make friends with Death—and expect not to die.



If you like what’s written here, check out my book, Memoirs from the War in Heaven.