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"[T]he inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself."
-Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness-


It is a terrible thing, to understand. Painful. There is more pain in the smallest hint of truth than in the most excruciating form of physical torture. Physical pain, we understand. We are able to perceive how it occurs and why, to know that fire--when applied to skin--will bring pain, that slicing off a finger will also bring pain. We see this evidence. It is substantial. We feel safer in this.

Truth is vague. It is nothing that we are able to touch, to see, or to define in terms proven by equations and evidence. Truth is insubstantial. It shifts behind impressions and misapprehensions, never to be caught in its full revelation. We fear this unseen, scarcely perceived notion of truth and what it might signify.

Truth is difficult to identify. It is particularly difficult because we avoid it, or look upon it only with partial attention. We allow ourselves to be distracted, we allow other ideas, other falsehoods to catch our eyes and therefore our minds, because we realize that there is danger in gazing upon the truth. We know somewhere, on a level of consciousness scarcely recognized, that to see the truth, we must face our fears. There is more, too, more that we almost know, that very few men recognize, that forces blindness with even greater strength... But it is this aversion to fear that deters most men.

What am I? I am one who understands fear. I am one who knows himself beyond the limits of society's morality. I am beyond their rules, and I am beyond them. I am everything. I am the man who has embraced horror and so become Almighty. And I am an abomination... so they say. They call me a menace. A renegade. They will imply that I am what they call--though they cannot directly speak the word--evil.

But what do they know of this? What do they know, when they are unable to look beyond their petty fears? They call my methods unsound, they, who every day waste countless lives on nothing. On nothing. They order their men to throw themselves against yard after yard of an entrenched enemy, to burrow themselves deeper into an inescapable hell, inescapable because they will only act so far, because they will not take the final, necessary steps. They order attacks, but advise mercy. They will not allow for such "slaughter" as would destroy their enemy. And so they send their men to die, and they gain nothing. They remain stagnant, expending without cause, without understanding.

I advance, I conquer, and so I am counted a renegade. Because I disregard their command. Because I trust myself, what I have seen and know, above what they order in their ignorance. Because I order executions. Because I allow my soldiers to murder, to slaughter, and to torture all who stand in our way. Because I kill outside of their rules.

Their rules are unsound, ill-matched to the circumstances. For civilization, their assumptions are harmful enough. For war, for the jungle, they are deadly. They destroy us with their restraint, arguing futilely that we must have mercy, that we must act with compassion. That we must kill only those whom it is necessary that we kill, only they do not understand the meaning behind the word. They perceive a necessity bound by their restraints, and they base their laws on these restraints.

This is a mistake. Law must come only from he who comprehends true necessity, who understand what it is that we are facing, this bleak strain of survival, this horror.

To battle the jungle, this dark wild, there must be extremes. If you are to fully comprehend these words, these ideas to which your speech breathes substance, it is necessary that you live at these extremes. Very few people do. Very few people are able. To the vast majority of men, a life of extremes is repulsive. Savage, they call it, and so they call me.

Yet I have come closer to the truth than any of them ever dare dream. Discarding their absurd restraints, I have explored the very boundaries of my self, of the world, and of every fear you can possibly imagine. I do not flinch to say this, any more than I flinch to discard mangled women and children, to hang their husbands. I do not flinch to see these actions for what they are, for I know that they must be. And I understand...

The deepest truth comes in flashes, evasive even to those who seek its face. I have seen this in moments, the dark moments in hidden corners of the world, and I will continue as long as I live to seek it, to face its silent, terrible truth. In an instant I understand, and this understanding is the deepest horror that I have ever known.



This is a fictional journal, used for theatrical_muse et autres places. O RLY? Seriously, guys... Seriously. I don't own anything related to Apocalypse Now or Heart of Darkness, I don't own the poetry/etc. that Kurtz so enjoys quting. And, just in case you were terribly confused, I'm not actually Walter Kurtz, which is probably best for everyone. Nor am I Marlon Brando, for which I give great thanks and etc. etc. (And, actually, I happen to be more along the scytheandroses line, aye.) You get the idea, I'm sure.

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