The one thing the Internet has done for me, dear friends, is enunciate with perfect clarity exactly how little attention I pay to anything and everything "online". Every time I log into an old blog like this one, or go to my Facebook account that I never check, I am constantly reminded of the blistering inconsistency by which I conduct myself in cyber "social" situations. I'm actually a rather conscientious kind of fellow: I'm friendly, talkative, often helpful, and usually help old ladies across the street when I'm not too busy plotting the eventual destruction and subjugation of humanity. It's just the kind of tender and caring guy I am.

I might actually kick my ass enough to make me post here more, though, for the simple fact that for the first time in my lengthy involvement with Furry Whatever and Such, the whole FurAffinity community is the best thing I've seen happen. I mean sure, we're a bunch of social outcasts living in a fantasy world of dragons, wolves, and unrealistic sexual expectations, but hey, that's only on the Internet! We can just shut the monitor off and go back to being lawyers, doctors, and web developers any time we want. It was coke in the 80s, speed in the 90s, now we have furry porn for the new millennium.

Remember: smiles, like shadows, creep in corners left to lofty silence - slumbering soft forgotten yet swept to dreaming of summer days and starry nights.

Fred and Marvin were walking through their favorite place in the whole world: a dense tropical jungle in what would eventually be modern day Seattle, millions of years in the future. Instead of skyscrapers and highways they were surrounded by tall trees and dense brush. This suited Fred and Marvin just fine, because they were dinosaurs.

Fred was a fire engine red Tyrannosaurus Rex and Marvin was a bright yellow Stegosaurus with a purple afro. They were best friends and went everywhere together. Today they were in the jungle having lunch and Fred was angry. Fred got angry a lot.

“Marvin!” Fred growled. “I'm angry!”

“I can see that, Fred,” Marvin sighed. “What are you angry about?”

“I was talking to Izzy earlier, and he said that our lives are pointless!” Fred howled, his tiny arms spinning small, useless circles by his sides.

Marvin groaned inwardly. Izzy was an Anklosaurus who lived on the other side of the jungle. Izzy was also an Existentialist who enjoyed getting Fred worked up over philosophical dilemmas that Fred did not have the brain power to understand. Marvin didn't like Izzy very much.

“Fred,” Marvin swallowed the tasty bunch of leaves he was chewing. “Our lives are pointless.”

Fred immediately stopped stomping and hollering, turning to stare at Marvin in horror. “But, but why are we here?!”

“Well Fred, no one can really answer that question except you,” Marvin explained. “We must choose our own destiny. Maybe a better question to ask yourself is: 'are you happy?'”

Fred stood very still in response to the question, shutting his tiny eyes in concentration. Marvin waited patiently until Fred finally opened his eyes and said: “I'm not sure! Why should we be happy if life is pointless?”

Marvin was suddenly struck with a great idea. “Come with me, Fred.”

***

Fred and Marvin emerged from the sweltering jungle into a large, open area. This area would have been quite lovely with its breath-taking view of the mountains and cool, crisp breeze, had it not been for the giant tar pit that dominated most of it. A thick, acrid grease filled the air, and the constant “bloop bloop” of bubbling tar was very distracting.

“I don't like this place, Marvin!” Fred was trying to hide behind the Stegosaurus, which wasn't working very well because he was so much larger.

Marvin, however, was not going to be dissuaded from his purpose for coming here. “Fred, you say you are unhappy with the fact that life is pointless?”

“Y-yes!” Fred looked back over his shoulder towards the jungle. He considered running away, but he really didn't want to leave his friend alone by the sinister tar.

“How would you feel if you were in the middle of that tar pit?” Marvin gestured forward with his head, because he had no hands.

Fred gave a girlish little shriek and danced backwards: “I wouldn't like it at all, Marvin!”

Marvin nodded, “So you're happier being over here with me on solid ground?”

“Yes, I am very happy to not be in the tar pit!” Fred nodded with enthusiasm.

Marvin smiled and began walking away from the bubbling tar, Fred eagerly followed. When they reached the outskirts of the forest Marvin turned and spoke: “You see Fred, happiness and contentment can be found anywhere at anytime. The easiest way to be happy is to simply be aware that something worse hasn't happened to you yet.”

Fred nodded slowly, tilting his head sideways in thought. “I think I understand, Marvin. I should be glad right now, no matter what my problems are, because they could always get worse!”

“Exactly Fred. I'm glad you understand.” Marvin looked up in time to see a brilliant shooting star tear across the sky, directly above them.

“Look Fred, a shooting star. Make a wish.”

And Fred did.

Desolationism is a form of Existential philosophy that postulates that there is always a deeper state of misery that can be achieved in life; that the “bottom of the barrel” is, in fact, not even close to the bottom; that the suffering individual can always fall further into anguish and despair. A state of happiness can then be gained due to “something worse” not yet having occurred to the hapless individual.

Desolationism works on Existential theory; that is, man's “existence” proceeds his “essence”. A man begins life with no set purpose or destiny, and through his interactions with the world assembles an identity and destiny for himself. His existence is more fundamental than any concept of definition for humanity: humans create their own reality.

This freedom creates a double-edged sword. Everyone is free to derive and apply their own meanings to their life and reality, but they also must take responsibility for their own actions, for good or ill. People tend to turn back to theism due to the realization, and consequent fear, of this responsibility. Those that have neither the patience or belief in God tend to develop a paralyzing “Existential Angst”: they are overcome by the fear and inherent pointlessness of life.

The Desolationist responds to this crisis by recognizing that while things may or may not get better, they can always get worse. Because they have not, in that moment, gotten worse, the moment remains pure and the Desolationist finds himself in a state of happy relief.

Consider the situation of a man standing on a street corner having just witnessed a terrible auto accident. The average man will begin inventing clever rationalizations to combat the growing horror within himself after having been party to one of the darker examples of the limitless possibilities of existence. This is a common trap, as any attempt to impose rational order upon a decidedly irrational universe tends to backfire upon the individual in the long run. The Desolationist just accepts the inherent meaningless of existence and is happy a flaming tire from the twisted conflagration of automobiles didn't fly out and hit him in the face.

Desolationism, like Existentialism, rejects reason as the primary source of meaning in life. People make decisions based on what holds meaning for them, rather that what they believe is rational. While common Existentialist thought tends to express the freedom gained from reason and meaning by focusing on the fear and anxiety produced by the knowledge of one's own impending death, Desolationist thought appeals to the individual to do just the opposite: “Be happy while the sun is shining, for any moment could bring rain.” Desolationism still promotes an intense awareness of the meaningless absurdity that is the universe, but does not peck at it constantly like a murder of hungry crows over a dead beaver.

In this respect the Desolationist seeks a “perfectly irrational optimism”. He will hurry from a burning building, decidedly happy when he finds out the street outside is not on fire; he will smile in the face of death because it brings an end to his suffering, whether by oblivion or Elysium. His strength is the quiet assurance that tomorrow will always follow today, no less as varied and virulent with possibilities.

In conclusion, humanity continues to engage in a titanic struggle to shine the light of reason into the endless shadows of irrationality. The Rationalist cheers them on, certain in his heart of the inherent order within the universe. The Existentialist scoffs at such a display, also certain in his heart that not only is the universe completely irrational, but so is the mind of man. The Desolationist buys popcorn and enjoys the show.

Writing is a bit of a quest of me, to impart the unspeakable vision into spoken language across the gulf between my mind and yours. It's an impossible undertaking, I thoroughly recognise this, just as the grail was a completely perilous quest fraught with heavy armour and homoerotic knights. I cannot enumerate the specific set of criteria that exists to form the parallels of thought, the walls if you will, of this vision that rises in the morning and falls away in the evening. I would have as much luck imparting my particular view of the world upon all of you as I would firing a Brazilian tree frog into orbit by stuffing it up the rectum of a twelve year old Chinese boy and lighting a firecracker in his mouth.

There was a time when the world was just a sunset, and within that endless evening existed all the lovely things in the world, like coffee cake, watermelons, and greasy midget porn. The cities spun beyond the reckoning eye, gold and glitter dusted down to twilight, resting wild below mountains of steam and sorrow as those hideous lights filled an empty sky. In moments the work of millennia came to an end, resting upon the busy backs of children and cockroaches sent shivering into the nuclear season.

I was a rock, you a mighty general, with your guns and boys and horses, parading in endless circles from campaign to campaign, the sweet frothy loam of sweat and blood whispered down upon my patient face that last, muggy Summer day. You spoke of utopia, driving those luckless scoundrels irrevocably forward, forcing them to shake the disease that so wrapped their fragile concepts of war and strife. I alone knew of your resounding doubt, I alone knew the unpleasant truth you hid behind your proud words and painted horses. Humanity can never exist in a peaceful world.

We came to rest, among the broken bones of the world, burning and dreaming, fused within our fallen city. I remember your laughter, the way the sunlight was always kind to you, so I was never ashamed to die at your feet. All that moves past us now, drifting down with the sun, evaporating like steam from the endless rivers of consciousness that carry us away. Time stretches away and becomes the prison of our ideals, at once we are forever this moment, standing monuments to a freshly slain epoch.

We play out these echoes across the years, each century that passes, brushing hands, building empires. The cities are all different, but the rubble, the broken bricks and haunted laughter, are the same. Across a thousand points in time, bleached by the sun, cleaned by the crows, waiting out eternity.

Heaven is a quiet place.

Some people ask me, in between screams usually, as I'm carving off their eyelids, what I do for inspiration. It tends to sound like this: "Herr Doctor, what do AAARARRRARAGGHDH you do for RRRAAAAGGGHHH inspir-", well they are generally unconscious by then, but you get the idea. I'm always especially wistful whenever I receive this question, so much so that I'll even lay down the electric drill probe for a moment, and that never leaves my hands while I'm working.

"Dinosaurs in top hats," I always try and be honest with my earnest questioners, I often find having a man's blood on my hands (and clothes and shoes and ceiling) does that to me. "I find the auxiliary oscillation of those gyrating scaly tails and gleeful tapping canes shall put me in rickets evermore, gentle sir!" The screams are my only affirmation, but I know full well they represent a great and hearty amount of approval.

During my afternoon work I often like to turn on the television just to have other sounds besides the yowling and drilling in the lab. While watching an absolutely fascinating documentary on parasites an advertisement for a new weight-loss product caught my attention. Now I'm a rather thin man, personally, and have been all my life (except for that bit part in Caligula back in the 70's when I had to gain a few hundred pounds), but none-the-less I still find the American fascination with crazy contraptions to solve what is essentially "cake-in-mouth" disease.

Most of the commercials are dull, only involving some pill or another, which only has potential if some clever scientist slipped in a retroactive mutagen. But this device, this Lap-Band, this has potential! The surgical procedure consists of attaching a silicon band filled with saline around the upper entry tube into the stomach, constricting the flow of food into the digestive track and creating a smaller "secondary" stomach above the first one, much like a cow! Brilliant! This secondary stomach will, of course, hold much less food which will slowly pass into the original stomach where digestion will continue. And that's not all! The device is connected to a sub-dermal port where saline can either be injected or removed, just in case you have a pesky social gathering like Thanksgiving/Roman Orgy to attend and don't want to seem rude by not eating five times your body weight in Cheesy Things and Fried Chicken. This is truly better living through science! In fact, I was so engrossed in the advertisement that I completely forgot what I was doing at the time, which happened to involve the installation of a tertiary bile gland into a mermaark (cross between a mermaid and an aardvark, scary creatures, all tits, scales, and hair) which would allow it to vomit corrosive liquid at distances exceeding twenty yards. Long story short I had to get another mermaark and a new tie, but it was well worth it! I immediately phoned the company and requested a box of the Bands, my mind is practically boiling over with all the wacky things I'll get up to with them! I haven't been this excited since absinthe was made legal again back in '86.

I'm actually thinking that instead of ratcheting the band around the esophagus I will, instead, place it <i>inside</i>, thus using it to expand the tube leading into the stomach, creating a vastly <i>larger[/i] secondary stomach! What a wonder that would be! Finally humans can experience the intense joy of what it feels like to have multiple stomachs, just like a bovine! Never fear for longing a mid-afternoon snack, just regurgitate a bit of breakfast and chomp on that for a while! Humanity's eventually evolution is finally upon us, my friends, and we all have the Lap-Band to thank for it!

Now that I mull it over I might use a few on some of the less complex experiments - the Bangerghast comes to mind first and foremost. I've been itching to see what prolonged oxygen deprivation does to that variety of critter, and I think this device provides the perfect means to that end. I'll have to expand it a bit; Bangerghasts have extremely thick necks.

Now you must simply pardon me for a bit, I need to go find where Hobbes has crawled off to. His venom is well-suited towards the paralyzation and capture of villages. Ta ta for now.

A couple of things, really. I mean that's usually what it starts as, just a small thing here and there, and, before you know it, there's bags of pudding and half-dead hookers everywhere. There's an important lesson somewhere in that emaciated mountain of love-rotted flesh, trust me. Coke nails and cockroaches, on the surface nothing in common. But dig down, below, both scratching, scrabbling away from legions of tiny men possessed of tiny minds and terrible sympathies. Every rage crashes down about our shoulders, giving us just one more reason to carry that hatred a few extra feet. It may burn the hands, but nothing is sweeter upon the tongue.

People ask me why I hate NASCAR so much, so I tell them: it's all about wasted potential. Just a bunch of cars, all the same, same engines, ZZZZZZMMMMM around the loop, again and again. No weapons, no experimental technology, no questionable shady deals behind the scenes to try and take out other drivers before the race even begins. What needs to happen here? Well I'm gonna fucking tell you. One. Experimental engines. People come to these races and watch them on TV to see the giant, terrible, thunderous explosions. People say they don't, but they really do. So we increase their number with crazy impossible smoking, bubbling, churning, space-warping engine technology that might as easily disintergrate the entire stadium as power some skinny, beer-guzzling redneck's cockmobile for the duration of the race.

Two. Weapons. Or, more specifically, the WEASEL CANNON. Nothing is more dangerous that an angry weasel, particularly if outfitted with tiny crash helmets and fired into the cabs of enemy drivers. The barrell should be ajustable enough to accomidate badgers, muskrats, and stoats into the ammunition considerations, because you just never know when you might be short on weasels but still have a left-over bag of badgers from last night's badger jamboriee. Because the name of this game is always being prepared like a boyscout bringing along a tub of vasoline to do his grandma in the butt on her sixtieth birthday because its grandma's birthday and grandma gets what grandma wants you pug-faced little stallion you drive that throbbing manborghini up grandma's scoot-shoot.

Three. Road hazards. That's right, I want to see god damned landmines, oil-slicks, gravel pits, false tracks of road, illusionary walls, the whole fucking enchilada. America is made up almost exclusively of the distracted obese, so why is this fucking sport so popular? The tide of violence in media is growing steadily larger, like the bruised and swollen shaft of an abused cock. Come on America, you filthy, cum-drenched whore, I'm counting on you.

Shine like razor-wire in the devil darkness.