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What is Hell?
13 years ago
I've heard it described several ways.
"Hell is other people." (Jean-Paul Sartre)
"Hell is a half-filled auditorium." (Robert Frost)
But the most accurate one for me is:
"Hell is something you carry around inside your own head."
Which, oddly enough, comes from the Soul Eater anime.
Still, it's quite true. What can be more maddening than ones own thoughts?
To see dreams and wishes and desires so clearly, yet
be unable to touch them?
To see a world so perfectly crafted that if you closed your eyes you could
stroll down the markets of Hel-Tkah and see everything the booths would be
selling? The Fire Emeralds (worthless really, but pretty) and the J'lin fruit
(tasting somewhat like a pineapple but shaped like an apple) and even
stop and see the blacksmith hammer out the last taps on his latest sword
(crude, but then the Sketh are only recently learning the art of sword-smiting).
"But that is pure joy!", you say. "Take the world in your head and put those
stories to paper. Pick an adventurer and follow his quest for glory. Put down
his struggles and triumphs and failures and all the naughty bits in between!"
Like it's that easy. As if I can just sit at my keyboard and have the words flow
like water down onto my screen.
"Yes! It is that easy!"
...
"Dedicate yourself. Toss video games and the internet and television out the window.
Sit down and write, even if the words aren't perfect. Even if the story isn't quite
coherent."
That's not how my brain works. My very mind conspires against me. I start down
the path of an idea, only to have it vanish as if swept away when I try to grasp it.
Do you know what that's like? It have so much sound in your head that you can't
even concentrate on what you want to get out of it? And when you do try to express
the hell that is in your own head you just come off rambling like a madman?
"You're just blaming anything you can for your lack of dedication."
Oh really? You try living with a hundred stories trying to fight their way out of
your skull all at once. You go through the day, people thinking you're either
slow or stupid because listening to them requires constant effort. Hearing other
people requires me to think about it to understand what they're even saying.
Does that sound like someone passing blame? Or someone with so many
thoughts that everything else blends together into one horrifying static?
And now I've become the internet. Expressing myself while simultaneously
begging for attention. Hurray. I know how Spider Jerusalem feels.
"Hell is other people." (Jean-Paul Sartre)
"Hell is a half-filled auditorium." (Robert Frost)
But the most accurate one for me is:
"Hell is something you carry around inside your own head."
Which, oddly enough, comes from the Soul Eater anime.
Still, it's quite true. What can be more maddening than ones own thoughts?
To see dreams and wishes and desires so clearly, yet
be unable to touch them?
To see a world so perfectly crafted that if you closed your eyes you could
stroll down the markets of Hel-Tkah and see everything the booths would be
selling? The Fire Emeralds (worthless really, but pretty) and the J'lin fruit
(tasting somewhat like a pineapple but shaped like an apple) and even
stop and see the blacksmith hammer out the last taps on his latest sword
(crude, but then the Sketh are only recently learning the art of sword-smiting).
"But that is pure joy!", you say. "Take the world in your head and put those
stories to paper. Pick an adventurer and follow his quest for glory. Put down
his struggles and triumphs and failures and all the naughty bits in between!"
Like it's that easy. As if I can just sit at my keyboard and have the words flow
like water down onto my screen.
"Yes! It is that easy!"
...
"Dedicate yourself. Toss video games and the internet and television out the window.
Sit down and write, even if the words aren't perfect. Even if the story isn't quite
coherent."
That's not how my brain works. My very mind conspires against me. I start down
the path of an idea, only to have it vanish as if swept away when I try to grasp it.
Do you know what that's like? It have so much sound in your head that you can't
even concentrate on what you want to get out of it? And when you do try to express
the hell that is in your own head you just come off rambling like a madman?
"You're just blaming anything you can for your lack of dedication."
Oh really? You try living with a hundred stories trying to fight their way out of
your skull all at once. You go through the day, people thinking you're either
slow or stupid because listening to them requires constant effort. Hearing other
people requires me to think about it to understand what they're even saying.
Does that sound like someone passing blame? Or someone with so many
thoughts that everything else blends together into one horrifying static?
And now I've become the internet. Expressing myself while simultaneously
begging for attention. Hurray. I know how Spider Jerusalem feels.
