Well, the 7 Deadly Sins pieces certainly brought out a whole bunch of reactions over at 6S, mostly complimentary and all commented upon. I admitted to envy, wrath, pride, gluttony, sloth and lust, and to having an understanding of avarice even though it's not a sin that is particularly dear to me. I was going to do a summing up of the comments, and try to create some sort of league table as to what people (albeit from an admittedly limited sample size) thought the worst sin was in general.However, I got an over-reaction to dear Belphegor, the demon representing my most excessive sin, which completely skewed the results. Even 6 days I'm still not entirely sure what prompted it, although I suspect my worst sin in this case was a half flippant/half exasperated 3 word comment ("Count to 6") on a previous post by the 'author', prompting him to a vicious personal attack. This 'author', apparantly stinging from some "carefully crafted cutting comments" which must have been made by others, called the moral majority to round upon me for having such wicked thoughts in the first place. I was called a troll, and accused of being the sort of person that only finds validity through hurting others to feed my own super-ego; and told I must learn from the knee-jerk comments of people who had no understanding what my point was in the first place.I'm not 100% sure why I am still dwelling on this, the 'author' has made a fractional retraction, in removing the original offensive post, although reposting it without the words he'd copied from me. I think it's because, even though (I felt!) my words were explanatory, logical and not particularly inflammable, they failed to persuade. In the words of a writer I respect deeply the 'author' is "an arrogant little fuckwad (sic) afflicted with an utter lack of sense regarding not only his, uh, moral righteousness" but I still feel a sense of failure in my inability to get him to see my point of view. I should be better. <--Back to 7 of 7 Deadly Sins summary
And so it comes to the final sin, the pinnacle of the series, and the weight of expectation is falling heavily on me due in part to it being the finale, and in part to my previous "hot reputation" with publications to my name at sleep.snort.fuck and newwavevomit predominantly themed around lust.People might expect a real bodice ripper, zip-buster filled with uncontrollable swellings and spurtings, yearnings and cravings, something to make them aware of their own excitement, their lust that the dictionary defines as both intense longing and strong sexual desire.However, last week I realised one real thing about my sexual nature, and it is that it is not even mostly physical in nature, last week lets-call-him cyberguy, my latest and this time virtual partner in lust decided to come clean about his real life marital status as a prelude to calling things to a halt. I have never met cyberguy in real life, and the chances were always a million to one that I ever would, and yet, through a common interest we corresponded and chatted and when we talked about sex and then cybersex and then started cybersex there was nothing but words between us, minds interacting and bouncing off each others, spurring each of us to more invention and description and yes, lust. I knew some real life facts about him, had even seen pictures of him, and he would not be considered an object of lust to the wider world (me neither, I suspect) but sitting at a keyboard using my mind created a lustrous glow, a spark that reached over the miles, the time-zones, to a point where we felt we could smell, taste each others arousal. I lusted after him, or maybe I lusted after the "virtual us", but for sure I will miss him.<--Back to 6 of 7 7 of 7 Deadly Sins
And at last I find a sin that I am not slavishly committed to, although I do have to think of it as avarice, an excessive or insatiable desire for wealth or gain, rather than the simpler greed, which for me is simply food related and therefore covered by gluttony. Which I have already confessed to.I remember as a young woman, just ahead of moving into my first 'proper' house with my very own mortgage surprisingly discovering a heretofore unseen passion for things - bookshelves and bed-linen, crockery and cookware. Anyone who has met me in the flesh would realise that I don't find self-expression in designer clothing or accessories, so I think the sudden burst of interest in household goods was some part of finding out what I was like as a person who lived on my own. Perhaps I come closest to this sin when I am buying books, it generally isn't enough simply to read them as I do want to own them, and finding a new author with a substantial back catalogue is a real stomach clenching pleasure, I can go shopping and bring them all home to rest. I want to see them on my shelves with the other hundreds of titles and run my eyes across them and have my head swirl with the dizzying amount of choice I have when I ask myself the question "What shall I read next?"<--Back to 5 of 7 6 of 7 Deadly Sins
I have confessed to this sin before (here) and the situation of course has not changed in the time since I wrote that piece a bare couple of months ago; my physical sloth is as entrenched, torpid and intransigent as ever. I would like to think my mind is mildly more energized than usual with the buzz that a weekend flurry of writing activity brings, the sense of achievement of actually having done something, but I think that as usual it is in Sunday evening mode. Looking in a forward direction without actually looking forward to taking up the reins once more, fighting the same fucking battles with the same annoying people, and above all fighting my own apathy. Perhaps this is why I am such an irritable cow, why little things annoy me out of all proportion and I let myself respond; the exasperation actually drives me to do things, say things when I would by nature wish to slump back down and let them wash over me like a warm bath. As I spend so much time blog-browsing, I should perhaps rejoice when I read inane, repetitive, badly written and badly spelt, shallow cliche ridden pieces as this fires up my mental engines, fuels them up with hot sarcastic coals instead of laying down by the embers and wondering some time later how long they have been cold. The only cure for sloth is creativity, and even carefully crafted cutting remarks can feel creative at times.<--Back to 4 of 7 5 of 7 Deadly Sins
Beelzebub is apparantly the demon associated with gluttony, habitual greed, or excess in eating or drinking; and I don't even understand how this can be a sin, which would mean an offence against a moral or religious law, or some sort of divine command.
I find it difficult to imagine a God anyway, without thinking of 'him' as some early-age politician, saying "you know, if you eat more than your fair share, someone else will go hungry," and we all know how much we trust politicians.
I don't even believe that these politics of scarcity are true anymore, we do not live in communities so small that eating to excess is taking the food (or drink!) out of another person's mouth.
For sure, gluttony can be ugly, as can doing anything to excess, especially to people who think there is some moral purity in restriction, holding back.
People who make a virtue out of self denial are the ones I find incomprehensible, what warped sense of self says "I find this attractive therefore it must be wrong," and thank Christ I am not tempted to sin, to eat nice things, to fill my stomach with gorgeous, slaver inducing food and mellowing, mind altering drinks?
It must be true that Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me... because for sure I am unrepentant and combatting my gluttony is not a fucking part time job.<--Back to 3 of 7 4 of 7 Deadly Sins
There is a song I particularly dislike for the line in it that runs "What have you done today, to make you feel proud?" and it's self aggrandizing, self improvement message. As if all we need is a little self belief and we can stop being one of the ordinary people and become someone who stands head and shoulders above the other 6.7 billion of us out there. And it's not like I am saying this from the viewpoint of a particularly modest, hiding-my-light-under-a-bushel person. I am proud to be in the intellectual elite, which for me means I can score 140 on IQ tests, that I quickly understand many new concepts and complex ideas; and that I am highly articulate in being able to string a grammatically correct meaningful and persuasive well written sentence together, and oftimes verbally too (in my native language). However, all of this is just something that I am, I was lucky enough to be born with it and was fortunate that I grew up in a nurturing environment where my intelligence was valued. So I haven't done anything today to make me feel proud, and I don't fucking need to, OK?<--Back to 2 of 7 3 of 7 Deadly Sins
I don't generally consider myself to be an hot tempered, emotional person, although I guess this is more nurture than nature, having been brought up as English and therefore at the more repressed end of the spectrum as regards expressing one's feelings.I am ill equipped, therefore, in ways of dealing with emotions other than burying them, and the helplessness I feel when I let the strongest ones get loose is all encompassing. No matter how much I try to hold onto logical reasoning, everything else goes out the window when I am forced to have a conversation with that man and my anger is not white hot, but the flaming molten colour of Olde English Cider, directed at the little orange man in front of me, an unavoidable work colleague. He is little (5'6") and he was orange when I first saw him, an unconvincing sun tan and he looked like a thousand year old corpse dug up from a peat bog, and he thinks he is always right and of course he is suffering from little man syndrome in spades and he thinks his point of view is more important than anyone elses and he DOES NOT listen to other people but still demands that they respect him without doing anything to ever gain that respect for his whole work ethos seems to be to find the one person he can delegate (I mean dump) the job onto.We had a "clear the air" discussion last week where he told me that he did not have to justify himself to me and oh how I wish he did, how I would weigh him in my scales of injustice and sentence him to something suitably Sisyphean; but the best punishment of all would be for him to see himself through the wrathful eyes of others, and yes, I do volunteer my vision for that.<--Back to 1 of 7 2 of 7 Deadly Sins
The truth is that I live alone, solitary, and some of you might envy my freedom to please no-one but myself. Freedom to bury my head uninterrupted in a book, or to leave the bathroom door open when I pee and walk around the house in whatever state of undress I feel like, to leave clothes lying where I drop them. Freedom to please myself whenever I want to, and yes I am talking about masturbation, you might envy that. I do feel wistful for the long familiarity of years spent together and imagine the comforting but alien feeling of having a prolonged interest in your partner and vice versa, like a warm blanket on the sofa where I would have only cushions. People expect me to want the blanket, to feel incomplete without it and jealous of people with it, and I do sometimes, like when my borrowed blanket goes back to it's family home, leaving me vasoconstricted with the hairs raised up from my skin.I want it sometimes, I am attracted to it like a shiny new plaything, a glinting CD released from it's packet or a pretty new ring, I guess there are moments when I do feel envy but then I go bury my head in a book, my fingers in... well, I do find solace, solitude.1 of 7 Deadly Sins
I think I am safe still, safe from being drawn back in to actively yearning for you. You log in on your "secret" ID, known only to me, just so you can chat with me. I sort of want to be just friends now, but I still want you to lose your reason over me. Among other things. So you grow hard as you pick up on my inneundo, your pants bulge in your mother in law's study while you talk to me and then you tell me it is only your cock taking over your brain. And that, honestly, you do respect that I have a brain...
For someone who always said that her own opinion mattered more to her than other people's, she sure spent alot of time seeking affirmation. For someone who claimed immunity to charm school chat-up lines she sure ended up on her back with a lot of guys who were all talk.For someone who could sparkle with life when the mood hit her she made sure she was not in the mood with isolation and alcohol.She wanted to be for someone. But nobody knew that. Not even her.
I mean yeah I have been raped but you know it wasn't like a bad one like? It was one of those things you know I, well I wouldn't say it was all my fault but you know wrong place wrong time? I was drunk, I mean, of course, it is me; and yeah so I went back with him when I was drunk and we had sex and I don't remember it but when I woke up with him in the morning I knew I didn't want to do it again. He had other ideas though and although he wasn't much bigger than me he was stronger, muscles where I had beer flab and he pinned me down on the cheap student hall mattress and I tried to struggle and I really did struggle for a while before something clicked in me and I let him get on with it and I lay there underneath him pushing and grunting and I let him. Does that count then?
