Honeymoon, or An Ideal for Living A daring look at Lana Del Rey's Honeymoon, the meaning of life, and establishing a self-defined personal identity

I am become determined, fuelled by some fiery desire to change, to truly improve and become something objectively significant. But to be truly better, you must focus on the aspects of your personality that you dislike. To be able to improve as a person, to grow as an individual, and to get closer to approaching your ideal, you must either withdraw from other influence entirely and become a completely solitary individual or else use your interactions with other people as mirrors, to understand yourself through their reflections, i.e. Lana’s Jim, "cause I was filled with poison, but blessed with beauty and rage."

If you choose to interact with someone, therefore, you must never accept incomplete interactions that are not entirely beneficial to you. You must consistently refuse stunted connections, and unless you feel that you are actively learning more about yourself through a given interaction - abandon it. It is only through another’s perspective, within an alien reflection, that you can see yourself in a truly objective manner. This exploration must be intellectual, physical, and thereby complete, and if The Other is unwilling or else incapable of playing this role, they are not the mirror that can empower your growth.

SECTIONS

HONEYMOON A – AGE OF THE AGELESS

In self-imposed exile in an effort to discover myself and the rain is coming down, both on the street and in a little weather box I bought to reflect the inside. Inside and outside, the same – the same as what my goal is, to reflect others within myself. The goal now is the same as it has always been, but it has shifted from the subconscious to the conscious recognition that it is what I want to do. If anyone knows about self-creationism, it is Lana Del Rey. She had consciously crafted Lana Del Rey, from the bits of dissatisfaction stemming from the lack of mysticism, romance, and refinement within Elizabeth Grant. Through exploration of the innate strengths and weaknesses that had defined Elizabeth, she has found a way to focus on changing herself and creating a persona that is perfect in her own view, the sculptress becoming sculpture. “Lies can buy eternity.” [Music to Watch Boys To, HONEYMOON] The most difficult part of this trick is to explore your own personality with the objective detachment of an analyst, to find a way to look at what makes you – you, while retaining the ability to recognize flaws, and consequently to consciously work on their destruction, all in order to metamorphose into something superior. The thing is is that most people cannot bear to look at themselves objectively, refusing to believe that they could be better because that would imply first accepting that they are currently flawed. People refuse to believe that they are anything short of their potential and want to believe that changing themselves necessitates being untrue to yourself. The fact of the matter is that this is completely wrong. Life is not a race against other people for anyone that is not immensely shallow – rather, it is a race of the person that you are at present against the best potential person that you could ever be. It is you vs. the ideal person that you could become. Therefore, it is crucial that one stays resolutely self-focused, understands one's own needs and desires (and the difference between the two), and the reasons why one has precisely the set of both that one possesses. A person must therefore look simultaneously at both their present and future desires, the society that seeks to define them, their individual self, their separation, and their relationships across time, all to gain an understanding of who they are now and how to get from where they are now to where they want to be. It is a mistake to claim that incongruence here is somehow a bad thing for it is this gap between the present and the ideal selves that enables any sort of growth. “We make the rules” [Honeymoon, HONEYMOON]

The person that you are today is not the same person that you were even a year ago. Ironically, even now as I sit in this coffee shop an ocean and a river removed, revising and editing this monstrous review, I have already changed, I am already not the same person who once wrote sulking for bedroom kids. I am become determined, fuelled by some fiery desire to change, to truly improve and become something objectively significant. But to be truly better, you must focus on the aspects of your personality that you dislike. To be able to improve as a person, to grow as an individual, and to get closer to approaching your ideal, you must either withdraw from other influence entirely and become a completely solitary individual or else use your interactions with other people as mirrors, to understand yourself through their reflections, i.e. Lana’s Jim, "cause I was filled with poison, but blessed with beauty and rage." [Ultraviolence, ULTRAVIOLENCE] If you choose to interact with someone, therefore, you must never accept incomplete interactions that are not entirely beneficial to you. You must consistently refuse stunted connections, and unless you feel that you are actively learning more about yourself through a given interaction - abandon it. It is only through another’s perspective, within an alien reflection, that you can see yourself in a truly objective manner. This exploration must be intellectual, physical, and thereby complete, and if The Other is unwilling or else incapable of playing this role, they are not the mirror that can empower your growth.

From another perspective, Lana Del Rey stands for many things simply because she refuses to go along with societal standards, a positive indication that she is an independent, real person. The qualities of self-sufficiency and independence imply a certain solitude, that it has to be lonely at the mountain top. If you are in amongst the crowd, you are by definition mediocre, you cannot be anything significant, you must not be true to your ideal self. Illustrating this is Lana Del Rey’s infamous comment wherein she admitted that “the issue of feminism is just not an interesting concept.” [Rolling Stone, 2014] This simple statement holds meaning for reasons beyond the simple fact that it demonstrates that she is not afraid of backlash, but rather is revelatory of something more innate. In truth, feminism, meninism, affirmative action are all not just degenerate at heart but are also obviously and incontrovertibly irrelevant to any person regarded as an individual. They hold importance only when one regards people through the collectivist looking glass. Indeed, as soon as one understands that each person possesses unlimited potential, one also comes to realize that oppression is not something that can exist and is rather nothing more than a concealer for the unadmitted failure of a given individual to live up to one’s ideal self. Naturally, the knee-jerk reaction of most people upon being told that they are objective failures is outrage and blind indignation. Rather than stoically and nobly accepting responsibility for their own failures, most choose instead to whine about how they did not have the same opportunities as someone else, thereby solidifying their mediocrity through that very act. The truth is that opportunities are absolutely irrelevant and a false concept – anyone can achieve their goals if they fight for what they want with sufficient ferocity. “I always got the sense that he became torn between being a good person and missing out on all of the opportunities that life could offer… and in that way, I understood him and I loved him.” [National Anthem, BORN TO DIE]

I am doing rather well. I am working a lot; I am chasing my passions with as much gusto. The thing that I needed to feel good was to apply myself to something that mattered to me, to develop a better understanding as to what is significant, and to abandon everything that did not matter to me, anything that did not directly benefit my growth. According to legend, Lana had left her parental home, a life of luxury, privilege, and parental coddling to move into a trailer park in New Jersey. Unsurprisingly, the people there had no ability to influence her because she neither respected nor looked up to them. Similarly, I got my own little place in a Canadian small town. I have a definitive two-year plan to leave Canada, but I finally understand the reason that I had left to come to Waterloo was because I needed to discover myself, free from the influence of others. Although I suspect that the initial decision for both Lana and me had been subconscious, I had, over time, grown to understand that I did not hate this place because it did not turn out to be what I thought it would be, that it was not due to unmet expectations. Rather, what I had done was specifically and intentionally chosen it so as to be free. To be in a place that is almost completely devoid of any other people worthy of respect means that you have no choice but to move closer to your inner self, to grow closer to an understanding of who you are innately. “We were born to be free.” [Art Deco, HONEYMOON]

in the rain

staying up to be exhausted

yet romantic

pretty postcard town

or inescapable bear bait

would be wrong to say it's one or the other.

it's the duality that defines them.

town couldn't be a postcard without being a trap, too busy, glitzy, glow and din of nightclubs

staying up if it didn't have a cost wouldn't be romantic

and so I'm in the same town a year on, a few buildings over a few stories up

and yet so much has changed

which is it - a horrible stagnation or a triumphant rebirth. both [2015-10-22, Personal Notes]

Is it fear that drives us ever on or is it what locks us up in place – frozen as the horrible monster of time gains on us? It is difficult to say even now whether my staying in Waterloo for this long and planning to stay for even longer is necessarily a mistake. If we hold it as true that a rebirth of self is only possible with no outside influence – then a man can only discover himself through systemic avoidance of everything that deigns to influence him through osmosis. For somebody who has lost so much of himself through gaining so many layers, an onion rather than a human, it takes even more time to peel them off to see. The peeling is a painful process – it brings tears to the eyes and yet it is necessary. If you do not know whether your core is hollow and rotten, you can never hope to fix it, you will never begin working on improving yourself which is the only worthy aspiration that an individual can have.

And so what is that innate self? As an artist who intentionally attempts to be mysterious and elusive – Lana’s desires, wants, and needs are often obscured, and little winks and tongue-in-cheek quotes are often interpreted as being far more sincere than they really are. Lana has perpetually refused to apologize for the things that she finds interesting and attractive, which is a highly commendable trait. “He hurt me but it felt like true love.” [Ultraviolence, ULTRAVIOLENCE] I want to create something that I would feel is significant, I want to ignore circumstances and to mold myself to be as close as possible to my ideal. There is a certain romance in a tough romance – in the completeness of dominance and submission, in pure, uncontrolled passion, in the embrace of one’s own fetishes and desires. You should never feel any shame in taking what you desire, just as you should never ever apologize for what you want. If you want something, there should be no explanation, want what you want what you want. Uncompromisingly. If you find being called ‘daddy’ is attractive, then be open about it, treat your relationships transparently. If you want something and do not get it – say it rather than mope about it. If you want something and you do take it - deconstruct why you wanted it and what you got out of it through possession. Rather than analyzing things out of shame, embrace that which is true to your ideal self. It is better to stand out and be passionate rather than be a peon vanilla in the crowd. Lana metamorphosed from a blonde starlet shyly performing to tiny audiences to a persona that sells out huge concerts. How could that not be an achievement?

I have spent and continue to spend an enormous amount of time and energy on trying to understand my own wants and needs. Central to them is the desire to be surrounded by people I can regard as equals. Whilst this process of self-discovery has been extremely productive, the idea of being with people that I can respect and from whom I can find inspiration is intensely appealing and will be the logical next step after I get a base level rough sketch idea of what I want. Each person has different things that are useful to them for growth: for one, it could be a trailer park, for another, a luxury hotel. There is no contradiction here. The phenomenon which is amusing (or, alternatively, dark and depressing when it results in inevitable tragedy), is when people recognize the growth of another, see that they are getting something out of an experience, and therefore resolve to replicate that enviable experience by simply copying precisely what they saw the other person do as close as possible, so that they may receive that desirable growth experience for themselves. The problem with this is that what is useful for one, is, at best, empty for another, if not harmful to the point of total annihilation. These sorts of things are not something that can be forced. I know that a return to Manhattan is the immediate next step to fulfill myself, to find further roots within myself, but this is a personal journey. “Now I am in LA, and its paradise” [Radio, BORN TO DIE]

HONEYMOON B – THE BEST BELIEVE IN THE BEST

I want the fashion, to be amongst people who can appreciate what is beautiful and can understand haute couture, that the price of something is not the definition of its quality, the reasons why you would buy an Ann Demeulemeester dress over an H&M one. In possession – in XS – is our sin. I want the music-focused people, the ones who can recognize art, the ones who do not enjoy merely dipping their toes into the pool, but the ones who dive into it, heedless of whether they can swim - those who live it, create it, write it, who are enveloped by it. Constant events – from concerts to shows to speakeasies to restaurants and back to fashion shows. “Cases of Bacardi chasers, chasing me all over town.” [Off to the Races, BORN TO DIE] In seeming paradox, there is nothing wrong in finding people that inspire and push you, people to work with and write for, as long as you are not betraying and losing yourself in this pursuit. It is the difference between trying to change yourself for someone else and discovering yourself through the utilization of someone else. The people that you can respect, admire, be inspired by, need to be abundant so as to not value any individual one of them too much, remembering that they are co-conspirators – not bodies to which one is chained. It comes with the space, the absolute enormity of the city, the anonymity and interchangeability of everyone. Understanding yourself also comes from experiences – Lana’s value is that she has plenty of things that make up who she is now. You must have a variety of experiences: choosing to ride across the country by motorcycle, to dabble in sex trade, pecking both at glamour and depravity from the different ends of society. “Hello, heaven, you are a tunnel lined with yellow lights.” [Yayo, KILL KILL] The person who is insulated and has never gone beyond their little perfect suburban row of houses is just as pathetic and disgusting as someone who has lived their entire life begging on the streets. To self-actualize you need to have experienced clubbing on cocaine, stimulating self-actualizing sex, endless interesting conversations with interesting people (which are all really the same thing).

Most importantly, the thing that is missing from a majority of people is the drive – as opposed to the, at times, horrible and selfish, but self-actualizing people who are ruthless and amoral in their desire to succeed. The people who are fighting for their own end and who refuse to compromise in the pursuit of their goals are becoming increasingly rare. The biggest thing that disconnects me most from my current surroundings and by far the biggest thing that I despise in the people by whom I am currently surrounded is that they are not willing to fight for their wants. In our ever more PC culture, what is increasingly become the norm is accepting circumstances – finding the optimal excuse for your own failure, rather than accepting fault for it, identifying the precise way that life was so gosh darn unfair to you. It is because I am a woman, it is because I am a minority, an immigrant, and so on and so forth forever. The fact of the matter is that every single person has unlimited potential and that is what is exceedingly frightening, that is what average people refuse to accept. Per Camus, est-ce donc du bonheur, cette liberté épouvantable ? [L'ÉTRANGER] Accepting ultimate freedom of choice and will necessitates that you also accept total responsibility for every success and every failure – regardless of the advantages or disadvantages that you have experienced in your life. This is the fault in feminism and all other similar movements that seek to provide blanket excuses for individual failures. Collectives do not exist. All such movements seek to eradicate that accursed individualism, that very eternal freedom to succeed and thus, conversely, the freedom to fail. Naturally, it is comforting to say that "this is the best that I can do," but to do so honestly is to also deny yourself success. It is settling, it is defeatism, it is choosing life within this created limited reality. It is ultimately choosing to accept your circumstances and thus, it is choosing mediocrity. Death is preferable to settling to the man of noble spirit, and in some ways, Lana's provocative proclamation of “I wish I was dead already” rings true for what could be more beautiful and Dorian Gray-esque than eternal youth encapsulated by it? [The Guardian, 2014] What is important to do is to learn to balance out your potential and the level of effort that you have put into the accomplishments that you have obtained against how much those accomplishments matter to you. To do the best that you can and to fail is still a failure if the thing that you failed at was and remains important to you. The only way that you can feel dissatisfied whilst doing better than your peers, is if you do not respect the people whom you are trouncing. I know that I would rather be mediocre amongst the best rather than be the best amongst the mediocre. Even if I were to absolute thrash my current competition, it would still remain completely meaningless as the competition is only relative, not absolute. “But Hollywood legends will never grow old” [Terrence Loves You, HONEYMOON]

Is it absolutely necessary for a person to be successful that they find someone else with whom to share their success? The most extremist individualists swear the answer is negatory, but it is in human nature to not want to be alone, to have somebody to recognize your successes and failures, to hold you accountable. Additionally, something that MGTOWs and strict individualists do not respect are the potentially massive benefits from entering into a partnership. The right person would be someone provocative - a person who must be an independent, an individual whole, a monolith that is not a yes-man but an equal, a challenger. Together two such people would be more than they would be on their own. The right resounding force would only need to wish something for it to become real. Is this but a pipe dream? No, because statistics are on our side - with seven billion people, at least some of them must be both significant enough to be individual somebodies while simultaneously being halfway bearable as people. Some of these meritocratic aristocrats must consequently be ideal matches for one another – these making up the ‘power couples’ that can and have existed. And yet, I am not yet on the search for that - I would prefer to self-discover and become an individual before entering a binding commitment to mutual growth. This is because if someone is not yet fully developed as a self, they cannot possibly be a good potential partner. This explains the American culture of divorce. When one rushes into a relationship, marriage indeed becomes a pair of handcuffs, rather than an immaculate sculpture immemorializing a bond.

And so again with the leitmotif - to prepare oneself for the future, one must also consider the past. It is constant temptation for an idealist-romantic to try to construct something out of a person that is not part of their innate nature. “But I lost myself when I lost you, but I still got jazz when I've got those blues, I lost myself and I lost you too” [Terrence Loves You, HONEYMOON]. Plenty of people with potential refuse to themselves realize it. Success, just like failure, is a choice, and a stubborn one at that. There are numerous ways that one can choose to not succeed – one can run from it through anti-intellectualism, alcoholism, through running away from opportunity by moving instead into Canadian pastoral towns to escape the childish insignificance that they had felt in the great cultural cities of the world. As much as success is to some a glowing green light, ever seductive across the bay, to others - it is a monster, a horrible foreboding sign of death, mayhem, competition. It is far safer and more comfortable to never try and thus to never fail. It is a tempting quicksand but one I know well, having sunk into it as a youth. Some people would prefer to never try and to never fail, rather than to risk trying their hardest and still being faced with defeat. It's trying, it's awful, it's sad, but we can't force them out of their own choice. We must simply abandon them as lost causes, like hole-filled boats in a storm, leave the wisemen to their tubs, the drowning off our Malthusian rafts, and save ourselves, save ourselves, in hope that we may someday find somebody that still has the will to live.

It is through our trials that we get to know ourselves. It feels like it was a century ago that I began writing this review. There have been losses and failures and wins and falls. Revolutions have begun and ended, the things that seemed significant were revealed to be pointless, and the things that seemed pointless became critical. I lost my job; I dropped one relationship and was booted by fate out of another one. The autumn leaves were replaced with deep snow, mild discomfort becoming bone-chilling cold. I write this in a different city than where I began and I at once feel without a doubt that life has changed and yet remains the same. The tragedy of losing a steady income became insignificant. [Personal Notes, 2016-01-05]

Ironically, an aspect of humanity leads to the case that when we find somebody who we feel is an equal, it terrifies us. I ran into somebody who was at once poison and antidote, a funhouse mirror version of myself. It is endlessly interesting to look at yourself from the side, but it is important to remember that overly lustful looking will lead to doom in and of itself. After all, Narcissus thought he was looking at someone else too. Then again, my reflection can never hurt me because I know it cannot be had, not really, not sincerely. The mirror only contains your image as long as you are close, but nevertheless, it is still vital to remember that it is an illusion, that it is not really real. Through studying our reflection empirically, we can learn more about ourselves but nothing about anybody else. It is fun, it is exciting, and it leads to personal growth, but it cannot be said to be a social interaction. Lessons can be gleaned, but never applied – like studying a dead language. And so, in the current clime defined by the willful absence and avoidance of true relationships, one must stay open and free. “I feel free when I see no one, and nobody knows my name” [God Knows I Tried, HONEYMOON] Lay down ground rules for the self to ensure that exploration continues, even if up or into a mountain. Make yourself abide by strict laws for self-development: for instance, “no more commitment even if I fool myself and think I want it.” No more saying ‘love,’ much more making it. Say “let's keep this casual” - see many people - for jealousy is insecure and childish. Say, "I know I fuck them best and if I don't then I'll get better." It will whip you to fuck, and you will fuck with whips to whip back around. Jealousy is the mark of a man uncertain of his superiority. One must learn to embrace it. The ideal self versus the current, ad infinitum, in every sense. It does not matter what your present self wants, the ideal self's desires supersede.

This is mirrored by the duality of the American Dream and the great “Land of Opportunity” and the very genuine stagnation, suburbia, and the near-universal acceptance of being middling. This has become so profound that an American leader has literally adopted restoring greatness as their campaign slogan. If America has lost its luster and greatness and shine, it was through the choice of individual Americans to settle for picket fences, unrepaid loans, and four failure families. Happiness is akin to soma, sadness is not happiness, happiness is contentment, and one must have contempt for feeling content in order to be a person of any content. What is easy is never right and what is worthwhile is never easy. But when burgers are $3 a piece, how can we feign surprise that the nation is obese, disgusting, and choking out culture with all the strength left in their pudgy little arms?

And to what does the superior person cling rather than to the burger? They set individualistic goals, little mountains for them and their ego to surmount so that they may gaze out from their summits. As I write this, I am fulfilling at least two of my 16 goals for the year. I am perched in a tiny but endearingly cute Icelandic café, trapped behind a full crowd of stone-faced Icelandic adults. I feel the freedom of being thousands of miles from my home base, the tension of alien culture and landscapes, but most of all I feel excited, alive, on fire with the energy of individualism. I am free of society by being within it, I am in touch with my self by challenging myself. Paradoxical living is the way for growth and being silent in the place of noise is being an artist, while being loud in the place of quiet is the unmistakable sign of the lack of either artistry or refinement.

16 for 16 Goals

1. Decide on and make progress on bachelor

2. Write something significant to me

3. Find someone to grow with mutually

4. Get more involved with artist community, perhaps integrate into another city music scene and write reviews for and party with people that feel significant

5. Visit a sex club alone

6. Go to Burning Man

7. Do more alternative modelling

8. Look up and see other stars, discover some revelation through that with other people in New Zealand at a hostel, and/or set up for an exchange program

9. Do more and better drugs – radical psychedelics

10. Do more and better sex – radical dominance

11. Get Inderal prescription as well as more X

12. Read and write a whole lot more - reading allows me to better define myself and writing allows me to discover the things I need to define

13. Go to sleep earlier, it's free happy drugs

14. Buy even less, travel even more

15. Leave the continent at least once

16. Find something - a spot, a person, a drug, an activity: a base, that always makes me feel safe and happy no matter what. Something I can return to.

...we appear to be different, but we know ourselves to be the same...

HONEYMOON C – LA CRÈME VS CELLULITE VS CELLULOID

Of course each individual has their own set of unique goals and strivings, with valuable individuals sharing nothing of the same due to the fact that their virtue stems from unflinching distinctiveness. Expanding upon this, society as a distinct group entity is a mythical entity. Society is indeed a collection of individuals, certainly, but that does not mean that a society can have feelings, norms, standards, or anything that should in any way affect the strong, devout, and dedicated individualist. Recall Socrates with his hemlock. Genders are equal as society does not exist. The individual, whether they identify as a male, a female, or a Mars lander, can achieve anything – they are not limited except insofar as by their own drive. Whether or not certain people have it easier or harder is utterly irrelevant. Past success does not guarantee future success for its issue, and similarly, it has time and time again been demonstrated that people that came from the most mediocre circumstances have built up and cultivated their own objective success, defined individually as it is. Feminism is retarded by virtue of trying to improve things for all women, which necessarily implies crushing underfoot the blooming success of particular individual women. Mediocre people are defined by their fear of being undefined, by their desire to identify with some subsection – by their need to find a flag to hoist – of feminism, of nationalism, of shared passion for a genre, and so on and so forth. The true individual must remain undefinable, impossible to pigeon-hole into one comfortable little round pit.

For this reason, ut aiunt, “social issues” or gender politics and the like disgust and bore both Lana and me. In truth, there is only the individual - he who has or has failed to improved life for himself – the individual always bearing the weight of that unlimited potential. The individual must refuse to apologize for who he chooses to be whilst also refusing to recognize the fight for freedom (of expression, for instance), rightly regarding it as an unnecessary undertaking. The individual’s existence, or rather will to be, is proof enough of ultimate freedom. Whenever a person chooses collectivism, they choose to provide demonstrable evidence that they possess no meritable value as an individual – a fact that makes such people conveniently and consistently easy to identify, such as Trudeau with his feminism, or, equivalently, Sanders with his socialism.

The ideal society is one that dares not to deign to destroy the individual. Rather, it serves to play to the strengths of the strong, to allow each meritable person to do whatever they want to specialize in, ultimately gauging individuals based on the actual value of what they want to contribute and rewarding them commensurately. This comes as a by-product of the embracement of the separation of the different castes – the great being grouped with the great, eternally separate from those that fail to attain said greatness. Such a society would never punish a successful businessman with higher taxes and would never artificially inflate the value of a no-good artist simply because they cannot make it on their own merit. Embracing such principles would guarantee individual success whilst preserving the liberty and desires of individuals and remaining respectful of their goals. If an artist is good, they ought to be rewarded based on the merits of their talents as reflected by their work alone, and if they are not – then they should not be rewarded for their efforts whatsoever. Instead, they can choose to pursue painting as a hobby if they so desire, in turn empowering them to maintain their focus on that which they can do well, their most productive and useful work. The problem with contemporary society is that those who fail are rewarded for failure with pats on the head paired with handouts, while those who succeed are punished by being made to pay for all the leeches and lollygaggers. If one chooses to fail (recalling that failure, just like success, is an individual choice), one ought to be expected to pay the price for this choice. Objectively speaking, different people will contribute in different ways and to different extents and therefore, it is natural that the remuneration for different people would be different. A visionary like Elon Musk is worth a hundred, if not a thousand average people and it is logical that he would be rewarded respectively. The best part of all this it that it would happen organically, with no interventions necessary. In a healthy society, what is valuable is necessarily rewarded and what has no value is disregarded and discarded. When each person makes their own individual judgements of value, it is ensured that all manner of value is recognized, preventing the erosion of the individual for the questionable goal of building a society.

On the topic of character creationism in opposition to societal erosion, individual goals and the understanding of underlying emptiness both, over time, grow more refined in a society properly maintained, thereby enabling individuals to better understand why it is that they feel unsated. In a sick society, it is sadly the case that while most people are conscious of at least a vague sense of ennui, few can understand why they feel the way that they do, a problem largely addressed through heavy-handed administration of Zoloft. Self-growth, as established earlier, is about targeting that which you feel is missing. In other words, it was about whatever it was that Lizzy Grant or I were missing – whatever it was that was added to our respectively developed characters – “I’ve got nothing much to live for.” [God Knows I Tried, HONEYMOON] With time, our goals and our emptiness grow more refined, we gain a better understanding of why we feel unsated. Our baser or more basic needs are met and then things go one of two ways. Behind door one lies an endless, meaningless pursuit of beating others on the more banal side of things: fucking, earning, doing more, going to more places. Behind the second lies a search far more subdued and subtle. There, it is not about surpassing others in terms of those basic aspects but rather about finding what matters most to you, that which may very well seem insignificant to others. That is the path to real self-discovery, leading to the things that if achieved become (or remain) significant but nevertheless remain pure in their self-introspection. They do not depend on you for their significance. Significance is a quality that is inherent and present in said objects in and of themselves.

And so, what is it that Lana or I actually want? It pertains to the desire to be everything at once, to be an all-rounder. Due to the limitless nature of human potential, any meritable man would refuse to be just one thing. That very disconnect between the current reality and the potential that I have is the thing that both whips me endlessly forward but is simultaneously a major source of my discontent. It particularly puts strain on interactions because when everything means everything and has this illimitable potential, it threatens to balloon and float away. It is not the case that everyone seeks atypicality, exceptionality - for many, it reminds them painfully strongly of the fact that they do not or did not exist in this way. To generalize, it ends up falling into one of two broad categories: both defined by the fear of accepting a part in something meaningful, although one is more reflective, while the other is more proactive. From the reflective standpoint, choosing something that could be significant must carry along with it a dismissal of everything that was not. To quote from the quintessential description of the American Dream, Gatsby requests of Daisy: “Just tell him the truth — that you never loved him — and it's all wiped out forever.” The reason that that request is impossible for an average person to fulfill is not due to the value that they profess to ascribe to the people from their past. Rather, it is because they are not willing to admit their past failures. For example, when a woman of a certain type transitions from her early 20s to her mid-30s, her past may start to haunt her – the previous mindless, endless sexual interactions with frat boys at parties (say) may come to light and may be compared against the ostensibly civilized, boring present that has suddenly materialized and taken the place that the Greeks used to occupy underneath her. Of course, no respecting mate of either gender ought to accept past transgressions and yet through that same denial, the average person refuses to apologize for things of that sort. The problem is is that the past is of course a product of an individual's past choices, and the consequences of those actions may eventually catch up with the person, generally in their 30s. Accepting that responsibility means coming to terms with one’s objective inferiority, acceptance of being middling, undesirable, used up. Your past is your choice, but the consequences of those choices are also your responsibility. When put like that, of course it is easier to drown yourself in denial, in blaming everybody but yourself. Accepting responsibility for your own actions comes with a side dish of accepting that all problems you have are also your own fault and nobody else’s. When one’s dissatisfaction with their current circumstances becomes apparent, that is a very sobering reality, but a necessary one indeed.

And as described in Plato’s Republic, the enlightened have the natural human desire to share their enlightenment, an instinct which, unfortunately, tends to be met only with the frustrated wrath of the unenlightened, of fear and loathing, of beastly guttural screams emanating from the gutter. The desire to provoke a response, the dream of a sort of intellectual-cum-societal awakening is near universal amongst the very small societal subsection that is composed of individuals that are cognizant of their own individual selves. However, due to the fact that the majority of society is a lost cause – these attempts to bridge the gap inexorably fail. In order for someone to discover that they have stepped in dogshit, they have to themselves smell it and find it on their shoe. Other people pointing out the smell would only lead to the person’s resistance to the fact that they likely smell like shit. Nevertheless, I cannot say that it is easy to give up on all attempts to educate others. The truth is that caring about how other people can affect your life or how they respond to your thoughts and beliefs only leads to a diminishing of the most important thing a person can have which is their awareness of their individual self. If one becomes overly self-aware, this can lead to a giving up of one’s individual ideals, which, regardless of reason, is the telling mark of a mediocre, unprincipled person. Exposing that another person is absolutely wrong about most of the things that they have accepted as truth and that which they believe to be their own original beliefs serves to as a sheet in the face of a bull. Rather than experiencing a grand realization, the bull charges the matador. Behaving in such a manner, therefore, is a surefire way to not only provoke attack, but also to risk losing your own superiority: “We won’t survive, we’re sinking into the sand.” [High by the Beach, HONEYMOON] How can someone that has accepted other people’s beliefs as their own ever accept that this is what they have done to themselves? There are innumerable ways in which one can be corrupted: a man can become a white knight cuckold by allowing himself to be influenced by feminist society, an exceptional individual can become a liberal SJW, a blue-blooded individual could allow themselves to be subjected to impecunity. Evidence of this can be seen all around – the proof is in the pudding – look at how many men pay child support for other men’s children or raise the children of others as their own, remark the destruction of Western Europe through their acceptance of the Muslim horde. Indeed, nearly everything that masquerades as progress is regression and constitutes nothing apart from a further corruption of long-instilled civilization-defined ideals. By tearing those up, we destroy not ‘oppression,’ but rather the last bastions of our civilization. The truth stings, the truth hurts, and the worst part is that provoking and stinging the bull ultimately leads only to a goring for the provocateur. Playing the gadfly leads only to a venti hemlock Frappucino. Thusly, the inevitable conclusion is that the best that can be done by the better class is to succeed as much as possible for themselves and let the lost lemmings be lemmings, and let them love their charge forward, right off the edge of the cliff. In some isolated cases, there are small signs of hope, such as say the long overdue resurgence of the National Front in France.

Returning to the two aforementioned classes:

And what exactly differentiates Lana and I from those middling, from the two classes, from mediocrity? It is a fact of life that for everything that you decide to take on, you decide to give up everything else – commonly referred to as opportunity cost in economics. Thus, the choices that one makes over time come to define a person, specifically not by the things that one did, but by the things one didn’t do. The problem is that every single time that someone chooses the normal, the logical, the boring choice, which appeals to the base and despicable senses of safety and self-preservation, one necessarily gives up the exciting, thus becoming more boring in a gradual, insidious process. The people that come to stand out from the crowd are the very people that lack a sense of self-preservation. They typically do the opposite: they choose the dangerous and the exciting rather than the typical. Of course, over the span of many years, these experiences add up, and in the end, one becomes a person that has lived, one who has taken part in a much more diverse set of things. This in turn shapes a person into somebody that craves that high – that needs those very same types of experiences to grow, to feel alive, the crack of the whip of danger echoing in the night. It is only when those people are trapped in situations wherein there is nothing to lose, in which there is no present, real, and active danger, that those people start to shrivel and decay. From my experience in exile in a tiny university village as opposed to even Toronto (yuck), and in Lana’s sheltered, walled-off communities of her childhood – these things do wither us. The ones that end up being not mediocre are the ones that cannot survive mediocrity – that seem to lack that instinct for safety and self-preservation.

HONEYMOON D – DEITY OF THE DISTINCTIVE

That macabre effect of stagnation is similar in nature to the pain of privilege, the very real gap in satisfaction for those that have all of the lower levels of their Maslow pyramids complete. The higher you go, the more difficult it gets, and it is so lonely at the top of the mountain. Indeed, the problems of those who are homeless, starving, or in danger are easily solved. It is simple to reverse those circumstances and that is why the struggles of those that grow up in more savage cultures but then move to the developed world seem to disappear so quickly. However, when the underlying cause for one’s suffering is rather the need for self-actualization, that is not a problem that is as easily resolved. Indeed, the more intelligence a person is cursed with upon birth – the more acute his suffering subsequently becomes due to an increased awareness. It is far more difficult for him to let go and cease thinking which is the actual desired goal when a person drinks or uses substances. How many heiresses do you know with substance abuse problems?

On the other hand, the very same chemicals – the alcohol and drugs – can be used to drive further exploration of self. This is a common theme both historically with various members of the crème de la crème as well as with Lana Del Rey. Without a sense of self-preservation, a person is able to live more hedonistically and therefore gain access to that greater wealth of experiences, including the use (and abuse) of various substances. A person is defined by the experiences they have chosen. While the average person seeks to have the safety and comfort of those experiences that lead up to an increasing sense of security for the future, the non-average person is certain of the inevitability of their own success and instead chooses to have experiences that add flavor to who they are. This is the nature of those difficult-to-define qualities that make them stand out and give them allure. Analyzing counter-culture communities across different pallets of society, from fetish clubs to private interest clubs, to yuppie hipsters from Highline to Brooklyn – all those different groups, many of which are often at conflict with one other but which nevertheless all unite to loathe the mainstream and middle class – they all likewise share in their preference of unique and memorable experiences over achievements. When you compete and are driven forward, one ought not be baited into competing against the taller white picket fence of his neighbor, but focus rather on how they are performing in the sempiternal battle against their potential self.

It is the baser needs that are universal – basically everyone who is not deluding themselves or practicing self-denial wants to eat well, be sexually sated, and to travel and have diverse experience. The higher needs on Maslow’s Pyramid are far more individually discrepant – some want to create a historically significant film, some want to write a great novel, some wish to simply attain objective wealth and establish a dynasty. These ends are necessarily different for different people and yet they are common in the sense that the worthier an individual, the more necessarily lofty their aspirations. As people recognize the unlimited potential of their ideal self, they must consequently adjust their goals. As they draw nearer to the goals that they had previously set, the bar shifts up again. This is why the glass ceiling is non-existent, an abhorrent, self-serving corruption of a creation for those who want to believe in some artificial limitation. It is comfortable for a mediocre person to feel that this is it, that this is the best that they could ever possibly do, but this is but a lie that they tell themselves. In truth, there is no limit and this what is terrifying – to know that no matter what you have achieved, there is always more that you can do. This is the curse of freedom. This is not to be mistaken for dissatisfaction or something sad at all – for it is this limitless greed for more, this need for achievements ever more grand that distinguishes the best of us from all the rest. And so, “Old age – not death – terrifies me.” Indeed, what can be more horrible than being ostensibly still alive and relatively well but to no longer be able, or to no longer be able to want to be driven ever onward. The person that is content to be stationary is a person that is content to die there on the slope – that is fine with never pushing for the summit that rises further out of reach that day. Those who climb must climb in solitude.

Despite the knee-jerk label of sociopathy, I admit that I have never felt the desire to be connected with others unless I receive a direct personal benefit from that connection. Simply put, other people bore me unless they stimulate me in some way. This is a common sentiment among those who aspire to be greater than their peers, who desire to be surrounded by the best people. Of all my goals, a desire for community that is equally aspirational, motivated, and thus successful is almost chief amongst them, as is the case for Lana Del Rey. I want to be an equal partner to somebody who is equally hungry, starving for personal success, and insatiable in that her pursuit. A power couple, to put it in abrasively common vernacular; an aristocratic power community, to put it more aptly. However, this desire for connection with the limited few does not at all mean that I must also have a desire for connection in general, one that could be fulfilled by just anybody. Generally speaking, 'pickiness' is a characteristic shared by the well-bred and those that otherwise end up meritable. Being selective in choosing the people with whom one associates is crucial – success attracts success, and those with successful friends are usually successful themselves. If one associates with ugly people, one becomes ugly oneself. Conversely, if one is not selective in the company they keep, they risk being dragged down to the lowest common denominator, to be corrupted by vile ideas like the acceptance of settling, and to be held away from their self-actualization. Only those people that drive us forward can deserve to stay in contact with us, all others must and do inevitably fall by the wayside. Interestingly, this happens organically as those people feel the difference between you and so it is a process that unfolds autonomously, without any need to push for it to occur.

As for ordinary people, their trials and tribulations are utterly no concern of mine nor is it the concern of anybody of merit. I have long been waiting for reality to catch up with me – for me to pay the price for all the things that I have gotten way with in the past – but that time of great reckoning still has not arrived. I have never been made to feel responsibility for any of my actions or misdeeds, and thus through the process of affluenza, I myself no longer believe that I will ever be held responsible, unless I choose to fall upon the sword of responsibility myself. All other people and their accomplishments are utterly irrelevant to me – it literally does not matter whether or not someone contributes something, really. If a person does not contribute, it is easier for me to dismiss them. If they do, then I can only stand to learn from them. At the end of the day, other people do not concern me enough for me to worry about them. Why would I want to actually help somebody? Social issues and the like are utterly no concern of mine with the exception of “I scratch your back; you scratch mine” instances. Some people have worse circumstances than others – that does not mean that every (read nearly all) youngster would be worthwhile to save. Even if the majority of natural resources were depleted – I shrug and say, "So what?" It is entirely plausible that life would actually be easier for me in such a world. Perhaps not, but regardless I would succeed in such circumstances if I am indeed worthy of life and liberty. If I could not, then it would be my own failure, and my own fault. Circumstances are circumstantial. The Great Depression was a most marvelous time of lucrative opportunity for the worthy.

My current main position is resident provocateur, an agent provocateur, if you will. My aim is to provoke something in my readers and followers – and I can, without fear, say that I have, as judged both by the metamorphosis of those who I have grown close to and the death threats of those who are too far gone to be changed. I thank them both. Mutual love and connection – this rings a little idealistic to me. I do not fear judgement and I believe in what I believe absolutely. Mutual vulnerability can be beneficial, sure, but if you reveal yourself to each other, then no trust is necessary. It is in the common interest of both people to not hurt the other due to the ability of each to hurt themselves – a Cold War love of sorts. Mutually assured destruction is a wondrous concept, yea?

Intense? Perhaps. I wish not to be somebody else, but rather to remain a constantly improving version of myself. The authentic self is an illusion – we are constantly morphed by our surroundings, but at least I am in control of my osmosis. I feel no empathy towards other people’s happiness – jealousy and inspiration, sure – but happiness for their success – never. I am the exact opposite, akin to a planet – cool and collected on the outside, a constant fire within. Settling for something less than ideal is impossibly and infinitely sad. “I'm rising up, rising up, my hot love's full of fire.” [Freak, HONEYMOON]

Idealism is omnipresent amongst the people that are worthy of remark. Those that dismiss the worthy are the same that proclaim their love for Sanders, and the 99% - hiding their own inferiority and disgusting mediocrity behind the shell of collectivism. One Trump is worth a thousand, nay a million idle poor damned socialists. The ones who are at the top are deserving it either on their own merit or on the merit of their parents, either of which is justified. The mob is the opposite – they have shown that they deserve nothing. Ayn Rand is one who knows love, the human spirit, all that makes one fulfilled and thus capable of leading a worthy of life. Her definition of the ultimate value is precise and accurate. Quoting from her Objectivist Ethics: “The maintenance of life and the pursuit of happiness are not two separate issues. To hold one’s own life as one’s ultimate value, and one’s own happiness as one’s highest purpose are two aspects of the same achievement. Existentially, the activity of pursuing rational goals is the activity of maintaining one’s life; psychologically, its result, reward and concomitant is an emotional state of happiness. It is by experiencing happiness that one lives one’s life, in any hour, year or the whole of it. And when one experiences the kind of pure happiness that is an end in itself—the kind that makes one think: ‘This is worth living for’—what one is greeting and affirming in emotional terms is the metaphysical fact that life is an end in itself.”

Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group — whether to a race, class or state does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called "the common good." No dictator could rise if men held as a sacred faith the conviction that they have inalienable rights of which they cannot be deprived for any cause whatsoever, by any man whatsoever, neither by evildoer nor supposed benefactor. [Reader’s Digest, 1944]

There is nothing that the mass could possibly achieve that would be worth the destruction of a single worthy individual. I know that being passive can never give me nor anybody worthwhile neither true happiness nor satisfaction. The choice to settle is always there, hiding there and beckoning at the very edge of my consciousness – this very human indolence and the despicable desire for safety and security – but I know that for me to feel fulfilled, I need to be moving. “Too much I strive, so I just ride.” [Ride, PARADISE] I do things because I want to improve myself – to always feel that the person I am today is somehow better than who I was yesterday. There is naturally no ceiling to this process – but it is very inward-facing, I could not care less about the world as a whole. In my opinion, the most empathetic thing a person could do would be to give not charity but useful, relevant advice. People should help themselves and that is the only way one can improve. The thing that makes me feel the happiest with other people is when I feel that through interacting with me, they have learned and improved somehow. I feel equally ecstatic when the opposite occurs and it is my main/only motivation for pluralized social interaction.

As they say, friends are the family you choose. However, I have no people that I am particularly close with for extended periods of time, but I do think that that is part of growth. Speaking hypothetically then, I would want to believe that I would meet people with whom I would want to feel a familial-like bond paired simultaneously with an apartheid from all others – a selective, exclusive society of merit. Besides, being by myself is highly useful – when I am with others, I am a sponge; when I am alone, I get to decompress and process what I have sucked into me. My internal self is an endless living ocean (à la Solaris). I feel no desire or need to discover and feel the feelings of others – I am overwhelmed and fascinated enough by mine own and so those of others interest me not. The more you interact, the better you understand yourself, the better your chances of finding someone that is right for you. There is nothing at all wrong with having plenty of deep+sexual partners and rather fear of that makes a person middling, average, dull, one-dimensional, etc. Meritocracy is not so different from aristocracy, and I find comfort in that. Additionally, the rule of the oligarchs is preferable to ochlocracy.

There may be eight billion of us, but I would argue only a small fraction of that number are significant in any way. Cosmic insignificance I do not take seriously – all there is for me is me. Nothing else matters and nothing else ever will – cogito ergo sum. Even if Archimedes had already discovered water displacement, it does not in any way diminish my own independent discovery of the same idea when I was four years old and playing in a bathtub. I claim not to be a ‘Great’, but I am The Great One to myself. To quote a person of rare brilliance, “And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: 'I’.” [Anthem, 1938]

An example of the distinction between the worthy and the worthless (i.e., mediocre) is that there objectively exists both good and bad art. Some individuals know the difference from birth, while others seem not to be able to learn it. Not everyone can be a brilliant critic and it is silly and juvenile to expect the average, mouse-colored people who take the subway as a part of their morning commute to get to the jobs they hate every day to understand anything of beauty. They are already dead – perhaps by means of self-sacrifice for their wives, husbands, families – they are not worthy of the concerto, rather than it being the case that the concerto is not worthy of them. If one does not recognize the objective beauty of a Matisse painting, the fault lies not in the painting but within the fool in front of it. The human mass is like any mass – dull and disinteresting. The things that are objectively important and significant often go entirely unrecognized by the mass and there is neither shame nor sadness in this fact. And even in the instances that they do recognize that which matters, then they recognize them on the lower level appropriate to them. To them at their very best, Malevich’s Black Square is but a pretty shape and Lana Del Rey’s work is pretty music. The litmus test is what do you extract from that which you notice, where do you want to go?

To answer an elusive question in one word – what does the future hold? Improvement. At what cost? At the cost of everything and anything, for to get closer to one’s ideal self is worth identity, is worth any price that can be demanded, up to and including a few pounds of flesh. As I continue to write, I'm on a months-long journey of improvement – moving from the past to the future through the present, moving through Eastern Europe to get to the West and I know that I have made the right choice. There are always going to be forces that will want to hold you back, that will want to grip on and hold you in place, that will oppose your advancement, motivated by a desire either to protect or harm you but either way the result is the same. If the presented choice is between alienation and companionship which comes at the cost of improvement, it is obvious that individualism is the choice to make. Importantly, individualism does not mean solitude as a necessity. Those that are similarly self-minded and driven will never attempt to put a stranglehold upon you and will challenge you in their own detachment. The eternally virtuous activity of societal detachment can be a group activity. Those who know their own value do not cling to others. It is only those that derive their value from others that latch on and never let go. If you wish to improve, you must embrace this desire and be willing to give up everything, ironically so as to avoid compromise.


Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future

And time future contained in time past

If all time is eternally present

All time is unredeemable

What might have been is an abstraction

Remaining a perpetual possibility

Only in a world of speculation

What might have been and what has been

Point to one end, which is always present

Footfalls echo in the memory

Down the passage which we did not take

Towards the door we never opened

Into the rose-garden

[THE FOUR QUARTETS, 1935]

HONEYMOON E – ECCLESIASTICAL EGOTISM

Solitude is only feared by those that have very little to offer – either due to the fact that they are scared of loneliness or because they are bored by it. In either case, the reasons behind it speak of nothing aside from negative things of the sufferer of those symptoms. If any person is fearful of being alone, that means they do not know their own value – they need to be constantly reaffirmed by outsiders, to be defined by their companions and lovers. The superior person has no fear of being solitary, because in that independence they can achieve greater things, for instance through travel to new places, through their knowledge that establishing new contacts is simple (Radiohead: Making Friends Is Easy) and that regardless, there is nothing to be ashamed of or to be afraid of in being temporarily alone. Indeed, the benefit of being alone affords the superior person a unique opportunity for growth. When a person is bored in solitude, this serves as evidence that even they themselves admit that they are not interesting. If a person cannot find entertainment within themselves, if they do not find themselves endlessly fascinating, how could they ever expect that anyone else be interested in them? All this is not to say that we should all become introverts and avoid social interaction. Au contraire, one's very independence provides one with the opportunity to be free to establish contact with anyone one chooses. The only situation in which case that grand liberty ought to be abandoned is if one stands to gain more than one loses from teaming up with somebody else. This situation is rare for anyone, and even more exceptional for those who are themselves exceptional. Naturally, above-average people will find it more difficult to find an equal partner who is worthy of their commitment.

It is obvious that each person has different levels of base potential (defined by genetics) but at the same time, seemingly paradoxically, any person can achieve anything that they wish. When a person declares that their present situation is the best that they can do, this is invariably settling, it is defeatism. The goal is to learn how to balance one’s level of potential and the level of effort that one would need to put in so as to achieve a certain goal. Any person should always only compare themselves with the accomplishments of the very best, while also considering how much each achievement matters to themselves individually. When you do the best that you can and you still objectively fail in whatever endeavor, this is accurately regarded as a failure only if it is important to you to be successful at that thing. Therefore, the reason that I consistently feel dissatisfied is because I do not respect the people in comparison to whom I am doing better. I, like any person of merit, would rather be mediocre amongst the best than to be best amongst the mediocre.

In order to achieve that goal, one must be principled and ruthless in pursuing one's goals – possess an unrepentant and unashamed willingness to do anything and everything, to sacrifice all to the idol of success. A core principle is “if you want something, you must take it.” Another tenet is that one must take personal responsibility for every aspect of one's life, including one’s triumphs and failures alike. For instance, I have chosen to live in effective exile for the current moment. The fact that physically and intellectually stimulating people are rare here and the suffering I experience as a result is exclusively my own fault for choosing to live where I do. I know that I can and must return to UES so as to be somewhere where such fauna is common, and it is, accordingly, exclusively my responsibility to get there. On the other hand, behaviors such as submitting to circumstances and agreeing to socialize with whatever people that surround oneself are indications of weakness, of true mediocrity. When you live in a place where each person even marginally different seems significant, it is important to stay objective, to compare everyone even in this dark and savage wilderness to the very best people in the world. When one does this, the true character of the denizens of one's surrounding community is revealed as possessing brightly colored cheeks, akin to the circus clown or the common whore. There are many places to sell yourself – people are selling themselves for cheap at cafes, on the streets, in boring jobs - satisfied to be incomplete. In a place where people are fulfilled and that is the standard mode of life, the line of “you won't work another day” [Swan Song, HONEYMOON] ring bright and extensively true, like in Galt’s Gulch. Admittedly, it is far easier to critique others than it is to spit at your own reflection. Nevertheless, it is vital to remember to hold yourself to not just the same harsh standard as you do to everybody else, but to one that is even higher. Only in this way can one remain superior even when relocating to a community of people who are used to being outstanding.

But whilst one remains here, there needs to be a reminder that to invest here - whether in designer furniture or in people - is a mistake because both of these things are of no value, their only purpose is to serve as experience, to be discarded as soon as you can afford to upgrade. You must start working on getting out of here, you have got to at least look at the prices of the things that are better. Do not replace them yet. And yet when I go, I'm gone. Nothing here is of any real value - the people are shadows in Plato's cave. They, as everything else here means everything subjectively but is altogether worthless when taken from an objective perspective. It is a bear trap of a town, a place that is wholly devoid of culture, but do not permit it to get you down. This is a place where standout people matter altogether too much and you latch onto them for dear life, to anyone who is in any way interesting because there is such a lack of them. In opposition to this state, a good place is somewhere where interesting people are numerous, disposable. Having an oxy/GHB/E/etc. habit is far preferable to being somewhere where nothing feels even satisfactory, a severe, sad, sappy shortage of places where one can meet singers/songwriters/artists/creators. Dreams of NYC/Montreal until…

And here’s the kicker, in the absolute perspective, we can always “run faster, stretch out our arms farther … And one fine morning”. Maybe we will find ourselves shot face down in our enormous pool, or perhaps we will find ourselves reaping the benefits of all the little seeds that we have sown throughout the summers of our life. However, this fine, lofty, ambitious goal is never a means to itself, for the journey, not the destination, is the point. As we grow up and improve and achieve greater and better things, each past achievement invariably becomes utterly insignificant, unremarkable and this, above all, is a good thing. Indeed, if we can look back on our past and smile, embarrassed, we know that we have improved, we know that we have stretched further and done more than we had imagined possible before. This bemused embarrassment is a critical goal – a crucial indication of the fact that we are better now than we were before, and we must ensure that this always be the case.

The state of affairs is that socially, we have abandoned the principle that those that contribute deserve things and those that do not are entitled to nothing. One of the problems with modern society is that the din of people screaming that everyone is somehow deserving of a certain quality of life and other such nonsense that is espoused by the increasingly dominant Social Justice Warrior class is overtaking everything else. It is vital to remember that a person is only entitled to what they put out. If you excel and contribute in a larger way than others, then naturally you deserve more. If you contribute nothing, you deserve nothing. All grouping of people together and measures and programs resulting out of various forms of collectivism serve only the interests of leeches – of people that recognize and rejoice in the fact that they take more than they give back. They relish this and do everything to expand their reach, to crush the successful and exceptional, to make such outstanding people part of their flock of sheep, to grind everyone down to the same awful level. When everybody is equal, nobody is exceptional. When everybody is equal, everyone is equally miserable, detestable, and disgusting.

There is no beauty like the shining beacon of a person who is a leader, who dares to stand out from the crowd, to shine a light forward and stand alone, a shining colossus of a man who has created himself and owes nothing to anybody. The giant cannot exist amongst giants, because for there to be one giant, a thousand if not a million must be of completely ordinary prominence. This fact offends liberals to no end and consequently, fuelled by their indignant rage, they do everything to devour, destroy, pull apart the foundations, and do their utmost to rob the exceptional individual of his rightful privilege and exceptionality.

There is nothing that could possibly be imagined that would be more offensive to the middling, mediocre person than the idea that it is right that the superior person be afforded special privileges and that in general all people should be judged according to the merit that they possess and what they contribute to history. Of the insufferable whiners, the biggest crybullies of them all are more than cognizant of their own shortcomings. In fact, they happily embrace their flaws under the slogan that all people should be treated equally and that this is somehow fair to those who are better than the average. To the superior person, there is no peaceful, blissful joy in the mad press of the crowd and no comfort in mediocrity. The only people that could enjoy such a thing are the people that are objectively beneath the average and thus want to hide away in a mass of people so that no one sees their gangrene of flaws and shortcomings.

It is vital to remember that you can become whoever you want to be – your own idol, à la Lana. You can develop your own personality with any characteristics that you choose. If you want to be more socially adjusted - go out to clubs and systematically make yourself uncomfortable. Anything can be done with determination, even surviving the indignity of the press of the pigs. The two-part struggle between knowledge and fulfillment is the key. The more you know, the closer you can come to self-fulfillment while the more you discover, the more you grow. It is a form of closet pragmatism, of only doing the things that are valuable in order to grow your knowledge, and to utterly dismiss all things that are not valuable in this sense. If something fails to grow your understanding of yourself what is the point of such knowledge?

On the other hand, it has always been windy, cold, and lonely up here near the summit. However, those characteristics had never been able to remotely challenge the beauty of the view, the grand feeling of superiority, the endless human desire to achieve and conquer the summit. That is what we need, that is for what we yearn, and it is in this eternal stretching forward that lies our greatness, the superiority of which humanity is capable. And is a joy such as that not to be celebrated, to be shared with an equal?


HONEYMOON F – FRIVOLOUS FANTASIES

Sehnsucht is what I feel on those endless still nights when the world seems asleep at 3am and I feel like I am the last person in this city who is still awake, wandering the park in search of a je ne sais quoi. Do the stillnesses of our lives have inherent idiosyncratic meaning or are they only ascribed to them? Are our longings meaningful or are they themselves longing for meaning, for definition? The midnight sun shines down on me and the cold touch of concrete fills me with memories of when I had once before sat down in this cold, only steps away in the physical, a few bounds in terms of time, but an utterly unreachable eternity ago in terms of reach.

In this world, porn parody threatens to become more significant than original film. Is it possible to see meaning in that which is devoid of meaning, or is that itself an illusion, a perversion? Once upon a time, I remember being cold and alone, without a place to go in Toronto except for a 24-hour diner, hoping that the morning would be clearer. Now I am conscious of either feeling, despite the situation being much the same. We can never enter the same Rubicon twice – but is it because we are different or is it because the river itself has changed? Riding a horse endlessly to come to the prime relic of Dashoguz province; I want to feel significance in the stillnesses of my life but does wishing ever make it so? Is listening to another artist in the midst of a review for another cheating or is Ellen Allien simply propelling me forward again? I long for more than a direction forward, I long for meaning in the present – without necessitating presence. Perhaps the presence is simply spectral, joined with the ghosts of the old places that we had used to haunt – we tend closer to the ancient ghost towns and their buildings than the here and now. We are all haunted by our individual phantoms. However, it is rare indeed that we do not seek to subvert those feelings but wish to embrace them instead, neither to forget our past nor to relive it, but only to grow closer to comprehension. I seek not closure as I leave this place, but rather to understand why I would want such a thing. I am not looking for a way to close out the review, but a reason to keep it going forever… And so I cross the same dilapidated train tracks, under construction or to be abandoned. I am not going toward my own green light, but I am running in place, waiting for it to turn red to inspire action. The momentum and the determining reasons are there but what is missing is an understated understanding of what it is from which I am running, the nature of that by which I am currently surrounded. It is all foggy, it's all crazy and clever, and it's all alright. If we don't know where we are, what we are leaving behind, well then how could we ever truly leave? Everyone has felt that what they want is out of reach, but it is a far stranger feeling to feel that where they are at this present moment is itself a mystery. The place where I am is and has always been alien to me. Or is it me, am I the allien myself? The question haunts me, like I haunt this place – hovering above the ground and the modicum of real, integrated life. Is this me – will this be what I am and always feel – regardless of if I find myself in Paris, Reykjavik, Brooklyn, SoHo, or the Bronx? Is it a tragedy or a strength? Do I love phantoms because I am one myself – eternally undefined and undefinable – too many labels to pin down, no cozy square box perfect for me? The elusive elude me as they are wont to do, but that is why they attract. Up close, even the most beautiful stars are certain to burn out your eyes.

I am eternally offended and deeply annoyed at the thought of purposefully limiting yourself so as to make it easier to settle for someone. The thought alone enrages. People ought to be replaceable. I resent the idea of a premature “one and only connection” – it is silly, quaint, and small-minded. One connection cannot be proven ipso facto right until it is contrasted with many others. To claim otherwise is akin to arguing that you should buy the first handbag you see just because it is the first that you saw. It is a profoundly ridiculous and wrong claim. Instead, you should see as many as you can – and then buy the best – the Prada, the Goyard, whatever be the wondrous – and not some trash that happens to fall your way. Most people are worthless – not worth energy or time. I would rather die alone. Being with more people gives you more life experience – gives you wisdom, stories, ideas, makes you grow. It is a silly thought to think otherwise. We are dualescent in our nature, the best of us have a developed mind and brain. We have our physical body and our everyday self – the one that needs to eat and fuck and shit but we also have a soul, our cosmic longing, the side that eludes and precludes eternally. It is this side that goes beyond want, it is this side that wanders and wonders about why we want at all.

It is important to remember that love is not about accepting somebody despite their flaws. It is not miserly, maggoty settling for something that is corrupt and imperfect. Rather, it is about finding somebody that fulfills you completely, somebody whose flaws are your complement. If two people benefit each other extensively and together become more than their separate parts, then that and only that is worthwhile love. Conversely, when two people settle for each other, they do so at the cost of effacing one another’s potential, they choose to destroy beauty for the pathetic comfort of not feeling so alone. If someone fears solitude to the extent that they are willing to denigrate and deface the beauty of their own independence, then that is pathetic and sad in its own way. As per my lifelong motto, "never ever settle," and where could this mantra be more important than in the search for one’s eternal counterpart? If someone is alright with the idea of destroying their potential for greatness, then this is only possible if they value neither themselves nor their partner. One must hold their partner to the same brilliant standards as they do themselves if they love them at all. Some people are only destined for mediocrity because they accept it. In reaching for something greater, in reaching for the top, one's partner must not only be striving for the same but also be striving for something compatible. A person’s lover and especially a partner must be driven forward by the individual and the individual must in return be driven forward by them for a fruitful, mutually beneficial interaction to exist. If both people fail to gain significantly from interacting, then there is no point in that interaction. Others might not be able to perceive the mutual aspect of the gain, as exemplified by Lana’s semi-abusive relationship with Jim, wherein her ‘hands-on’ love drove her to create and self-actualize further.

Then there is Lana’s own dualescent personality – her dual nature is exemplified in many parts of her persona. Lana is the virgin whore, the successful failure, the real fake. I am unabashedly taken with Lana’s idea of romance – both the romance of her as well as her romances. It is not evil to be detached but it does take a certain detachment to be capable of evil.

Lana is the virgin whore, a perfectly manifested encapsulation of the Madonna-whore complex in that she is simultaneously a little girl, a Lolita, something depicted as innocent, as quintessentially American, an all-American sweetheart, the Nancy Sinatra of our generation, and yet also something else entirely. She is distant, elusive, and hard to pin down, but she is also something entirely attainable, someone who used to sing about exotic dancers and gentleman’s establishments. Her lackadaisical but altogether fearless embracement of the meat-grinder parts of American society showcases a deeper beauty, one that emanates from the cocktail of accessibility and unattainability. She sings about fucking her way to the top, but at the same time she stated that she wished that that were true. “You know, I have slept with a lot of guys in the industry, but none of them helped me get my record deals. Which is annoying.” [Complex, 2014]

Indeed, Lana Del Rey has come a long way from who she used to be, a certain Lizzy Grant singing at dive bars, supposedly living in a New Jersey trailer park. She floundered on her first album, scrubbed it from existence, then released a second debut, an obviously impossible oxymoron. Nevertheless, Born to Die somehow really was an effective debut for an artist, if not for the person. All this was achieved with remarkable grace and ease. Lana reinvented herself and so her persona never failed in the past because it simply did not exist prior to the moment that it was created. Lana was widely stated as having failed her Saturday Night Live debut performance and then suddenly it was concluded that she never did. It was predicted that her career was over with each new album that she released and yet here we are on the third and Lana shows no signs of slowing down or stopping. Tellingly, all three albums released under her nom de guerre were successes.

"How can Lana Del Rey be successful or genuine if even her name and her appearance are manufactured?" So bellow her many critics that range from feminists to Pitchfork nay-sayers. I would respond by saying "Who ever said that you can't become your vision of yourself?" If Lana Del Rey was actually Lizzy Grant all along, then how could the former so earnestly deliver her vision of self? The fact that her name and her origins are all false do not stop Lana from being an earnest and complete person (persona?). Indeed, as we had mentioned at the very start, the best of us are able to fine-tune the aspects of ourselves that we like while destroying the characteristics which we despise. I have certainly tried to do this extensively and have myself been in a state of perpetual and recognized change. Who I am today is not who I was a year ago, is certainly different from who I was three years ago, and the person that I was five plus years ago is utterly unrecognizable. Does that mean that I am somehow fake? Perhaps, but I know myself that what I am able to do now, who I am now, and the successes that I have experienced would have been simply impossible back then. With each small adjustment, with each beat of my paddle on my sculling trek, I have become a better person in my own view. The fact that I have been able to sculpt myself and become closer to my ideal is hardly a weakness, but rather one of my biggest strengths.

Lana’s idea of romance is similarly amorphous and difficult to pin down across the entirety of the duration of her career. It is at once physical and abusive, and yet also deeply loving. It is faithful, yet noncommittal. Her romance is simultaneously all-encompassing, ever-changing, toxic and poisonous, but also mutually productive. It is love in a way that is itself always in flux – lively, vivacious, emotional, and deep. It ascertains that both people come out of it different, changed, more developed. It is compatible with my idea of romance – detached but deep, longing without ever being paralyzingly binding, always focused on mutual growth. A functional, good relationship is when both people act in their selfish self-interest, without trying to benefit each other through their individual actions. This - their self-interest - becomes a mutual one without intending to do so, without this disgusting surrender of self-interest to the relationship god. In a partnership, neither person should give away their autonomy. Both people ought to remain complete individual selves. No tyrannical self-immolation is necessary, contrary to the commoner's Hollywood view of love. This is the vision to which I have kept.

To provide an extreme example in order to showcase the importance of selfishness in love, this idea that both people ought to be acting in their self-interest to achieve a productive interaction, the pregnant mother, in order to be a worthy human being, should fight for what she wants, for her own human life. Giving up her dream (her job, for instance) for the sake of anything else, even if it were a human life, would make her less than her ideal self. If her dream job was not her principal goal, then it would be right to give it up, but that is to confuse two distinct things – her goals (whether they be a dream job or a family) and what is right (which is whatever she prefers vs. whatever society deems to be right). To mean to put shackles on her and make her do as appears right to you – that is the aim of collectivism, that is the desire to eliminate individualism and can be called nothing other than despicable. The journey to individual accomplishment is the only worthy goal of a life. “Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.” [The New Intellectual, 1963] I am happy not because I have achieved things but because I know that I will go on to achieve more. Thus, I can be comfortable in the knowledge that I lead a life that is elevated above mediocrity. The very idea of compromise is idiotic. It is not the case that we either find a good partner or we settle for one even worse than that. Truly exceptional people cannot end up alone except by choice.

That which I offer is a quid pro quo, which to a worthy person is just enough, is neither too little nor excessive. To be most conservative, I know that I am at least a 1/10000000 kind of person. An attachment stemming from mutuality is entirely possible – both people can benefit in a relationship, and both can grow within it. To reiterate, in a good relationship no one sacrifices anything because the goals and aims are held in common trust. Love must be complementary, never complimentary. Love is simply our token of greatest reverence and respect – this one, this person, is the one with whom I choose to spend my time despite all the other people out there, both the ones that I have and have not met. I admire and am attracted to my lover – but not because it is some arbitrary person but because that person has proven their mettle as the greatest character I have met. Unconditional love is foolish – how dare you assign value to something that holds none? Love is an entirely selfish mutuality – it extends to physicality, spirituality, and even emotion. The only healthy, deserving, and good love is the one that is an equal trade. All other forms devalue either one or both members of the relationship.

On the other hand, self-sacrifice in a partner is despicable, no matter the reason. A partner willing to give up their life’s purpose for any reason, even if it were for my sake, loses the entirety of my respect forever. A person that does not fight for their own highest purpose is not worthy of life at all – they become a brute, an animal. In an ideal relationship, neither partner shall ever feel they need to sacrifice anything – the togetherness that defines the relationship must be aimed toward their individual goals, rather than sully and destroy the individuality of each partner. The only worthwhile relationship is between an individual man and an individual woman – each fully formed already, both entirely self-actualized. Letting go of any piece of your individual self is both reprehensible and utterly unnecessary in any good partnership. Mutual attachment is not tantamount to smothering one another. Simply put, this pair of people are both made better by their state of togetherness than they were apart. It just makes prudential sense and therein lies the attachment - it is self-contained and self-dependent. There are no sacrifices here, only the beauty of logic and good decisions. Once again, in a proper relationship, neither person ever sacrifices anything because it is simply not necessary. If sacrifice ever does become necessary to maintain the relationship, then the relationship instantaneously shifts from being a comforting hug into a bundle of torturous, twisting, throttling ropes, and not of the intriguing type. How could anyone doubt that people can have feelings for each other without the profound imbecility of self-sacrifice?

Simply put, two people can grow together and learn something of themselves without the silliness of emotional attachment and such forth. My ideal end game is to extract out of a person the most that I can for myself and I happily and readily offer myself in return. Is this utilitarianism or sociopathy?

Admittedly, this idyllic view of love is somewhat rare. Therefore, it is all the more important to recognize when a person has the potential to be that partner that improves you and makes you grow, and when they do not. I have found that it is all too common to loaf in an undefined state, never quite reaching the potential for full interaction, to never discover the actual complete potential of the relationship. People may not want you to know that there is yet something more remaining to get at for a multitude of diverse reasons. For instance, they might put on airs of being important, complex, and significant simply as a means of hiding their own deep-set inadequacies, to hide how uninteresting they truly are. What is important is to be unafraid to sort out where something could go, whether it be just a pleasing diversion, or whether it is something that goes beyond simple hedonistic pleasure. The general pattern of thought here goes like this:

"If I come and take what I want and fail, then I figured it out.

If I come and take what I want and I get it, then I succeed because I got it.

If I didn't come and try to take it, that is the only possible frustration.

My frustration can only come from not trying.

I want to take; that much is certain. I don't want what I'm given which has been the challenge. But in order not to be sad and in this loop, I must take what one wants to give and also give something back. To take a kiss, and not be given it - but knowing that the other person wants it taken. As long as two people grow together, that is essentially love.

I'm bored when I'm given things, and only taking pushes people away. Therefore, I must find people willing to give what I want to take, and give back what I want to put out there.” [2016-01-01, Personal Notes]

Recognizing that not all relationships are going to turn into something meaningful is equally as important as understanding the fact that some can become more meaningful than one could ever imagine.

No one deserves to have you, the persona and the person, exclusively, unless they are themselves (at least potentially) deeply valuable to you. You must be like B.I.J. who is eternally elusive, perpetually to be shared, and completely impossible to hold. Relationships aren't meant to be distractions to your passions and work, but rather further inspiration to grow.

At the same time, at my essence, I remain an idealist. Striving for the best, and not settling for less is to willingly choose to accept eternal dissatisfaction.

I know what I want as indeed must everyone. We all need to have a vision to strive toward. With large wide-open eyes, with doe-like dreaming we stand, not caring for the ever approaching, the fading and the growing, the never-ending white lights. I want those large eyes that open wide in moments, I want that diminutive nose, the tiny almost non-existent chin, the neotenous lower face. Is it not insanity to repeat the same actions, expecting something better? But to me, crazy eyes are a must, a certain insanity in one’s striving and reaching, a feeling that she does not belong to something physical because the current physical must always be inferior to the potential timeless ideal.

I would never want somebody to wear a choker or a lead because I asked them to, because they wanted to appease me. I would only want for them to wear it because that that is what they want to do themselves, which just happens to coincide with my own desires. I would never want to change to suit others, and I would equally never want others to change to suit me. To do otherwise is insulting to both people. I want a natural fit, a totally organic non-settling that can come only as the consequence of an ideal match – not the forcing together of mismatched jigsaw pieces but to rather be the pieces for which their connection is a natural extension of each essential self.

When I reflected upon where I currently am, it made me sad not just because I felt so disconnected from my ideal, which is natural, but also because the whole crowd in which I find myself is so far from the sort of people with whom I would want to associate. It made me miss those whom I had not missed or even thought of in a long time, made me want, nay, painfully need that kind of lover - a musician, an artist, a beautiful independent person who is an individual, who does only that which she herself desires to do. Because I am, I thus desire someone who is driven by and for art, music, drugs, culture, fashion. It reminded me of the banality of this physical place, of the distance between myself and Burning Man. What is more, I fear that even if I were in a cultural city, counterparts are not ubiquitous. If one resigns themselves to be an individual, it is all the more difficult to find an equal. An idealist only wants the ideal and the ideal is by definition a minority, regardless of the group in which they are temporarily resident.

Idealists are alone in a crowd, but can they feel more together with the select few? No, for it is natural and normal to always feel separate, to feel so distinct. What I do not want to be is to be so distant from this underground, from this musical “in circle.” It is a feeling so vivid that it sometimes cuts me open, a vivisection. Like Berninger, "I'm missing something.” [Abel, ALLIGATOR] I want to belong to this unknown kuklos, to a group of likeminded culture jammers, of people who are equally posers, who are moreover proud and fascinated by this.

I am not afraid to admit that I need to be in this group, that I need to be with somebody who equally needs this and that together mayhaps we could defeat this feeling of separateness, of solitude atop our mountaintops. I can and I will come back to New York and will find hip shows and clubs again. I can feel confident that my counterpart is doing the same, for they equally feel this luring, lurching desire for a place that's populated by likeminded and equal individuals. But right now, I'm still so far, so damn distant from this dream of belonging, so far from culture and cultured people. We mountaintop-dwellers want to find someone who's also part of it, who loves shows, who loves indie music, somebody with whom to do our drugs, somebody with whom we could go out and all their friends. A group of people who are all in love with the same thing, with the same ideal for living.

I wanna be with someone who has their trap house friends, who has their collective. I want to find where the music is, to chill with musicians, to do our drugs together. I want to be with them and their friends and acquaintances and together fuck shit up, relax, talk music, trade lyrical references. I want to be with them, to go with them on their tours, complaining about the state of culture all the while. I long for those who understand and love the experience of listening to vinyl on the floor, lit only by the soft light of the needle tracker.

But settling for someone who is missing your needed qualities can be lonelier than being alone. I know what I want, I understand where I am, and I understand where I need to go. Therefore, it is time to move from the hot pavement and into the grass as they say, but in actuality, for me it is actually to move from the grass into the pavement. If I'm in Lizzy’s trailer park, it's time for me to go into “LA and [its] paradise.” [Radio, BORN TO DIE]

The starriest eyes are the blindest, but those who have nothing to lose have everything to gain. And so I will go out alone into America, will go raging into that good night. In this hyperreality, blessed be the chameleons, the fakers, the ones who reinvent themselves. Nothing comes to those who wait, and it may yet be nothing that comes to those who take action, but it is far preferable to fail having tried than to never try and never fail. Gaze into your soul and state what you want most of all and then admit why you do not have it yet. The abyss between current reality and the ideal future was formed by a river - some call it the Rubicon, some call it the Styx. “Didn't anybody tell you this river’s full of lost sharks?”

Would you rather die alone, decrepit, surrounded by those who cannot wait to split your inheritance, or at a feast? Be the poison in the naked lunch, be the finnegan. Turn into the snat. Be a character in a Shahnazarov film.

How can one become closer to their ideal self and get further away from the very grounded reality in which they find themselves stuck? It is neither an easy nor a quick process. It is not something that can be accomplished overnight. Look at yourself objectively, analyze who you are and what makes you distinct. Then, sort out everything that you dislike about yourself and everything that you admire that you are missing. If you want to be more passionate, then that is what you need to work at acquiring, at incorporating into your personality, faking it until it becomes a very real facet of you. One needs to reflect on what presently appears to be real, gradually recognize and identify it entirely, and then erase and rewrite it as suits for the narrative of the novel created you, of your Lana, rather than your Lizzy Grant. Think about where you want to be. What do you want? What do you need to do to get there? What do you truly desire the most and why? Rather than accept the definition bestowed upon you, define yourself. Become not only an individual in your own right, but the individual who has the characteristics you would like to possess. You can be anyone but you need to know who you want to be. Are you separated or defined by the groups in which you presently find yourself? Are you the person you want to be or are you finding yourself becoming the person that others want you to be? No matter if the people you are trying to make happy are your loved ones, family, or even strangers, it is always unilaterally wrong to change yourself to suit others. Gaze in every temporal direction simultaneously – the past that you want to modify, the present that you are murdering, and the future that you wish to accomplish. Figure out who you are and how that differs from who you would want to be in an ideal world. Any distinction between your present self and your ideal self is incongruence but this is a beautiful, wonderful thing – for all of us it defines the room that have to grow, reflects our infinite human ability to metamorphose and to become anything we want to be, to do anything we want to do. Our bases may be different, but our limitless human potential allows us all to do anything that we can envision. “We’re gonna get free” [Children of the Bad Revolution, LANA DEL REY]

[You will] Find yourself at a cocktail party full of people as snobbish as yourself who hold the same fascinations and passions. Make the scene Long Island. Gracefully disappear in a room that is safely full of your equals who hold in common all of your interests, feel the peace and safety that comes from no longer having to search and yearn for your confederates, abettors, and droogs because the room is full of them. We who are here at this private party are who we want to be, and we are surrounded by likeminded souls who hath likewise become their ideal selves, manifested at long last. Through hard work, time, and effort – through a conscious metamorphosis: we exist. I'm Mr. November.


And so all good things must come to an end… the bad ones just go on forever. At the end, so akin to the beginning, I find that I cannot help but fetishize the outlying, the distant, the obscure, all that which seems almost unreachable. Pitcairn, Bouvet, Tristan de Cunha, they all have this appeal, that obscure object of desire, to shamelessly borrow a phrase.

But yet, simultaneously, the very end of things – the very last outposts of a once great empire, the last colonial impressions of the British as the sun sets, the last page of a review. It is all reclining, it is all fading into insignificance, sinking into the sea, but, strangely, oxymoronically, I find the path of what I want through looking at what was lost so many years ago.

No, no one so obnoxious as MLK, Gandhi, or Churchill (Gods forbid) guides me forward and inspires me to live – it is rather something more like James Gatz, a certain Alice de Janzé that lends me an ideal for living.

As the ever-advancing clock of time ticks forward to 100 years since my family had last experienced its rightful position, I know that which I desire. I want to find my own Happy Valley set – to achieve and to hold the decadence that is rightfully mine within my grasp. And what is it if not a green light, another side of paradise, a purgatory, a penance for sin – for in possession is our sin? Thus, that is the goal and so mote it be – a modern aristocracy, a new formation, a new set civilization, somewhere on the periphery of the world as the rest of it can go to hell and burn. Zero-sum: the worse for you, the better for us. Now, to find other issues of decent stock, those temporarily despondent of deserving, delicate blood. Trouvez votre idéal…