WickedPressJohn: Art is Hell.

BandaiWasta: Hell is Art.

WickedPressJohn: You know why?

BandaiWasta: Because no one has the same niterpretation of it?

WickedPressJohn: No.

WickedPressJohn: What is Hell?

BandaiWasta: A non existant Christian belief of a ficticious place yuo go when yuo die and have bad karma.

WickedPressJohn: No.

WickedPressJohn: Hell is seperation from God.

WickedPressJohn: The reason Hell is a place of eternal suffering is because you are isolated from the grace of God.

BandaiWasta: Uh huh.

WickedPressJohn: And (this is most important), Hell is within sight of Heaven. The people in Hell can see Heaven.

BandaiWasta: The false belief in a place that exists outside the vurview of a deity.

WickedPressJohn: Your dogmatic atheism forbids you from seeing the poetry of Christian mythology. It doesn’t have to be fact to be true.

WickedPressJohn: Just like Greek myth, just like Norse myth, just like Egyptian myth, there are truths in Christian myth.

WickedPressJohn: You don’t have to believe in it to find truth in it. You understand?

BandaiWasta: I’m down.

WickedPressJohn: Ok. So, Hell is isolation from the grace of God.

WickedPressJohn: You can see Heaven, but you can never touch it.

WickedPressJohn: Got it?

BandaiWasta: Yep.

WickedPressJohn: Art is Hell.

WickedPressJohn: It’s having the vision in your head and not having the skill to fully articulate it.

WickedPressJohn: The process of Art is trying to touch Heven, knowing that you never can.

WickedPressJohn: That’s why Artists are in Hell. Every day of their lives.

WickedPressJohn: That make sense?

BandaiWasta: Is this an arguement against my LJ post?

WickedPressJohn: Yes.

BandaiWasta: See, I live in reality. Where crazy and eccentric people go to therapy, artist or not, and don’t take the chicken shit way uot.

WickedPressJohn: You’re an atheist, right?

BandaiWasta: I believe in reincarnation.

WickedPressJohn: Then how is voluntarily ending your own life cowardly?

BandaiWasta: You’re giving up on the challanges set up for yuo in this lfie.

BandaiWasta: Yuo’re giving up.

BandaiWasta: And that’s cowardly.

WickedPressJohn: To try again.

WickedPressJohn: How about euthenasia?

BandaiWasta: Kids in Chnia? Don’t think about them much.

BandaiWasta: 🙂

WickedPressJohn: Seriously.

WickedPressJohn: How about euthenasia?

BandaiWasta: I believe in endnig a life when there is no other recourse.

BandaiWasta: No chyance for survival.

WickedPressJohn: People in chronic pain?

WickedPressJohn: Who’s only choice is spending the rest of their lives drugged?

BandaiWasta: I believe in ending suffernig, yes.

WickedPressJohn: But not suicide.

BandaiWasta: Part of nkowing your right is to know when yuo’re being hypocritical.

WickedPressJohn: (quoting O, Brother) That don’t make no sense.

BandaiWasta: I just KNOW what is right and wrong in my eyes.

WickedPressJohn: Like Ashcroft.

BandaiWasta: Suicide is wrong, euthanasia is allowable.

BandaiWasta: Dude, not believing in suicide is different from thinking women should have no rights.

WickedPressJohn: That’s how he justifies a ban on gay marriage. “Some thigns are just wrong.”

WickedPressJohn: “And I know what’s right and wrong.”

WickedPressJohn: Euthanasia is acceptable because people are in chronic pain.

WickedPressJohn: Suicide is not acceptable because psychological pain is not the same as physical pain.

BandaiWasta: Teenagers don’t kill themselves over self conceived physical pain.

WickedPressJohn: Teenagers kill themselves because their perception has overwhelmed their reason.

WickedPressJohn: Hunter Thompson killed himself because he was a bi-polar schiztophrenic who permanently damaged his brain in the ’60’s.

BandaiWasta: And why was he not getting help?

WickedPressJohn: He was. He was on multiple medications, in therapy, and recovering from drug/alcohol addiction.

WickedPressJohn: None of that helped.

WickedPressJohn: Sometimes, the brain doesn’t give us any other choice. We are victims of our own perceptions. “Freewill” is a concept that ignores psychological facts and is just as stupid as belief in God.

BandaiWasta: And who damaged his brain with mind altering drugs?

BandaiWasta: The government?

WickedPressJohn: Nope. He did.

BandaiWasta: It’s called a consequence.

WickedPressJohn: I don’t disagree.

WickedPressJohn: But Art is self-destructive.

BandaiWasta: John, I’ve been reading L5R. You worked very hard on it. You wrote your heart out. I would argue writing is your art, am I right?

WickedPressJohn: The kind of Art he created could not exist without the accompaning philosophy. Neither could Fight Club. Or Hemmingway. Or Sylvia Plath. Or… oh, just go down the ist.

WickedPressJohn: L5R might be art. I’m not sure yet. But Orkworld is a better example. I almost destroyed myself over Orkworld. That Art did destroy my marriage.

WickedPressJohn: I killed personal relationships over that game.

BandaiWasta: I didn’t know that.

WickedPressJohn: It consumed every iota of my being.

BandaiWasta: I wouldn’t have made fun of it in the way I have, 🙂

WickedPressJohn: And there’s a reason it’s as good as it is.

WickedPressJohn:

WickedPressJohn: L5R TCG… Every guy working on that game had a girlfriend before we started working on it. We were all single when it went to press.

WickedPressJohn: Because Art is self-destructive. It makes demands on you that supercede everything else in your life.

WickedPressJohn: And what do you after you’ve made Art… and you can’t make it anymore?

BandaiWasta: See, you’re arguing a different set of rules for artists than for anyone else on the planet and I don’t agree with that.

BandaiWasta: It’s another challange.

WickedPressJohn: Let me ask you a very difficult question.

WickedPressJohn: Choose right now. Art or love.

WickedPressJohn: You don’t get both.

BandaiWasta: Love.

WickedPressJohn: Then you aren’t an artist.

BandaiWasta: I never claimed to be.

BandaiWasta: But that’s the thing.

BandaiWasta: I abide by the same rules I expect artists to live up to.

WickedPressJohn: Then you can’t judge someone like Thompson.

BandaiWasta: And I certanily don’t think any less of myself for not being an artist.

WickedPressJohn: Nor do I.

WickedPressJohn: It’s not an easy choice.

WickedPressJohn: I left the game industry because I chose my marriage over Art.

WickedPressJohn: Jennifer gave me an ultimatum. “Me or the game industry.” I chose her.

WickedPressJohn: It was a mistake. Because for the rest of our marriage, I was miserable. And it wrecked everything.

WickedPressJohn: An artist can’t choose. He can’t. Can’t. I’ve got stories in my head that I can’t let sit in there. I just can’t do it. Ideas that pound against the back of my eyes, screaming “LET ME OUT!!!”

WickedPressJohn: I don’t want to compare myself to people like Thompson or Hemmingway. That’s hubris. But I’ve got the same call. I may not have the same skill or talent, but I’ve got that call. And everything I create — it just isn’t what I see in my head. It’s so much… less.

BandaiWasta: But do yuo think as an artist, you should have different societal rules than everything else?

WickedPressJohn: No.

WickedPressJohn: Everyone operates on the same rules.

BandaiWasta: Then how is one suicide justified over a teenager’s?

WickedPressJohn: That’s why being an artist is being in Hell. Because you can’t operate under the same rules, but you have to.

WickedPressJohn: I don’t believe suicide is wrong. If you believe in reincarnation, neither should you.

WickedPressJohn: It’s a choice. Like any other. See, I’m an atheist. I don’t believe that there’s anything after life. But, I believe you have the right to do whatever you want with your life. And choosing to end it your own way, under your own terms, is one of those things.

WickedPressJohn: Now, is it a bad decision? Under certain circumstances, yes it is.

WickedPressJohn: Is it “wrong?” No.

WickedPressJohn: Is it uninformed? Yes, sometimes it is.

WickedPressJohn: But “wrong?” That’s like saying being gay is “wrong.” Or being Jewish is “wrong.” Nothing in the world is “wrong.” Foolish? Yes. Self-centered? Yes. Uninformed? Yes. But then again, we weren’t in Cobain’s head. We weren’t in Thompson’s. We have no idea what was going on up there. How can we judge someone’s decisions when we can’t even fully realize or understand our own?

BandaiWasta: Because to end yuor life is to quit. The cosmic start over button. But yuo’re giong to make the same choices because that’s part of your development.

BandaiWasta: Yuo’re saynig “oh, life is too hard. I can’t deal with it”.

WickedPressJohn: That’s one motive.

WickedPressJohn: Is that the only motive?

WickedPressJohn: Is that the only reason people do it?

WickedPressJohn: What if Thompson’s reason was entirely different? What if taking his own life fit as a capstone on his entire philosophy of life?

WickedPressJohn: What if his suicide was Art?

BandaiWasta: Then his philoposhy was as wrong as his suicide.

WickedPressJohn: Please articulate Hunter Thompson’s philosophy.

WickedPressJohn: And demonstrate how his suicide did not fit that philosophy.

BandaiWasta: No philosophy can condone suicide.

WickedPressJohn: Reaaally…

WickedPressJohn: Not even Socrates?

WickedPressJohn: The Father of Philosophy?

BandaiWasta: Another example of idolizing people who committed suicide.

WickedPressJohn: How about the 300 Spartans who stood against the Persian army? They willingly marched to their deaths to prevent Greece from falling to Persia. How about them?

BandaiWasta: That’s duty. There are people committing suicide for a pointless cause in our Army today.

WickedPressJohn: Socrates’ suicide was for a purpose.

WickedPressJohn: Do you know why Socrates drank the hemlock?

WickedPressJohn: The people who die in our Army in Iraq are doing it for what they perceive to be a noble purpose.

WickedPressJohn: Are you going to judge them based on a difference of perception?

WickedPressJohn: Here’s an example of what I mean. You’ve just given up smoking. (BIG Congrats on that, by the way. I gave it up a while ago, too and I know the cravings you are going through right now.) Giving up smoking alters your brain chemistry. It makes you behave differently. It… changes your perceptions. Should we judge your current behavior on your choice or on your altered brain chemistry?

BandaiWasta: He was accused of corruption of the young among other things.

WickedPressJohn: That’s not why he drank the Hemlock.

WickedPressJohn: He drank the hemlock to demonstrate a point about civil disobedience.

BandaiWasta: He had a duty to respect the due process of the law.

WickedPressJohn: Yes.

WickedPressJohn: And that no citizen is above the law, even when he demonstrates against an unjust law.

BandaiWasta: I remember. I wasted money on philosophy classes like everyone else. 🙂

WickedPressJohn:

WickedPressJohn: I got a degree in that, pal.

WickedPressJohn: Socrates’ suicide was a capstone in a lifetime of arguments. It wasn’t pointless. It demonstrated something important. Something that was important 500 years before Jesus did the same thing.

BandaiWasta: So did a friend of mine. He delivers pizzas.

WickedPressJohn: Yeah, but I make Art.

BandaiWasta: Heh.

WickedPressJohn: You know who else has a Philosophy degree?

WickedPressJohn: Steve Martin.

WickedPressJohn: See what it did to him???

BandaiWasta: To go back to the beginning of my arguement-if you killed yourself tomorrow.

BandaiWasta: I wouldn’t hate you. I would still mourn yuo.

BandaiWasta: But I wouldn’t think yuo were a fucking paraiah.

WickedPressJohn: Messiah, you mean.

BandaiWasta: That one.

BandaiWasta: Sorry, doing 3 different things at once. Vocabulary is getting jumbled.

WickedPressJohn:

WickedPressJohn: Suicide is a complicated issue. I’m not going to judge anybody’s reaction t suicide. That’d be hypocritical. You can feel any way you want to feel. I don’t revere Thompson because he killed himself, nor do I ascribe his suicide to any single motive. He was a complicated man. He may not have even been sane when he did it. But, after the shock of the event, I started thinking about it. And it made sense what he did — within his own way of looking at life. Fear and Loathing is not a “drug book.” It’s a profound philosophical work, full of all kinds of deep stuff. Thompson’s philosophy on life was just as profound and it’s frankly too simplisitic to say “he chickened out.”