Part three of a multi-part introspection/journey by Tom O’ Bedlam. Part One and Two can be found here.
I’ve shown you my Heavens, and I’ve shown you my Hells. Both are flawed, imperfect, and incredibly fragile. Sadly, life is often not so light and delicate in its touch. Reality has a hand heavier than lead, and when it touches you, you often bear the scars for the rest of your days.
The shitposter lacked compassion and empathy, wantonly throwing around images meant to offend. The hippie on the mountain lacked a proactive nature and aspirations, content to sit around and be at complete peace. Conversely, the two ideas seemed to fill the other’s holes.
There is a point where we must shed childish dreams and behavior, yet realize that this world still has all the magic it held when we were young. We must be able achieve that peace, yet still have that anger and passion to take action. We must temper the anger with empathy, the sloth with aspiration.
The monk on the mountaintop is a fool’s fever-dreams. The shitposter is a fool’s anger, unbound.
I’ve found peace in my madness, and passion in both. I’ve become a hippie on the edge, a madman with a mission. A disciple of Hicks and Hunter, ready to go gonzo. To live in delusion and chemical haze, to write with reckless abandon and no sense of self-preservation.
I’ve become a swirling nightmare, a fevered dream while I’m awake.
There’s no point in being the messiah, all the best are apostles. The messiah isn’t allowed to err, but the apostle’s story is in changing for the better. Trolls and shitposters definitely fill that starting point, reviled as they are.
It’s what I have to do, continue on this strange drug-fueled trip I’m on. Weaving little magic on the page, doing what I can to entertain. It’s a life I can be proud of, sitting around and telling little lies disguised as truths, and bigger truths as small lies. A strangely satisfying sort of prostitution, selling off little bits of my soul to whoever would spend time and money to bed them.
I’m a delusionally mad messiah, telling stories for food, coin, and bed.
I’m the avatar of anger, relaxed and calm.
I’m Tom o’ Bedlam, and I’m here to entertain.
“Yet will I sing, Any food, any feeding, Feeding, drink, or clothing; Come dame or maid, be not afraid, Poor Tom will injure nothing.”
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