A FICTION ON MEANNESS

“Man’s inclinations do not naturally lean towards the good, and it is to our benefit to stop trying to convince ourselves otherwise.”

Nights like tonight, she concludes that she does not want friendship from anyone. Conversation, perhaps, with respected elders or authority figures or family; but nothing with anyone from whom she has nothing to learn, or anyone from whom she can learn only those lessons having to do with her own inability to tolerate the ignorance and irksome natures of other people. She knows these well enough, and does not care to be reminded of them, for in the process of being reminded she has to deal with such behaviors yet another time too many. Furthermore, she does not want to have anyone in her life who calls her “baby” or “babe” or “darling”, because she knows that the nature of her heart is not to produce behaviors that others might find endearing. The minute she become somebody’s “darling”, she does everything in her power to convince him that there is nothing endearing about her countenance or her demeanor; that beauty itself is a threat and not an endearment. The more she is adored, the more she wears a scowl, in order to drive men away. If this fails, and if a man is attracted to her scowl, then she finds him to be pathetic, unless he is attracted to it because of the wickedness in his own heart and because of his giddy delight that he experiences in finding hints of wickedness in the heart of another, especially in such a thinly-veiled (and thus somehow more cruel) form. She is able to love a man only when he knows that she would like to use him, and even then only when he responds to this knowledge by using her in return; for her nature is to use, yet her nature is also to be disgusted by any man who allows himself to be used without returning the favor in a like manner. And so she falls in love only with wicked men, and despises men who love wickedness because their hearts are too good.

The only kind of love she has known has been cold, and wicked, and has been with men who did not love her well enough because she was not yet either of these things, and so she spent her days striving to be so; not in order to be loved, but in order to understand those beings whom she had loved, and in order to understand love itself.

She felt that the sort of love that existed in the trenches of her heart was the truest kind, for she believed that it was only worth looking for truth in places of darkness. After all, she reasoned, the answers existing out in the openness of the light have already been seen by man, with little difficulty; and, she mused, judging by the actions of man, little truth or wisdom has been found there. But what answers might await discovery in places of darkness? Countless answers, she reckoned, and their powers are nowhere near finite. Whatever they may be, they have yet to be seen, and in this way they hold more promise than those answers already found. Who knows what piece of wisdom might be found that, coming from such a realm of darkness, might be able to change the very thought processes of the human race, and cause some kind of much-needed global turn of events? And who can say that the wisdom existing in darkness might necessarily be used for a dark purpose? We certainly don’t always use love for good, or laughter for good, or even kindness for good. Every one of us knows a man who has used kindness for his own ends, selfishly and unabashedly, at the expense of another, and for most of us this man is our own self. Is it not better to come to know that which is dark, and cruel, and to seek wisdom there, and to then use this wisdom for good? It seems that good can be drawn from evil just as easily as evil can be drawn from good, and the process of the former is more amiable because it results in good. Furthermore, isn’t it better to be surprised by an amiable outcome in such a way as this than to expect the good and experience only the bad? Malleable men are best convinced that darkness will descend upon them, for if they are convinced of such, they might be inclined to lift at least one finger in order to try to change that which seems to be their imminent fate. Give them a chance to play Gods and they will jump at it, especially if in jumping they may protect their own livelihoods. Do not convince malleable men that they are headed toward good, for they, satisfied and self-assured, will cease to strive for anything at all, and will become both lazy and stagnant. There is no surer way to ensure a society’s downfall, and hasten the journey there, than to convince its members that they are bound for utopia and glory and good.