well, i mean, c'mon now. how can the rest of the week do anything but disappoint? provide a sense of extreme anticlimax? shirley, nought can compete with the excitement, the thrill, the fine keening of the senses, when one participates in...

#BinNight

i mean, right? that time of the quarter when one experiences the frisson of excitement as one carefully discovers if the front door hinges & locks have remembered, since the last time they were called into action seemingly a whole geological epoch ago, to still, not to put to fine a point on it... work?

and then, not to be outdone, the dual excitement after binning about, of... clearing out the 42 zillion snails in the letterbox & the gruesome particulate remnants of whatever mail, junk or otherwise, they have devoured since my last visitation. it was a different world, back then.

#whimsy #nonsense 🤪 #dropbearshit #socialphobia #hermit

Robert the Devil

In Latin: Robertus Diabolus.

He’s a legend of medieval origin about a Norman knight who finds out he’s the son of… (bum, bum, buuum!) Satan. This story started in France in the 13th century.

The story goes:

A duchess of Normandy who was tormented with a desire to have kids but couldn’t have any. She got tired of waiting on God (who wasn’t listening to her). So she decides to ask the Devil. The Devil compiles.

A son is born! As an infant, he bites his nurse & pulls her hair out. As a “lad,” he knifes his teachers. At age 20, he became a bandit chief. He’s then dubbed a knight. This was because of the belief that the wicked instincts raging in him would be subdued. But this only made him worse than before. No one could surpass him in strength or in courage.

In a tourney, he overthrows & slays 30 opponents. Then he goes roaming about the world. He then goes back to his homeland. He restarts his banditry – robbing, arson, murdering, ravishing. One day, after unaliving all the nuns of a certain abbey, he remembers his mom. He goes looking for her.

The servants scatter in every direction when they see him coming. No one waits around to talk to him to find out what in the world he wants. Right at this time, Robert had an epiphany. For the 1st time ever, he becomes conscious of his own monstrous wickedness. He becomes remorseful for his actions. He wanted to know what made him the way he was.

Robert then goes to his mom. And at literal sword point, he tells her to tell him the truth about his birth. After learning the truth, he freaks out, man! But his sturdy nature isn’t weakened. He doesn’t despair. Instead, the hope of a laborious redemption, of a marvelous victory, urges & spurs on his proud spirit.

He’ll learn to conquer Hell, to subdue himself, to foil the designs of his dad (Satan), who’s made home a docile instrument of destruction & of sin. He makes no delay. He goes straight to Rome, casts himself to the harshest kind of penance, makes confession to be a holy hermit, & swears that henceforth he’ll taste no food that he hasn’t snatched from the jaws of a dog.

On 2 separate occasions, when Rome was besieged by the Saracens, he fought incognito for the Emperor & gained the W for the Christians. Recognized at last, he refused all rewards & honors, the imperial crown, & even the monarch’s own daughter. He goes away to live as a hermit in the wilderness. He dies a saint, blessed by both God & men.

In other accounts, he finally marries the princess who’s deeply in love with him.

The oldest known account of this legend is a Latin prose narrative by a Dominican Friar, Etienne de Bourbon (circa 1250). It then shows up in a French metrical romance of the 13th century. From France, the legend spread to Spain. In England, the subject was treated in the metrical romance Sir Gowther (circa 14th century). In this version, the devil disguises himself as the mom’s husband.

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I'm migrating my account again, and to start again, I want to repost this from almost a year ago on this new account. I still think the same way, but I'm calmer and less stressed about the world...

AN AUTISTIC URBAN HERMIT
(you may not understand if you are not autistic)

@autistics
@autism101

For many years, I've been a very curious person. I've learned many things and done many things that I found interesting: science, art, computer science. Like a voracious animal, my mind has consumed all kinds of information, eager to understand everything around me and everything I experienced. Soldier, doctor, monk, musician, hacker, etc. Until one day, staring at the ceiling in the bed of a psychiatric hospital where I was hospitalized, I asked myself: "How did I get here, to this?" And that night, 17 years ago, another part of my life began. I began to die and be reborn, to discover how and why I had gotten to that situation. I discovered that I have high abilities, that I am bipolar and autistic. But for every limitation I discovered, I also discovered the limitations of the world and the human society in which I live.
Today I know that nothing has meaning and that life doesn't need to have it; that what many see as progress and evolution, I see as barbarism and brutality, and that humanity is the stupidest species on the planet, not the best. I don't have goals anymore, I don't need them. But I do have a compass, a kind of direction without needing to get anywhere. To live as peacefully as possible and need very little, being aware and critical of everything. A peaceful dwelling isn't just my house tucked away in the middle of the city, but also a peaceful inner life, without the noise and clamor of the lives of "normal people," without socializing more than the bare minimum necessary for survival. And this isn't because of autism; it's because of a kind of purge, a psycho-spiritual hygiene. The forced social being I often was is dying. Until a few years ago, there wasn't so much exposure and socialization; it wasn't mandatory or essential to living and working in this world. With all the technology and supposed progress, there is increasing misery, hunger, war, and violence everywhere, which makes me think that it's more of a trigger than a solution.
Being overly intelligent and being autistic is a fatal combination that guarantees the death of the social being and the development of the inner hermit that every gifted autistic person potentially is. I'm slowly retreating from the world to my quiet inner abode, where a very narrow door filters who enters and who doesn't. Just my small family group and a minimum of kindness toward a few people is more than enough.
I thought a lot about sharing what I'd learned, about helping, but I realized that idealism and the romanticization of compassion are useless when the sufferer doesn't understand the root of their problems and isn't willing to do their part. Human nature is to be a soulless son of a bitch, held back only by fear of punishment, whether from human law itself or some imagined deity. It's better to live in full awareness of the suchness of things. I myself can be a compassionate genius and in the next moment break your head for being rude and treating me badly.
We live in the worst of all possible worlds, and with that, we are warned that the worst can always happen. Knowing that, any good thing that comes or appears is a gift, a bonus track.
I don't give unsolicited advice, but if you want some, it's this: "Step away from the world as it is and watch it burn from a distance."

(An autistic person becoming an urban hermit.)

#actuallyautistic #autism #autistic #gifted #giftedness #zen #society #humanity #hermit #philosophy

Hermit card in progress

#tarot #art #illustration #myart #fall #hermit