You stand there in your bleached outer shell, the insides filled with the diseased yoke of deception.

You offer your sugar-coated words, your manicured assurances.

You kiss with cheapened affection and fuck with sterile lust.

I caught myself this time. I caught you too.

I've often struggled with the idea of "destiny," the ultimate "moral truth." The "absolute."

Plato's "Truth." Socrates' claim that virtue was knowledge.

The aspiration that humanity, as one, needs to progress towards this ultimate end. Some tote it as equality for all. Some tote it as peace. Some tote it as democracy.

Truth versus reality. Those who are out of touch with "reality" are those who defy what the majority understands to be the "truth." Semantics.

As a pragmatist, Rorty believes that "to say a belief is...true is to say that no alternative belief is, as far as we know, a better habit of acting."

Reality used to be geocentric, because Truth used to be the Scripture. Truth used to be God's word. You couldn't hide from God.

Reality is now heliocentric, because Truth is now being told by Science. Science is now the universal language. You can't hide from science.

Truth as the goal of inquiry is nothing but wordplay if it lacks coordination and physical action.

Why is it that we need some sort of absolute in order to legitimize what we individually ad collectively find to be desirable or "true"?

Why is it that we need God or law, guided by "reason," to tell us that "thou shalt not kill" is a moral truth? Why do we need to believe that each individual person has some sort of intrinsic ability or understanding to achieve those truths, and that anyone who does not is inhuman or defected? Is it not enough to understand that as a collective, we're able to come to this understanding independent of some larger guiding hand, whether it be the supernatural or reason and logic? Is it not enough to say that we, as a society, or country or world, can affirmatively agree from our own experiences that we do not want to kill, we do not want to war, we do not want to treat one person with more respect than another? I understand that it's important that we do have these cultural and religious references, but they shouldn't be the unquestioned, guiding authority to an ever-changing and volatile society.

My issue with fate and destiny is that it strips away the human ability to achieve. I don't believe that things are meant to happen so that one definitive end can be realized. I believe that things are meant to happen just the way they are as a result of individual actions, allowing for additional choices to be discovered and made. You are destined to be what you make yourself and what others allow you to become.

The doctrine of absolutes serves as much bad as it does good. With enough rhetorical skill and presence, one man's selfish and perverted belief can appear as the truth, leading the blind masses to believe in the necessity of genocides and massacres.

It kind of amazes me on how much discussion there is on the nature of man, whether it be through a philosophical or biological perspective. To me, it's always been an interesting but utterly useless subject. Whether you want to argue that man is naturally animalistic and requires the taming of the law, as Hobbes does, or that man is naturally pure and gradually becomes a helpless victim to the limitations and decay of society, as Rousseau does, the fact is that any sort of these arguments relies on some presupposition, some type of assumed truth. At that point, any argument is futile because there is no neutral perspective or leveled playing ground to start with.

What should be more important is perhaps what we can take away from these abstract theories in application to society as it is. What we can do, individually or collectively, to improve the nature of our conditions. Philosophy never provides answers, but guides thought so that we may better find what we're looking for, or at least progress in some sense towards what we think we want. Fate and destiny don't realize themselves.

Random thoughts. Continue later.

You're in it for the ravaging.

The digging, clawing, ripping, lashing, biting and thrusting.

The pulling, licking, screaming, twisting, writhing and choking.

The slapping, thrashing, wrenching, slamming, pounding and yanking.

You're in it for the ravaging.

The rage, the rage.

The pitifully pleasurable pain.

Patience.

I need to learn it.

The past two months have been such an insane flurry of activity.
This is growing up, I guess. "Growing up.

I came to a realization the other day.
I have not had a functional relationship since... well. It's probably been almost three years. I've had several relationships since. Flings. I've had fun. "Fun." I've let myself do whatever it is that I wanted to do at the time. Nothing holding me back.

My last functional relationship ended because that was what I essentially wanted. No inhibitions. No anchors. No responsibilities. I was curious, and I needed to fulfill it. So he let me go. I left for Paris.
Almost a year later, I found myself with him again, not really knowing why. It was comfortable. It was familiar. It was nice. This time, we ended things because I could not tell him that I wanted to do long distance and that I could do long distance. I had doubts. We stopped after London. He held on for a while. A long while.

He found someone new for the first time since over three years ago. Now we don't speak. I didn't understand for a while. But now I just don't question it. He told me we wouldn't be friends if I didn't try so much. That it was strange to speak to me still, even if he had someone. Our history doesn't just go away, he says. It's been easier for him since I've been away.

This time it's San Francisco. Except I've began everything without him.

I've always let people into my life relatively easily. I guess I thought that people like him weren't hard to find. Well. I'm dead wrong.

I hate to say this.
I fucking hate to say this.

I'm still in love with him.

Except this time, he's not waiting around. It's my turn.

11:54. Train to Haslemere.

There's something strangely serene about riding on a train. The rolling and ever changing landscapes. The soft, steady rumbling of the rails. The steady movement. The impression that you've set foot on all the places the tracks take you. I have no mp3 player with me, which is a first. But the train has its own soundtrack -- the murmurs of the wheels against the tracks; the hum of the air conditioning overhead; the occasional, subdued shriek of passing trains. Then there are the crinkling of newspaper, the clicking of opening and shutting briefcases, the sniffing of itchy noses, and the breaths of laughter from the few engaged in conversation. And let's not forget the announcer and her always polite, articulate voice.

"The next station is -- Woking -- please remember your belongings."

Then the shuffling of feet of passing and new passengers. A new orchestra is thus formed at every platform. The wheels begin to turn, the train picks up its pace, and the soundtrack resumes.

So the surgeon has seemingly quit her.

His desperate, wholehearted and patient attempts to fix her, to keep her there for as long as he could, has only resulted in her withdrawal. Again, and again.
His eyes pleaded with hers.
You can't save me, she would whisper. Again, and again.

So the surgeon has seemingly quit her.

And now, maybe, he no longer has to be anyone's savior. He no longer has to bandage her self-inflicted wounds and guard over her all too natural curiosity for the wilderness. He no longer has to bear the brunt of her denials.

She quit him long ago. And so the surgeon has seemingly quit her.

And now, her wounds have never been so deep. Her dress never so tattered. Her knees never so scarred. Her soul never so utterly and frighteningly lost. But she quit him long ago.

This time, she will find her own way home. This time, she will learn the limits of her damaging curiosity. This time, she will save herself. And she will walk back to the surgeon, head up high, unashamed and whole.

This time, she will love him -- not for his perfect crimson carvings, not for his soft yet unwavering words of hope, not for his healing hands that have too often administered to her pain.

This time, she will not love the surgeon for his art, but for the man: vulnerable, unselfish and flawed.