Death is supposed to be the last, great refuge for troubled minds. From ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and into the big black. It’s the blessed relief of personal extinction. The hidden regret and all-too-public shamings that cluttered up your fretful, spluttering half-life finally get snuffed forever.
But can those things ever truly be extinguished? Perhaps not really. Perhaps they simply lay with your rotting corpse, waiting to be unearthed all over again. It’s probably some gravedigger that does it—a sick sadist with a muckrake and an agenda who drecks through your spell of days like it’s a top priority WikiLeaks scandal that the entire universe must know every last gasp about.
So why does it feel like the universe already knows? Why the nagging guilt no matter how bone free your closet might actually be?
Your social media accounts don’t magically self-destruct within five seconds of you stiffing it. Those secret dick and clunge pics don’t clean up after themselves either. And those passive aggressive status updates you so artfully tailored for maximum jabbiness aren’t fooling anyone—least of all that one person who must never be named for fear of mutual friends finding out you’re just a bitter, judgemental prick.
The internet is the new universe, and it’s watching your every move like the silent, voyeuristic, omnipresent predator it is. Instead of looking out, we look in, and so does it—right inside to our collective core. And while it may have begun life as just another straw god we’ve fashioned for ourselves, this is one straw god that’s grown legitimately and malevolently all-powerful. The internet has the genuine capacity to not only destroy lives but also to completely unmake them.
That isn’t a boon for the cause of social justice by the way—not when you have pernicious shame-baiting disguised as entreaties for ‘correct’ ethics and behaviour. It makes me so mad. I hate the Twitter bullies, the Facebook assassins, and the faux progressives who are just as petty as the next person. An individual’s life can be cherry picked then ripped apart in the kangaroo court of misinformed opinion. Rest in peace? More like rest in pieces! And meanwhile, the self-righteous wolverines of ‘integrity’ continue to parade their brand of alleged egalitarianism within their echo chambers of uncritical acclaim.
“They never knew me.” That’s the nub of it. It’s the one thing we can all truthfully say. No one ever bothered to try to understand. They took a little snippet here, they took a little snippet there, and then decided these snippets were all there was to know about us. Never mind the rich, inner animateness we had going on. Egoists never care for bosh like that. They have no regard for any of the hopes, fears and innate humanity we may actually possess. All they need do is to poke their noses into our private affairs, sans context, and usher in complete ruin—all to declare another someone a moral failure.
So, yeah, this is why I’m still here. I cannot dissolve in mindless repose while this shit is going on. I cannot lie because they cannot let it lie. And what they say hurts me. It hurts those closest to me. The mutual backslapping sanctimony of those serial dogpilers keeps me tethered to this wretched mortal cliché. Yeah, I’m so fired up about it that I even left my cosy grave to go and buy myself a bible today. Me, a ghost, buying a ‘holy’ book! I shouldn’t even be here. I’ve got better things to do than to exist. I’ve had my time.
The internet is just the universe of our modernity, and god is… well, he/she/it hasn’t fully been discounted yet, as much as the human race might wish otherwise. God is the eternal poltergeist that haunts the darkest corners of our minds, a narcissistic tyrant who won’t let go, who displays a rapey kind of ‘love’ that keeps on taking until all that’s left is the detritus of hollowed out ghosts.
I’m going to burn this bible, god. That’ll show you, you spectral thug! I’ll rewrite your Wikipedia page, exposing who you really are, then lock it down so that the evidence cannot be removed or tampered with, and remains viewable for all time. I’ll shame you yet, though I no longer believe in your existence!
No, really, I don’t.
Now, please, just let me lie.
by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2018
unbolt me 
Your writing is really hitting me today.
I’m glad I saw your post, which led me through one of your amazing wormholes to here 🙂
I love this.
I’m a believer, so we obviously disagree on some things, but that’s the thing, isn’t it…I mean, I hope to always live in a place where people are allowed to say what they think and believe…but that all seems to be disintegrating before our eyes!
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It’s always so cool to have you visiting my little neck of the internet. Even when you and I have points of disagreement, you are open to accepting what I say as just what I think and believe. That means you see the human in me and that’s all I could ever ask for. Thank you. You’ve just made my day and you give me some hope for this at times very cruel, cold and indifferent world!
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Thank you! That warms my heart ♥
I absolutely see the human in you…and you are so crazy talented…and it IS a scary world…everything is about money and profit and greed, and humans are just a product and commodity…and if someone disagrees then they are dehumanised and demonised…and I know I’m preaching to the choir 🙂
But I’m just writing a post now about the scary mob in NZ attacking K-JK who’s been mischaracterised etc. Ugh, I’m so so sad about how heinous our media is, and the escalating rates of violence.
Thanks for your message! It means a lot.
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I wish that hadn’t happened as now the rhetoric will skew towards demonising all trans people and their trans allies. The dehumanisation that trans people are put through every day of their lives disgusts me, but violence is also disgusting. There has to be a better way to try and bridge that divide. Again, thanks for reading. I really appreciate it!
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I was going to comment last night, but I was so tired, I was scared I’d be non-sensical 😆
Yes! A better way! 💔
My heart breaks over the trans issues. Well, and just the general lack of compassion and love generally. Everywhere.
I personally don’t know anyone who is anti trans. But I know a lot of them, including me, want conversations over the best way to handle things with kids.
As a kid in the 80s, I was convinced I was meant to be a boy. It wasn’t that I wanted to be a boy, because I didn’t. I just truly, deeply believed some kind of mistake had been made, and i was meant to be a boy. And it was really stressful. But I didn’t talk to anyone about it. It was the 80s.
Long story short, a few years later, I didn’t believe that any more. And I had a better understanding of my mental health at that time.
Recently I was catching up with a young friend. She was adopted, but it wasn’t going too great, and as part of her uncle’s friendship circle, we all looked out for her. We’ve had a lovely bond for most of her life. Anyway, most of her school friends consider themselves to be trans. What concerned me as she was talking, was how uninformed her friends were about basic biology and physiology, and the flippant way medical professionals had behaved with them. I mean, they were told that if they started a medical journey, it’s fine if they stopped, everything is reversible! One of her friends was shocked when she found out that breasts don’t grow back. So of course, I think about my own experience, and what would it look like now?
I’m so concerned about the corporatisation of everything and the profiteering, I want kids to have all the info they need to make decisions they can live with forever. Even my kidney surgeon confessed to me years ago the lies some surgeons will tell just because surgery is really good money! Yikes. My naive self was so shocked. (But because Darrin was a pastor, we kept having these interesting experiences of perfect strangers confessing things to us 🙃)
So my young friend has been through her own trauma, and she knows I’d support her in any way. And she agreed that there needs to be more conversation without judgement and labelling.
Darrin’s cancer journey has really opened our eyes to the medical fascism going on, and I’m so sick of everything being about money and greed and not exploring all of the complex reasons humans are the way they are. Especially when irreversible medical procedures come in to play for kids.
Darrin’s own scientific experience with PCR machines and vaccines made us aware of the lies going on right away with covid too. Geez, there’s corruption everywhere!
Gosh, sorry this is so long! Not my intention when I was enjoying your writing lol.
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Well written. Really thought provoking.
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Thank you. That means a lot to me!
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I enjoyed this. Very timely, with all the violations of privacy that occur–and the compulsive sharing of information about ourselves as though no one will find out.
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It makes me wonder if we’re being taught to have no filter, so I certainly get your point! 😉
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