The porcine face of humanity has an awful tendency to resist makeup. The rouge and eyeliner just don’t seem to adhere. Lipstick too, always a shade off. This judgement isn’t one of taste, no. Taste can be rationalized, taste can be debated. Taste can be bad, of course, but in its existence as taste it has purpose, reason. On the hideous face of our most evil side, no amount, no artistry can make that visage anything by what it is- terrifying. Perhaps it can alter the terror, make it more visceral or full of suspense, but it cannot be hidden. To hide that face would be some feat, if it could be done, but it can’t.
This side of our collective face tents to rear its very ugly head in groups. Something a 19th century sociologist would blame on the collective shape of their skulls, or perhaps on the lack of love they received from their mother’s sallow duggs. In groups we abandon all reason, passion strikes deep and mayhem ensues. I understand why. Evolutionarily the whipped up excitement would have helped our band, or tribe hunt, fight, survive in a world terrifying and harsh. Those base tendencies strike deep, down though our layers, straight to our very core. Now too, in liberating strife or smash mouth ball games they are useful- the bravado they inculcate leads us to moments of rare courage too. That courage is fine. Ask the girl for her phone number, jump off the city wall into the murky moat, rev the throttle until the freeway becomes a blur and the wind a deafening howl.
This group courage, if I could even call it that, is nothing short of psychosis. In brotherly arms we strike off on a path- blind to whether or not it’s a good idea to strike off in the first place. God forbid the members of this group are bat shit to start with. Their crazy ideas spin round and round, gathering speed and imagined weight, till Mach number becomes fractions of light speed and a dipshit singularity forms. Its gravitational well far too strong for most to escape, its draw into oblivion unceasing.
I wonder where in the human soul there is space for hate. You’d think love and kindness, with their warmth and passion, would fill souls to the brim. Yet if even a page of history is evidence enough, hate finds room. It finds room and expands like some terrifying mushroom after the rain. I know this is true, it is beyond self evident, yet even with that knowledge, I don’t want to believe it. The idea of hate taking hold hurts me deep down, somewhere I am my most tender. That soft underbelly is pierced when scenes of hate are played out- and is ripped asunder when I feel hate’s spores float my way. Perhaps it is my own ignorance, but I can’t believe that anyone really feels otherwise- though the scent of the spores might just be too sweet and alluring for some.
Today was a day where our porcine face popped up sans makeup. A rare occurrence, as we so love to decorate this scornful countenance, but appeared it did. I felt the collective groan of people, the shudder of fear, the wail of pain. We survived so far, yet the memory of that face will haunt us, give us pause, and make us wonder. If it was so hideous indeed, how could we have ignored it for so long?
