I am the villain of this story . . . My story . . . Yes, a self-sabotager—that’s what I am . . . Maybe everyone does to a degree, I agree, that might be the case, but the true villains, like me, we’ve taken it further than they have . . . Well, we’ve destroyed ourselves entirely . . . The hero myth has an opposite, The Villain . . . It’s the person that is no longer redeemable in their own eyes and they have no one or nothing to blame their failures on . . . They’ve come to terms with their Shadow, but could not integrate it, and instead the terms that they came to fed their vices—they compromised, and realized that real change was impossible for them . . . Ay, and it is so easy to slip into . . . One regret about this, and one missed moment here, and all of a sudden you have the seeds of a villain growing inside of you . . . They harm others by the way they treat them. Petty manipulators and mental gymnasts—they can use rationality to twist any story so it’ll read as if they're innocent, or even the victim . . . When I say ‘them’ I am including myself as one among them. Maybe one of the worst villains . . . Because I saw the path of the hero so clearly; I knew exactly what to do, where to go; I was chosen by cosmic forces; and my life would have had a glorious purpose . . . but what did I do instead . . . I—. . . I did nothing. I chose entertainment instead. I chose my own stories—my own lies—over reality. I chose to remain alone and safe instead of living and risking being hurt. I chose my vices and the same repeated patterns. I was intelligent and self-aware enough to know where I was going—what I was doing. I settled for simplicity and security instead of adventure . . . I didn’t listen . . . To God, I think . . . I’m afraid that it is too late. Some of us are not redeemable . . . Through others? Aren’t you listening? I push everyone away. I—. . . I know I am not good enough for the love that my soul used to long for. I’d only hurt someone I loved. I’d poison them. Corrupt them over time. Imagine a slow erosion of the soul . . . Are you imagining it? That’s what being with me is like . . . I know because that is what I have done to my own soul . . . Ay . . . I am sorry for this gloomy weather. Some of us are the sun and some of us are the rain. It’s perfectly balanced that way . . . I’ve lived much longer than that . . . I don’t know how, I only know what I feel . . . Yeah . . . Something like that . . . A hero needs a villain, don’t you agree? . . . It would be a boring world without us . . . You have to understand something in two parts—how it was made, and what its opposite is. Too many people don’t see the whole spectrum of being. The opposite is a part of it. It is whole that way. In order for certain people to understand what a hero is, they first have to see an example of what it isn’t. They need to identify a villain and hero and choose to attempt to oppose the villain and become like the hero . . . Do we? . . . I wish it was that simple . . . I don’t mind being the villain. It’s peaceful. Once you’ve given up you no longer suffer from unrealistic standards and perfectionist standards you’ve applied to yourself . . . It’s not as simple as choosing. Certain forces in the universe nudge you in certain directions. So many little moments—tiny variables—they’ve helped mold you into who you are. And when you realize that most of what happens to you, and how you react to it, is out of your control, well, then you have no choice but to let go . . . Everyone has their origin story. Isn’t it interesting that the first part of our life is written before we are old enough to even realize what is going on? . . . Yes, some people overcome a horrible origin story and do something nice with their little life, but not everyone does. Not everyone can . . . No, they can’t . . . No, they can’t . . . Not everyone can make their dreams come true. You know this is true. We can only define success by seeing failure, so people have to fail . . . I couldn’t fight my mind. I couldn’t change it. Nothing pulled me out of my put. No one came to save me . . . Your story is yours and sometimes in order to save yourself you have become the hero that you wish you had . . . Yes, but my work is not for them. I reckon everything I’ve done was driven by ego and my desire to be seen and loved . . . No, I wasn’t seen or loved. I kept seeking it, and it drove me to create a few interesting things. But that work does not redeem me . . . Why not? Well because I didn’t embody the messages I was trying to convey. I didn’t live it. I gave others advice on how to be but wasn’t a good example of what they should become. And that makes me a phony. It makes me a hypocrite. Who am I to judge others? And who am I to throw stones? And who am I to tell them how they should live? Just an old fool . . . Yes I am . . . Maybe my soul has been stuck in a loop like this for centuries? . . . It feels like it might be . . . You’ll be fine. Learn from me and choose to be the opposite. I give you such a clear definition of a true villain of the self, use it. Grow from it . . . You are much better than me. Muuch, much better . . . Yes, you are. I can tell . . . It’s in your eyes. Look at mine . . . What do you see? . . . Ay, they’ve been saying that about them for a long time now . . . I remember when I wrote something I thought was very clever and a few people around me agreed that it was clever and that it was true. It was something like ‘you and I are both the villains in someone else’s story’. And it does kind of put the blame on how someone else may or may not be perceiving us, and I think people liked the fact that they didn’t have to admit that they were the villain in their own story. But now, three years later, I wish the quote was simply ‘I am the villain of my own story’. Yes, that makes more sense now. Much more sense . . . Everyone you’ve ever met holds a different image of who you are . . . Your own image of yourself is not the most clear image. No, it is in fact the most biased perspective. And you are stuck in it . . . Let me ask you then, where does the genuine self exist and where does it go? . . . Some sort of truth about who you are and who you should be living inside of you like a lighthouse guiding you to where you should go? Then what is that light? What is that lighthouse? Is it always there? Does everyone have access to it? . . . I see . . . It’s an interesting idea . . . Part of the reason why I am a villain is because I challenge our ideas of what the ‘good’ is. It’s not so simple when you break it down. And neither is ‘evil’. They’re ancient concepts that constantly change with the time and place we are in. I am chaos amidst the old structure that still stands. But ay, those moral goalposts are constantly moving . . . ‘One eye on the past, one eye on the future, and the third eye is in the present’ . . . It’s something I used to say . . . I don’t know if it means anything anymore . . . I said many things I thought were profound only to disregard them later . . . That’s how change works—how perception shifts. What was moral fifty years ago might be considered immoral now. And that’s okay. What I agree with now I might’ve disagreed with yesterday. It just makes people uncomfortable not having a solid structure to build their ontology on. So some of them never build. And some don’t know what they’re building or why they’re building anything at all. A conscious ontology is rare . . . I reckon that most are simply inherited . . . I must get going. Thanks for your time and attention . . . Sure, I'll see you again.
CH 10/28/24
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