Well it seems like I'm caught up in your trap again And it seems like I'll be wearin' the same ol' chains Good will conquer evil and the truth will set you free Then I know someday I'll find the key Then I know somewhere I'll find the key Well it seems like I've been playin' the game way too long And it seems the game I played has made you strong Well when the game is over, I won't walk out a loser And I know that I'll walk out of here again And I know that someday I'll walk out of here again Now it seems like I've been sleepin' in your bed too long And it seems like you've been meanin' to do me harm But I'll teach my eyes to see beyond these walls in front of me And someday I'll walk out of here again Yeah I know someday I'll walk out of here again But now I'm trapped...Oh yeah! Trapped...Oh yeah! --Trapped - Bruce Springsteen
He pulls a prayer book out of his sleeping bag Preacher lights up a butt and takes a drag Waitin' for when the last shall be first and the first shall be last In a cardboard box 'neath the underpass Got a one-way ticket to the promised land You got a hole in your belly and gun in your hand Sleepin' on a pillow of solid rock Bathin' in the city aqueduct The highway is alive tonight Where it's headed everybody knows I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light Waitin' on the ghost of Tom Joad --Bruce Springsteen - The Ghost Of Tom Joad
The rain swirls and beats. Lightning reveals a familiar schoolyard in a ghostly light. I feel a sudden poignancy. Images strikes my mind. The wind is the scream of a lost spirit, searching the earth and finding no good, recalling old bereavements, lashing the land with tears. Consciousness leaves my body, moves out in time and space. I undergo an expanding awareness of self, of separateness, of time flowing through me, bearing me on, knowing I have a chance, the one chance all of us have, the chance of a life, knowing a time will come when nothing lies ahead and everything lies behind, and hoping I can then look back and feel it well spent. How, in the light of fixed stars, should one live?
So begins the hunger for meaning.
--Allen Wheelis
So begins the hunger for meaning.
--Allen Wheelis
I'm such a negative person, and always have been. Was I born that way? I don't know. I am constantly disgusted by reality, horrified and afraid. I cling desperately to the few things that give me some solace, that make me feel good. I hate most of humanity. Though I might be very fond of particular individuals, humanity in general fills me with contempt and despair. I hate most of what passes for civilization. I hate the modern world. For one thing there are just too goddamn many people. I hate the hordes, the crowds in their vast cities, with all their hateful vehicles, their noise, their constant meaningless comings and goings. I hate cars. I hate modern architecture. Every building built after 1955 should be torn down! I despise modern popular music. Words cannot express how much it gets on my nerves--the false, pretentious, smug assertiveness of it. I hate business, having to deal with money. Money is one of the most hateful inventions of the human race. I hate the commodity culture, in which everything is bought and sold. No stone is left unturned. I hate the mass media, and how passively people suck it up. ... I hate having to eat, shit, maintain the body--I hate my body. ... Nature is horrible. It's not cute and lovable. It's kill or be killed. ... How I hate the courting ritual! I was always repelled by my own sex drive, which in my youth, never left me alone. ... I hate the way the human psyche works, the way we are traumatized and stupidly imprinted in early childhood and have to spend the rest of our lives trying to overcome these infantile mental fixations. And we never fully succeed in this endeavor. I hate organized religions. I hate governments. It's all a lot of power games played out by ambition-driven people, and foisted on the weak, the poor, and on children. Most humans are bullies. Adults pick on children. Older children pick on younger children. Men bully women. The rich bully the poor. People love to dominate. I hate the way humans worship power--one of the most disgusting of all human traits. I hate the human tendency toward revenge and vindictiveness. I hate the way humans are constantly trying to trick and deceive one another, to swindle, cheat, and take unfair advantage of the innocent, the naïve and the ignorant. I hate all the vacuous, false, banal conversation that goes on among people. Sometimes I feel suffocated. I want to flee from it. For me, to be human is, for the most part, to hate what I am. When I suddenly realize that I am one of them, I want to scream in horror.
--The Litany of Hate
--The Litany of Hate
Sweet dreams are made of this Who am I to disagree Travel the world and the seven seas Everybody looking for something Some of them want to use you Some of them want to get used by you Some of them want to abuse you Some of them want to be abused. I want to used you and abused you I want to know what's inside --Marilyn Manson - Sweet Dreams
All flirtation, all the common, ordinary gallantries of the past and present, disregard the partner's inner personality with unconscious intent. The uniqueness and singularity of the other person is deliberately left out of such encounters. People who go in for such superficial eroticism flee from the obligations of real love, from any sense of having true ties with the partner - because such ties involve responsibility. They take refuge in a collective concept, preferring a "type"; their partner at any given time is a more or less chance representative of that type. They choose the type rather than any particular person. They love is directed toward typical but impersonal "looks." A feminine type very commonly preferred is that of the chorus girl. This can easily be understood when we consider how thoroughly depersonalized a type she is. The chorus girl is, so to speak, a symbol of girls "wholesale." She is a component part of a precision mechanism: the chorus line. She is a member of a dance troupe, therefore part of a collective group. As such she cannot step out of her framework, cannot drop out of her role among the others who are tripping in step across the stage. In life as well she must keep in step. Today's average man takes this type of woman for his erotic ideal because she cannot, in her impersonality, burden him with responsibility. The type is ubiquitous. Just as one chorus girl in the revue can be replaced by any other, so in life this type of woman is easily replaceable. The chorus-girl type is impersonal woman with whom a man need have no personal relationship, no obligations; a woman he can "have" and therefore need not love. She is property, without personal traits, without personal value. Only the human person can be loved; the impersonality of the chorus-girl type cannot be loved. With her, no question of faithfulness is involved; infidelity follows from impersonality. Not only is infidelity in such erotic relationships feasible; it is necessary. For where the quality of happiness in love is lacking, the lack must be compensated by quantity of sexual pleasure.
--Viktor E. Frankl
--Viktor E. Frankl
Try to see it my way do I have to keep on talking till I can go on while you see it your way run the risk of knowing that our love may soon be gone Think of what you're saying you can get it wrong and still you think that it's alright think of what I'm saying we can work it out and get it straight or say good night Try to see it my way only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong while you see it your way there's a chance that we may fall apart before too long... --We can work it out we can work it out
I am what I am I am my own special creation So come take a look Give me the hook Or the ovation It's my world That I want to have a little pride My world And it's not a place I have to hide in Life's not worth a dam Till I can say I am what I am I am what I am I don't want praise I don't want pity I bang my own drum Some think it's noise I think it's pretty And so what if I love each sparkle and each bangle Why not see things from a different angle Your life is a shame Till you can shout out I am what I am I am what I am And what I am needs no excuses I deal my own deck Sometimes the aces sometimes the deuces It's one life and there's no return and no deposit One life so it's time to open up your closet Life's not worth a dam till you can shout out I am what I am I am I am I am good I am I am I am strong I am I am I am worthy I am I am I belong I am I am I am I am useful I am I am I am true I am I am somebody I am as good as you Yes I am Gloria Gaynor - I am What I am
In fact, the opportunities to act properly, the potentialities to fulfill a meaning, are affected by the irreversibility of our lives. But also the potentialities alone are so affected. For as soon as we have used an opportunity and have actualized a potential meaning, we have done so once and for all. We have rescued it into the past wherein it has been safely delivered and deposited. In the past, nothing is irrevocably lost, but rather, on contrary, everything is irrevocably stored and treasured. To be sure, people tend to see only the stubble fields of transitoriness but overlook and forget the full granaries of the past into which they have brought the harvest of their lives: the deeds done, the loves loved, and last but not least, the sufferings they have gone through with courage and dignity. From this one may see that there is no reason to pity old people. Instead, young people should envy them. It is true that the old have no opportunities, no possibilities in the future. But they have more than that. Instead of possibilities in the future, they have realities in the past - the potentialities they have actualized - and nothing and nobody can ever remove these assets from the past. ... But today's society is characterized by achievement orientation, and consequently it adores people who are successful and happy an, in particular, it adores the young. It virtually ignores the value of all those who are otherwise, and in so doing blurs the decisive difference between being valuable in the sense of dignity and being valuable in the sense of usefulness. If one is not cognizant of this difference and holds that an individual's value stems only from his present usefulness, then, believe me, one owes it only to personal inconsistency not to plead for euthanasia along the lines of Hitler's program, that is to say, "mercy" killing of all those who have lost their social usefulness, be it because of old age, incurable illness, mental deterioration, or whatever handicap they may suffer.
--Man's Search For Meaning
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