18 February 2021

I consider myself a realist – True Detective, Season 1

Because this repeatedly came back to my memory over the past seven years.

– People out here, they don’t even know the outside world exists. Might as well be living on the fucking moon.
– There’s all kinds of ghettos in the world.
– It’s all one ghetto, man. A giant gutter in outer space.
(...)
– Ask you something. You’re Christian, yeah?
– No.
– Well, then what do you got the cross for in your apartment?
– That's a form of meditation.
– How's that?
– I contemplate the moment in the garden, the idea of allowing your own crucifixion.
– But you're not a Christian. So what do you believe?
– I believe that people shouldn't talk about this type of shit at work.
– Hold on, hold on. 3 months we’ve been together, I get nothing from you. Today, what we're into now, do me a courtesy, okay? I'm not trying to convert you.
– Look. I consider myself a realist, all right, but in philosophical terms, I'm what's called a pessimist.
– Um, okay. What's that mean?
– Means I'm bad at parties.
– Let me tell you. You ain't great outside of parties either.
– I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware, nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself, we are creatures that should not exist by natural law.
– Huh. That sounds god-Fucking-Awful, Rust.
– We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self; an accretion of sensory, experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody is nobody.
– I wouldn't go around spouting that shit if I was you. People around here don't think that way. I don't think that way.
– Maybe the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal.
– So what's the point of getting out bed in the morning?
– I tell myself I bear witness. The real answer is that it's obviously my programming. And I lack the constitution for suicide.
– My luck, I picked today to get to know you. 3 months, I don't hear a word from you, and…
– You asked.
– Yeah. And now I'm begging you to shut the fuck up.
– I get a bad taste in my mouth out here. Aluminum, ash, like you can smell the psychosphere.
– I got an idea. Let's make the car a place of silent reflection from now on, okay?
– What should I bring for dinner?
– A bottle of wine would be nice, I guess.
– I don't drink.
– Well, no, of course not, Rust. Listen. When you're at my house, I want you to chill the fuck out. Don't even mention any of that bullshit you just said to me.
– Of course not, Marty. I'm not some kind of maniac, all right? I mean, for fuck's sake.

If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward then, brother, that person is a piece of s***. And I’d like to get as many of them out in the open as possible. You gotta get together and tell yourself stories that violate every law of the universe just to get through the goddamn day? What’s that say about your reality?

Death created time to grow the things that it would kill.