Black Goo and Murky Waters
My King, My Cleanliness is Doodie
Magic Mirror
Look who’s returned from the swamp. If it isn’t my dearest of readers.
Did a little clashing with the Black Cube, did you? You don’t seem to have fared so well. Forget what he looks like, I see you and know he’s not had it nearly so bad. Look in this mirror, why don’t you?
You’re covered in cuts and bruises, and you seem to have taken a black goo facial. You’ve got bite marks. Even I didn’t realize the Cube had teeth (adding that to my bestiary). Did he do that before or after spunking all over your face? Pretty gay, if the latter.
Do you feel a little guilty? Do you feel a little ashamed?
You should. You’ve disappointed your friends, your family—both living and dead—and you’ve disappointed yourself. All this work culminated in a moment of loss and filth. It is laid bare here before you.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the biggest cuck boy of them all?
Don’t worry, cocksplat. It’s not you.
Did you really think someone as kind and selfless as myself would kick you while you’re down? Here, take this tissue. Dry your eyes. Be careful you don’t touch me. I don’t want any black cum on my pristine being.
We’ve been at this work less than three months. I would never expect you to defeat the Black Cube already. Certainly not alone.
Why do you feel guilt? Why do you feel shame? I have already forgiven you, and that means more than what you think. Even more important, Jesus has already forgiven you. If God Himself can forgive your transgressions, who are you to pass judgment? Sounds a bit blasphemous to me. No reader of mine will engage in blasphemy. That’s against the tenets of our kingdom.
Big Jeezy and me, we’re not holding this mirror to shame you, or to remind you you’re a guilty failure, whose heart is black with sin. You do a good enough job of that already. We hold it before you, so that you might clean yourself.
Do yourself a favor and wash the spunk away.
Be quick about it.
Once you scrape that black crust away, we need to scrape your spiritual crust away too. We need to eliminate your guilt and shame.
Baptism by Filth
Before you can truly clean yourself, you need to recognize what you are cleaning. If you think the answer is as simple as guilt and shame, you are both smarter and dumber than you look.
Can you define guilt? How about shame? Can you recognize them correctly in yourself? If you can’t, then how do you know what to clean?
It’s okay, reader. Don’t feel ashamed you don’t know. This is why I’m here. For you. Your incredibly handsome, absurdly intelligent, dangerously wise guide. You’re so lucky. I wish I could have my own David Jagger to take me by the hand, whisper sweet nothings into my ear, and make me feel warm, fuzzy, and oddly aroused.
In fact, let me take your hand now. (I know you’re getting a chub, but I had better not see it.) Let’s take a walk through the kingdom, down to the lake below your sacred tree. This is your conscience.
You haven’t done the greatest upkeep. Look at how it’s covered in lily pads and moss. There’s trash and literal shit floating in it. I can barely see the surface. Even where I can, it’s so murky I can’t tell what’s immediately beneath it. It’s no wonder you think Nessie doesn’t exist. She’s probably dead. No doubt a result of this sludge.
You caused this through guilt and shame. What you did, what you didn’t do. By both action and inaction, you polluted the life-giving waters. Now, come here. Time for your baptism. You made your lake and now you will dunk in it.
Guilt is behavior-centric. It is tied to your actions. Easily identified as apart from yourself, as something external. Your lake is dirty because you keep pissing and shitting in it. Because you keep dumping your trash here. Maybe stop treating it like the Ganges River.
Shame, on the other hand, is more nefarious. It is self-centric, internalized. Rather than believing you did something bad, you believe you are bad. Lesser, unworthy, irredeemable. You have a tiny peepee and no woman will ever want to touch you.
Shame is the murk in the waters. All the fecal and decomposing trash particulates, but also the mud, sand, and other pollutants coming together to obscure the naturally crystal waters of the lake. Guilt contributes to the murk, but life’s runoff will pollute your waters even without it. So long as the waters remain dirty, so too will you. And the reflection of your kingdom and your sacred tree will forever be obscured by it, if they are visible at all.
Arise My Turds
I’m sure that all of this sounds very gloomy and overwhelming, huh? You’re probably thinking about how much filth you’ve accumulated and how gargantuan an undertaking this path of cleanliness must truly be.
Well, stop that. Right now, fatuus.
That sort of thinking is only contributing to the filth.
Dealing with guilt and shame is, like so much of this work, simple, but not easy. Mostly, it requires patience and understanding. Luckily, you have me. I’m the most patient and understanding guy you’ll ever meet. Aside from Jesus and Mr. Rogers, of course.
You must first accept that you will never be completely clean. You’re a filthy little animal. You were born this way. Sweaty, grimy, and gross, you sprang forth from the cosmic soup. The J-Man knows this and loves you despite it. He holds nothing against you, so why would you hold it against you? The King of Kings loves you, the Alpha and Omega, but you can’t love you? How hubristic. He stands before you with open arms, and all you must do is open your heart.
First, examine why you feel guilt and shame. This is the understanding part. When a turd floats by your face as I dunk you in the lake, ask how it got here. Did you shit in the lake? In other words, when the feelings arise, why are they arising?
Shine your light of attention on them. As you discern what they are, you’ll find they’re either rational or they’re not.
For instance, let’s say you feel guilty about watching a bull breed your girl. The guilty action leads to feelings of shame. Over time, this becomes deeply rooted, and now you’re an impotent little pushover. You can hardly stand to see yourself in the mirror. (Stop trying to smack it away or I will smack you, bitch boy.) The Black Cube took the form of a black bull, a minotaur, before it squirted its black goo on you.
Is it rational to feel as you do?
Yes, you little cuck. This is a sign. Change your ways. Stop shitting in the lake. Dump your trash in a trash bin. (Our kingdom is very sophisticated. There are many.) Stop letting the Black Cube bang your bitch. And, most definitely, stop watching it.
If your behavior is causing you to feel bad and it makes sense that it is, stop doing it. Start replacing it with behaviors that invoke confidence and self-assuredness. This is how you actively stop the pollution and clean the lake.
On the other hand, you may find that guilt or shame arise irrationally. Usually, it’s because society said something was bad. And we know that the Black Cube rules our society.
Take for example my short-king brethren. My little dwarves and hobbits. My cute little fellas. Come here, you scamps. Why do you feel shame over your height? Like all men, you too were created in the image of God. It is not rational to feel shame over being born exactly as you were intended to. It may be a challenge, but why is it a point of guilt or shame?
Flip the script. You dwarves were born strong. And you hobbits were born lucky. With really big feet. You know what they say about guys with big feet. (They cover more ground.)
Remember that life is a game. Everyone has some sort of challenge modifier running. Yours just happens to be height. That thing you are ashamed of is just as easily a point of pride and accomplishment, if only you’ll leverage it. Damn what society thinks. Only what I think matters. Society doesn’t love you; but I do. You make me look even better.
Flipping the script on irrational guilt and shame is like preventative measures to lessen the pollution spilling into your lake. The rest is just patience.
They say that time heals all. Your lake will self-cleanse through sunlight, sedimentation, aeration, microbial breakdown, and other science-y words that will make the atheists shut up.
See how caring I am? I’m even standing here with open arms for them, too.
Lake of the Self
The Black Cube loves guilt and shame. When you feel them, it loosens your cheeks so the Black Cube can spread them and slurp your vril right from your asshole. It’s like a reverse-butt chug.
Cleaning your lake is essential. If the Black Cube can keep it dirty, it will. It tricks you into doing its dirty work.
The lake is your Self. It cleans and revitalizes your self. Any impurities foisted on it will naturally cleanse of their own accord, given time and opportunity. Kind of like when you get soap in your peehole. It’s in your best interest to help this process along and prevent any future biohazards, so that as life and your battles with the Cube dirty you, you can always return to your Self for a little R&R.
Now that you’ve been baptized, take the mirror. See how even the tainted waters of the lake wash away the black goo? Use the mirror to find and scrub away the crusty bits. You’ll get cleaner with time. As clean and pristine as yours truly. (Okay, maybe not that pristine.)
Your homework this week is to find your turds. Find your crusty spots. How do they arise and why? Determine whether they are rational or irrational and act accordingly. Guilt and shame on their own are merely signals, but they shouldn’t overstay their welcome. As with all visitors, it’s great to see you come, but even better to see you go.
Speaking of which, you seem quite keen on overstaying your welcome. Don’t you have homework, procrastinator? Take the shiny new mirror I gave you and get going. The adventure is out there.
Oh, and don’t forget to keep that mirror in your inventory. It’s another key item.
Men seni jaqsı köremin.