by osmosis

Conquering the Useless

This phrase brings to the surface nothing but trouble. It becomes a floodlight onto the foundationless structure on which we perform our mental handstands. How could this be? How could the prospects of "pure life" somehow cause more salt to enter the wound of existence than say a job at the commodities exchange? It's in the boldness of the gesture - the attempt to undercut the very legs one stands on.

The trader embraces those stems which keep him upright. He trains on them and reinforces each strand of muscle. However, the conqueror of the useless makes sure to hobble his stance at every turn. He is deeply skeptical of the legs that got him here, and cannibalizes them on a whim. In truth, the man of uselessness is living a lie. He is the ultimate contradiction, devoting his life to chopping away at the foundations of his goals.

It would seem then that the truest gesture would be to stop chopping all together, and a great many have put down their axes - but not willingly! They dropped their blades in the same way a soldier releases his military issued firearm into the mouth of the desert. For this reason, I refuse to call these men cowards. They are in fact heros, placing themselves on the frontline of battle - casualties of some meta-war. Fortunately, there is no use sitting around counting bodies, and the fallen wouldn't want it that way, because someone needs to relight the torch and carry it on towards that falsity known as progress.

It is in the space between chopping and dropping that the pure negative exists.