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The devil's in the details
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So, I’ve recently finished reading this book, and it’s terribly interesting. It’s called, “The Seven Deadly Sins: Settling the Argument Between Born Bad and Damaged Good.”

“For the first time, Slipknot and Stone Sour front man Corey Taylor speaks directly to his fans and shares his worldview about life as a sinner. And Taylor knows how to sin. As a small-town hero in the early '90s, he threw himself into a fierce-drinking, drug-abusing, hard-loving, live-for-the moment life. Soon Taylor's music exploded, and he found himself rich, wanted, and on the road. His new and ever-more extreme lifestyle had an unexpected effect, however; for the first time, he began to actively think about what it meant to sin and whether sinning could--or should--be recast in a different light. Seven Deadly Sins is Taylor's personal story, but it's also a larger discussion of what it means to be seen as either a "good" person or a "bad" one. Yes, Corey Taylor has broken the law and hurt people, but, if sin is what makes us human, how wrong can it be?”
The book basically has a chapter for each “seven deadly sin” and explains how each isn’t really a sin, but just human nature. However, when he says “sin,” he means it more on a moral level, not so much on a biblical level. As a general rule, he basically states that these are not really sins, but flaws in character (or human nature) that can lead to awful decisions. I agreed with about 90% of the things stated in this book, but it is at least interesting.
The book mostly consists of Corey sharing his experiences with each “sin,” and expanding on the philosophy behind it.
So here, I will quote segments of each chapter that I found interesting. And yes, it is VERY tl:dr.
Wrath Rage is not a sin, but it can be the trigger that makes us commit sins. The real problem comes when we bottle up emotion and ignore the fact that we need to let ourselves be angry. Bad things happen when good people pretend nothing is wrong… My sister and I were not protected from raw hate and powerful anger. It showed me that, with the right push, and the right pressure, anyone could be hurt at any time. That in turn made me angry, made me hate the world, made me distrust everyone. It was not fair; I should not have had to grow up like that. I turned it into music. Most people turn it into crime. But then again, I still maintain that rage is not a sin. When properly expressed, anger can be beneficial. Some of the best art in the world is angry, jolting, and abrasive. Moderation, always practice moderation. You cannot place blame on the sin for one simple reason: If you blame one, you must blame all. If that is the case, then we are all guilty. The people who watched and did nothing are guilty. The ones who laughed and thought it was funny are guilty. The ones who suffered instead of saying something are guilty. Imagine a family tree of nothing more than the names of the people involved and you will get the idea… Let me clue you in on a real sin; actually it is more like a shame, or a sad fact. Around the 1990s, it became all the rage to start screaming in heavy metal music. Nothing wrong there: I was one of the progenitors of that whole movement, and I screamed my dark little heart out every night. But then, something truly fucked happened. People started mistaking screaming for genuine emotion; rage became synonymous with all feelings, like all you had to do to appear passionate was scream in a metal band. “Oh he is so emotional.” Judas fucking Priest, are you kidding me? Jazz singers get on stage and bear their souls every night, and nobody gives a shit… It is not the emotion you are experiencing but the experience you are engaging. You cannot be defined by the feeling if no one knows what you are feeling, so it is the reaction that is the quote-unquote “sin.” Why is the Church so scared of people feeling anything? I have a theory. I think it is because organized religion makes such an effort to control what people do that it makes sense to control how people feel, rage in particular because it is a natural reaction to anyone or anything controlling their lives. So how do you get people to stop getting mad when you tell them what to do and how to think? Tell them it’s a sin. That is what’s called a self-realizing philosophy. It is also virtually impenetrable the further you get away from the actual inception… Much like lust, the only other “sin” that can be misconstrued as an emotion, there’s a stigma attached to rage that has been dog piled by years of misrepresentation and fear. When a person gets mad, people are conditioned to think that person is immediately going to do something terrible. Some of this can be attributed to what they call “the caveman gene,” but a lot of it comes down to propaganda. If I get angry, a majority of the people will automatically think I am going to kill someone or beat my kids or rape a horse or something else equally insipid. What is the bigger sin: the anger or the mudslinging about the anger? Anger is a sin when parents beat their kids. The real sinner is the murderer who mangles a victim so badly she is left unrecognizable or the teacher who ignores the fact that he is supposed to actually teach because he allows his own negative feelings about children to get in the way or the wife who cheats on her husband because he did not buy her a big enough diamond for her birthday. The wheels on the bus may go ‘round and ‘round, but that bus might run you over if the driver gets fired. There are so many levels to anger and so many ways to use it in noble ways. But rage carries the scars of centuries filled with unchecked degradation. Anger is a powerful weapon in the fight for humanity. Some would rather leave humanity alone, which begs the question: Which is the bigger sin, rage or fear? The adage goes “evil triumphs when good men doing nothing.” Why would a good man do nothing to help the world? Is it a better thing to fear the unknown or to use righteous fire to fight it?
Lust One thing is for certain, I have never had trouble with women. And if I have one fatal flaw, it is that lust has always been the loudest angel on my shoulder. I lost my grip and my virginity when I was eleven years old to a very giving and fucked up babysitter, and it has been the line of iron sulfide in my stone cold resolve ever since. I came, I saw, I came again. What can I say? It is the strangest life ever, but it is the only one I have got, the only one I want, and the only one I will ever need. It has made me have sex outdoors as many times as in. It has made me sleep with wives, girlfriends, and mothers of people I know. It has put me in situations in which being discovered by one’s parents is less than wonderful. It has bent me to its salacious will for the better part of my thirty-six years. It is the Ripper stalking my sexual Whitechapel, slicing and dicing through my qualms and morals. And with the exception of a threemonth bender five years ago, I have no regrets about it. Q.E.D.: no regrets, no sin. Sure there are some things I wish I had never done. There are certain people I wish I had never seen naked, let alone done the hunka chunka with. There was a woman I slept with on my twenty-eighth birthday in Poughkeepsie, New York, that was misshapen, missing teeth, and wearing blue spandex pants I am still trying desperately to forget. Nature has a habit of letting some erratic genes get through. Fuck, where was I? Oh yeah, we all have a troll under a few burnt bridges, but what one might call bad decisions, I like to call whittling down my array of taste. In other words, when you are shelling beans, you throw away the ones that might get you sick. You feel me? In our DNA, there is the built-in compulsion to breed, to procreate, spreading our “selves” as far as we can. The fact that it feels good is just an extra as far as I am concerned. Between the golden ratio and pheromones, it is a wonder more people are not fucking in the streets. So between instinct and free will, we get screwed, if you can excuse the pun. Man or woman, gay or straight, the intricacies of sex are major driving forces in our lives. Besides, a lot of our advancement is due to our wanting to get laid… Here is a thought: Do you think Bill Gates can get an erection without crashing? Can he find a woman’s V.J.J. only to have that sexual window close on him? If he gets pop-ups, how many viruses come with them? Man, what the fuck am I talking about? Who cares why we want to rub up on yummies? The fact is that we do, and calling it a sin is asinine at best. Why are people so ashamed of being human? Why do people attach terrible stigmas to instinctual behavior? You would think lust would be the one human drive that would almost be a guaranteed “Get Out Of Jail Free” card, seeing as any person with junk in their trunk and nothing good on cable likes to shoot sticky DNA on their carpet. Yes ladies, I know that is not how you work: Get in the bath, light some candles, and think about Gerard Butler then. God knows I do.
Vanity A vain person cannot allow a conversation to happen without dishing in his or her own exploits. No matter what, it always has to be about them. Bring up football, they will turn it into a dissertation on how they were the best flag football player in second grade: “Could have gone pro, if there was an official league, but my friends are petitioning the state legislature. I really heard someone say this, swear to Buddha. A vain person will size up the room to draw the most energy to his or herself. They do it by talking loudly, gesturing like a Shakespearian actor and laughing like a hyena on Meth. Mick fucking Jagger could walk into a smoking lounge in St. Louis, Missouri, on a layover to Africa in the hopes of raising money for impoverished natives. A vain person would still walk up to him and explain what he is doing wrong with his band. An expert is nothing more than a vain person who has read a book. The deception of vanity is that it is not only skin deep. It is a soul-sucking disease that warps within and without. It makes truly beautiful people look like they should live under a bypass somewhere, bothering goats and silly knights. It puts the “shun” in pretension. The truth is that most people do not give a shit when you get down to it. Most people do not try to match their catgut belt to every thermos they use to carry their coffee. Most people do not roam around preening like an idiot. Life is not a fucking movie, and you do not always have to look good for your close-up. The emperor’s new clothes are now a chain outlet fooling morons into thinking there is more to being less. We want our heroes to look cool, but they do not have to look like they are trying so fucking hard. I have probably the worst self-image on the planet. It is like when I look in a mirror, the damn thing is warped. I have never been able to look at myself without picking out a smorgasbord of flaws and ripping myself apart. They could vote me one of People magazine’s Fifty Sexiest Men Alive and I would freak out because I would be certain someone was setting me up to be Punk’d. I have days that are better than others, but for the most part I am paralyzed with a self-image problem. When you grow up with denigrating bastards your whole life, the feeling that you are filthy never really goes away. Thank god you can eventually align yourself with people who will do their very best to reverse this horrible predicament… Vain people are really just snobs. The other side of this shiny coin is that vanity can make people feel like shit. How does that work? Vanity makes you feel like shit when you do not feel you look as good as you should. You may think this is a lack thereof, but I disagree. I think people with low self-esteem and terrible self-images are the most vain because they cannot love themselves for what and who they are. Damned if you are hot and damned if you are not, is that not a seriously fucked up thing to go through? I guess I am vain after all because I believe in my heart that I am ugly, misshapen, and completely unappealing. If only I were a little bit taller.... Now most people misplace their vanity by zeroing in on one thing and ignoring the whole. Vanity is self-obsession on a base level. Like envy, it is a personal competition with everything and everyone around you. Two vain people cannot inhabit the same space. It will turn into Thunderdome in seconds, leaving disparaging comments and dagger-like stares on the battlefield like the Civil War. When two people so involved in themselves face off, it makes Gettysburg look like a game of slapjack. Do yourself a favor: Avoid this confrontation like a case of crabs in a dormitory. You will walk away with claw marks, bruises, and caked with blood, resembling a survivor from a Nightmare on Elm Street movie.
sloth If I were a real man, I would leave you with ten blank pages. Or maybe just type this out using only one finger. I could take pictures of myself doing so as proof. Holy living fuck, that would take me forever. I would have to cancel all kinds of shit, like my fencing and clog dancing classes. I do not think that is an option; I am all-state in clog dancing. But imagine it, me in all my glory, lying prostrate on my bed, curled up in my Spiderman Underoos and my leopard-print Snuggie, aimlessly punching the keys with my index finger, or better yet my middle finger. That is some slothful shit. But because I am a loquacious blowhard, I will rant for a while. I did not earn the nickname Great Big Mouth for nothing, and hey, at least I am not being lazy. So I guess I will put some fucking pants on and get to work. This is one of those concepts that just straight bother me on both sides of the debate. On one hand, yes, it is not good to be a wistful fuck with no drive and no dreams. If we were all just slovenly pigs, we would have been conquered by aliens or at least by Canada years ago. Alaska would just be another frozen province near the Pacific Ocean. But on the other, what is wrong with doing dick with your time every now and then? Are we expected to be seminal broke-back creatures of industry, trying frantically to grab a deep breath to savor before going back to the grind? And why is it a deadly sin? Why is it such a turnoff to turn off the engines once in a while? Who can you possibly hurt by running on reserve power? So let’s start with all the inventive things that we would not have in our lives without a little kind-hearted sloth to play with: hammocks, La-Z-Boys, waterbeds, motorized Rascals, those grabby things they make for people with short arms, microwaves, beer hats, Lazy Susans, that new-fangled set of fingernail clippers that has more attachments than a Swiss Army knife, extra value meals (actually, fast food in general would only be a working mother’s wet dream), auto tuning, automated car washes—Are you starting to see a pattern? Without a sense of sloth, the remote control would not exist. Without sloth, we would all be busy doing standard-issue horse shit with time that could be better spent text voting for the next American Idol dipshit… Honestly, the origins of this “sin” are very simple. In ancient times, people were expected to work all week and rest on the Sabbath, or Sunday. We were meant to till and sow sun up to sun down, making more for the rest of us to pass about. These were the days when burning bushes spoke to hippies and it took a village to raise an idiot. God forbid you tried to take a Tuesday off to watch your kid’s Bocce Ball game, or whatever they used to play in the 1960s (that was before my time). Never mind if it was because you were proud of the outfit your meager wife stitched together using nothing but bark and rock. They would more than likely cast you out as a witch or, worse yet, a liberal. So the roots of sloth lay in the virtues of menial labor, I guess. It seems like social judgment knows no time line… Back to my point: Envy and greed can breed either champions or martyrs. Lust and rage can make you a monster or Don Juan. As such, sloth with an infusion of gluttony simply gives birth to drug addicts and wastes of flesh. I truly believe that sloth is harmless left to its own devices. But in tandem with other forces it can cause damages not ever imagined or experienced. Sloth and rage makes an expert. Sloth and greed makes a brother-inlaw. Sloth and lust will leave you surfing porn in a basement with a neck beard and a poop sock, bothering your mother to buy more Pop-Tarts the next time she hits the grocery store. In a lot of ways, it is a “gateway sin”: It leads you away from the groundwork of the original problem and sets you in chains against a backdrop designed for penance and shame. You can have the best intentions in the world, but if you do nothing, you are nothing. It is a harsh glare to shed that kind of light, but in my heart that is pure reality for me. How does the quote go? “Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.” This is the downside to the longevity of sloth. It is an exit on a highway that leads to the worst parts of town. Like vanity, sloth can be an enabling type of viral distress, a way of life that is way off course. It is a simple case of strong people forgetting their nut sacks on the corner of the dresser before they leave the house in the mornings. It can take away fantastic thoughts and replace them with consumer taglines. A mind is left bereft when it is nothing more than a tool of regurgitation. You have to think for yourself, but we all have to be taught to do so, and if you are not paying attention, you will pay for it later. Sloth’s blind eye is your deafening silence; touch the stones before you go so you have luck pulling yourself out of hell. We are only what we allow ourselves to be. If there is no permission, there is no pursuit. The only hell I recognize is the one we build with our own two hands, and that is a job even a slothful person can handle.
Envy Next to vanity, envy is probably the most basic sin on Mr. Blackwell’s list. It is the critter in the crevices, the one just out of reach. It is the itch that scratches back. Come on, hands up, you know who you are—we are all envious. It is just really fucking easy to be envious of anything and anyone. It makes us angry, covetous, it can even turn us on, for what is lust but being envious and wanting someone’s sex all over us. So if greed is the main ingredient in our sinful pie, envy is the secret spice that really pulls it all together. Along with the rest of our Deadly Seven, it has been around for a really long time. One of the Ten Commandments says “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.” Apparently Ezekiel’s wife was looking more like Rachel Hunter than Estelle Getty. So envy is nothing new. It is also nothing deadly… Envy has its ugly mornings, but it can lead to ridiculous quirks as well. For instance, I have a weird fascination about what people keep in their refrigerators, especially in California. I do not know why. I will be at someone’s house and I will find myself in the kitchen. Next thing you know the fridge door is wide open and I am bent over with my face buried deep inside its contents. Get your head out of the gutter—we already covered lust, you perverts. I have no clue what it is, but I am just curious to see what is in there. What is it about the way people group their produce or stack their lunchmeat or organize their beverages? I touch stuff, pick something up and put it back. I also smell everything. To me, a loaded fridge in the eight-one-eight is like a video game: I will jump right in and play whether I know what the plot is or not… Like lust, envy can get on top of you quick. All it takes is a glimpse or a passing fancy and you will be gripped by it. It will spoil your milk and sour your grapes. It will keep you on your side of the bed. You will chew the insides of your mouth at dinner. You will be a walking distraction in your own life. But when you can turn that envy into attainment, what could be a better feeling? I am not writing a prescription for instant gratification. The doctor knows better. What I am saying is that every once in a while a dream should come true. I am saying that envy is an effect and you can fill in the blank on the cause. We all fight for our tiny bit of the Boston Cream every second of every day. Why should we be denied little things when they could get us a long way? I think the time of feeling bad about the things we want should have come to an end a long time ago. We are evolving into fortune cookies, twisted and sweet, but the only message inside is guilt. Why even crack the seal on the plastic, man? What is the point of eating when all you get is force-fed a betting line of heartburn and heartache? By now you may have the presumption that I am a blowhard troublemaker with a chip on my shoulder and a giant hole in my soul. That actually does not sound all that bad, really. One of my philosophies has always been, “if you do not say it, it does not get said.” Basically saying, it means if you want something in life, speak up or shut up. I am saying we have enough to worry about in our lives without worrying how people who look nothing like anyone we should give a shit about feel when it comes to our decisions. There are days when the world should stay the fuck out of your business. Wanting something should not be a sin when everyone around is feeling the exact same fucking way. Being human is an instinct, not a source of religious scrutiny… My own observations have shown me that envy just makes a sadistic little sewing circle that complains about anyone not knitting their ass off. For some reason we cannot keep our noses to ourselves. If we all just took life at face value, it might be a little easier. But most people just refuse to see that some things are unattainable. I get it: Every guy wants a four wheeler and every woman wants a guy who does not want a four wheeler. If people would just lower their expectations, they could settle, you know, like people do already whether they realize it or not. We get what we get and we like it, even if we do not truly like it. That is one thing about envy that I cannot stand: It makes us hate the things we get because they are not the things we want. Why do we not want the things we get? I am certain there are others who get the same shit. But we do not pay attention to those people. The things we get cannot be all that great because those people have them. So envy gives us another reason to look down on those around us, even when we are secretly looking up to them. I will tell you what I do not envy. People with athlete’s foot are nothing to be jealous of. Another example is the life of a garbage disposal. That is just gross. How about the snot end of a diseased penis? Where am I going with this? Sorry, I am surrounded by people talking about stuff I am actually interested in. I will be right back.
Greed Mmmmmm. . .Greed. Sweet, indulgent, creamy greed: more, more, more for me, Me, ME. It is as benign as season tickets and as intricate as a Ponzi scheme. It has driven men and women to commit horrendous acts of selfish atrocity, like crushing one another in a mall, scrounging for Cabbage Patch Kids, Beanie Babies, or the latest PlayStation. In short, it can and will make you insane. Sadly, it is not like Christmas: It comes more than once a year and no one is greedy for socks, except Wembly from Fraggle Rock, who does not count because he is a puppet and, therefore, not real. Then again it could have been Gobo; I get all my puppets mixed up sometimes. I understand the consequences of being driven into the ground by this acumen. But I also know that greed has another side to its coin. Greed can push people to be and do their utmost best, ultimately achieving success and renown for ingenuity and innovation. It can cause a revolution; it could cure cancer. It can bring us screaming into the millennium with advances and hurtling toward the sunshine with breakthroughs. It can open the flood gates to a host of different ways we can all get ahead in this crazy, kooky Jetsons world we are living in right now. All because some guy wants the money that the patents will bring in. Nothing wrong with that, people, nothing at all wrong with that. It takes something special to get us humans off of our asses and disengaged from episodes of Houselong enough to heal the world, and I am here to tell you that it is not always charity and good will. Sometimes the only reason to show up to the award show is the fucking goodies bag, you see the metaphor? Now granted, some people work tirelessly to effect change in this world purely for the joy of bringing light into the very darkness that barks at our doorsteps. But somewhere, deep down, a lot of them want something. Most of us, I posit, are spurred on by a vicious little vibe called the Urge. The Urge is the voice in all of us that has a bottomless pit for a soul and all the free time it could ever need. It feeds on the longings we try to keep quiet and it bolsters the mindset that cannot live without our heart’s desires. It is located right next to your cerebral cortex, lying in wait for those opportune moments when it can spring into action and sell the brain on a simple little tagline: More, more, more for me, Me, ME. . . But does this make it a sin? Does this make it deadly? I do not believe so. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I am assured that this sin in particular makes my point. We are all greedy in some way. We do not all subscribe to the same neo-Christian doctrines, and yet we all feel the brunt of the same human traits. So if being greedy is just another way of being human, then the righteous are saying that being human is a sin. I dare them to say that shit to my face. I have a really great argument against “greed is a sin” dog shit. Have you ever eaten one single M&M? Hmm? Have you ever used just one single square of toilet paper? Have you ever limited yourself to just one ketchup packet? Have you ever slept more than your allotted government-recommended eight hours a night? Well, not only have you been a glutton and a sloth (allegedly), you have been greedy. On behalf of my fellow M&M lovers everywhere, I would like everyone who thinks like that to kindly go fuck themselves. Greed is just the genetic need to acquire, and that has been going on since we moved into frickin’ caves: “We need grass on the floor, and it has to match the moss on the walls.” We are hunter/gatherers, and if you did not bring back the bigger brontosaurus, you had to go club your neighbor to death and take his. Leave it to religion to make greed a sin, by the way. I know how it started. In its heyday (i.e., the Middle Ages), the Church was not only the seat of spiritual mercy and grandeur but also the place to obtain an education. Colleges were built by the clergy and, more importantly, for the clergy. In order to attend, you had to become a priest. Most commerce was presented within spitting distance from the Church’s doorstep, and usually the vicars got a little kickback for their trouble. So imagine its dismay if someone came along who was wealthy and a little bit ahead of the curve in the smarts department—Q.E.D.: “He or she is guilty of the sin of greed!” What a crock. Was the Church not greedy when they kept education for themselves? More to the point, are religions not guilty of greed and vanity when they say their “god” is the only real god and their teachings are the only real teachings, and they try to hoard all the followers by decrying the other side? It is horseshit; any religion that preaches one-sided doctrines is not religion at all but a fucking recipe for control and hate. I am talking about Christianity, Islam, and any other way of life that tries to control life itself. The zealots of the world are using faith as a race to see who can sell the most holy cookies because whoever has the most followers wins. They combine scripture and conspiracy theory to fashion a mandate that will attract the human flies to the sticky trap. We are the equivalent of religious capital—nothing more. When those who are leading the masses are doing so not because they are teaching but because they are obsessed about winning, you can see that greed can corrupt the most ardent and proves that no one is above reproach. We are human: We are flawed, and saying that some people are not culpable is blasphemous to the human condition.
Gluttony Now I know popular usage dictates that gluttony is mainly connected to eating and consumption. But for me, gluttony hovers somewhere between overindulgence and OCD on all levels. From hoarders to “seat smellers,” the range on the gluttonous topography is a lot more widespread than I had thought when I started working on this chapter. But when you think about it, I guess it makes sense. Buffets are for gluttons. Lotteries are designed for gluttons. Stamp collectors are ubiquitous gluttons. That silly little creature in your brain that craves making every whim come true and every want become sated is gluttony. Whether it is food or drugs or material items or just comfort, you can find yourself being a glutton even if you think you are the most even-keeled person on the planet. I think we are all gluttons on the inside, but on the outside you would not catch any of us being so quote-unquote “petty.” I have got to be honest: There is no other sin, whether a part of this deadly list or otherwise, that is more American than gluttony. Look around you. People from the United States are some of the fattest in the universe. The world wonders why California is falling into the sea. It is because it cannot take the weight. Americans have a serious weight problem, more than any other country on Earth, which is very ironic seeing as no other nationality worries about its appearance more than Americans. We are gluttons for food, but we are devoted followers of infomercials and handy home gym equipment. You see, the thing I have realized is that sins make people stupid, not deadly. Stupid Americans are fat, lazy, indignant bastards, but god forbid you call them fat and lazy. Americans are also, by and large, the most obsessed with amassing wealth and power. We make promises across oceans and airwaves that anything is attainable if you want it. It really explains a lot about this country. Gluttony has bursts of brighter sides, but the darker sides can be vicious. An abused wife who refuses to run from her torturous husband becomes a glutton for fear because her capacity for denial makes her a target. It is twisted conditioning; I am not saying it is right. I am saying it happens all too often. The other reality is she fights back and either flees or kills the man. That woman can then become a glutton for life and happiness, spending the rest of her days feeling sunlight instead of raining fists and brutality. The epilogue becomes the karma that should befall the abusive man. There are no sins bad enough for him. I have a hard time with this whole sin thing because it is the act that carries the stigma, not the aftermath. I mean what good is a bottomless hunger if you cannot try to fill it? Ask this: Are you a glutton if you have no idea what you are hungry for? Can you suffer if you do not know why? We are force-fed this moral bullshit from the moment we take our first breaths. People judge people, and we don’t need a reason, just a scapegoat. Humans have been manufacturing targets out of each other since our molecules formed. It only makes sense that we would break it down to hunger as well. What do we care? We live our own hells every day. We feel our own pain. Is it the distraction that gives a little respite? Are we truly so indignant that we sift through people’s emotional trashcans to find something, anything, that will give us the superior edge? Nobody wants to feel alone in the world; they especially do not want to feel alone in their misery. Self-esteem is a key factor to gluttony. When you feel incomplete, you crave something to fill the void. Psychologists describe it as compulsive eating. That in itself can lead to the other end of gluttony, anorexia, which is a glutton’s way of “fixing the problem” that gorging oneself creates. Two opposite ends of a spectrum and the result is the same: a cycle is born. Stimulus and emotional abandon will converge and yet leave you empty. So now I obsess and acquire: I buy houses, guitars, collectibles, toys and gifts for my children, and anything else that covers up the remnants of that kid who woke up in a dumpster, feeling like so much trash for the compactor. I chain smoke and binge drink and overthink and self-diagnose till my eyes boil and my chest hurts. I buy shitty T-shirts to match my shitty jeans and my shitty shoes, all so people do not notice my shitty jackets or my shitty haircut. I am a reaction in a world of practiced moves. I wish I knew who created this monster. Then again, I guess I do know who created it. I just wish the answer were not me. So, essentially, my mind searches for distraction. There it is: I am a glutton for inspiration. I try to weed it out wherever I can, and I have become adept at it. My brain races like a freight train on rocket fuel and I forget more good ideas than I write down. I become fixated and one-minded until all I can see is the final outcome. Then all I can do is wait for the fruits to be revealed. I will get songs stuck in my head that I have not even written or recorded yet. I do not mean melodies or lyrics—I mean full-blown compositions. I can think of nothing else. I can focus on nothing else. It is the source of my greatest songs. It is also why it basically took me two weeks to write this book. When the spirit takes me, I have no control, and the spirit is all around me. The disparaging echo rattles around in my tenement and gives me a decent dose of black lung, all the while teaching me there is a sea just waiting to be established in the valleys of my heart.
So, here's my question to you. Do you think the Seven Deadly Sins are actually deadly?
Edited by Nick, Oct 2 2011, 12:13 PM.
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