Repetition: A Choose Your Own Adventure Story

The impulse to believe that every conflict, every emotional disturbance, is unique to you is one born of inherent human selfishness. No other animal would assert that not only do they experience an unlimited array of emotional and social experiences, but they certainly wouldn't state that they're only ones to be able to claim a specific experience which as much confidence as we do. In reality, we are infinitely less complicated than we think we are.

(quest) moving forward moving forward that's the most important thing when you see someone coming to check in. you keep moving because if you pause to catch your breath even for a second you will start to realize you've been running towards a glass wall this whole time, and your sense of purpose is on the outside of it. break the glass? -yes -no -kill yourself instead

(adventure) you're looking for riches you're looking for something to fill up all the empty spaces in you where you're just air, a ghost piloting flesh and bones strung together by some kind of accidental gravity orbiting Purgatory I and the longer you run the faster you go the farther away from what you're searching for looks

(pursuit) when you're an aware person you feel eyes on you all the time and no one understands why you left but you try to explain in letters that you never mail [they're still watching] that you had to, that the only way to feel like you had any semblance of control was to go somewhere you could finally die in peace.

(rescue) this is what happened post-trauma post-BigReveal when everyone knows it's not a big A on your chest but a big ugly V for Victim. Now everyone wants to crawl inside your skin and masturbate to your pain, everyone wants to know the details but no one wants to hear the context the perspective (I Deserved It �" a cardinal sin). It's like we've raised a generation of people so fixated on their white horse knight fantasy so fixated on their ability to save that they never bothered to ask whether you wanted to be.

(escape) there are people who will spend their entire lives escaping. These people will and live and die trading one cage for another again and again and again because they only feel alive when they're banging on the bars. Hit me? Hit me hit me hit me- a motto of the people who run into doors on purpose and scream when they don't open, people who break windows instead of going in the back. some people just need something to rail against.

(revenge) this is part two, this is what comes after. If you escaped it's not enough to just be free and enjoy the life without bars because a life with nothing to hate and nothing to incite your rage is a life where you feel dead and directionless. This is when you start stalking your old hate like a jealous ex everyone that ever hurt you and everything you ever did to yourself makes the list. you aim a gun at the mirror. Shoot? -yes -no -Find Him.

(the riddle) the riddle is easy because humans are constantly searching for the hidden meaning of everything. For the same reason that people would prefer to bang on the bars that experience real freedom we like to search for the meaning in things even when we Know there isn't one. you make eye contact with a stranger on the street and they've got your eyes and your hair and your voice and for a second you look at your own reflection and wonder if all this time you've been a ghost. what will you read into this puzzle? -kill your double -kill yourself -go home and take a bath

(rivalry) we are taught that god rewards competition but really, we're all alone here. Destroying each other in the quest to destroy ourselves is the seminal human past time. When's the last time you walked out of a fight

unscathed? When's the last time you walked out of a fight alive? When's the last time you wanted to? (never)

(underdog) everyone loves an underdog until they start succeeding. we like to watch each other suffer almost as much as we like punishing ourselves- it makes us uncomfortable when someone can take all the pain and the hate and the scar tissue wrapped up into a tight ball inside of them and turn it into something productive. why bother go to all that effort though really. You'll just get your face shoved in the mud eventually.

(temptation) re: wanting versus doing; it's only a sin if you liked it. listen listen listen do it as many times as you want push the button kill us all we're going to hell anyway. God knows that sometimes we Have to do things even if we don't like to god understands he forgives you. hurt yourself a little bit better next time.

(metamorphosis) the aspect of change most fundamentally misunderstood by most people is the fact that when you become someone new, you didn't create them from scratch. They've always been lurking but now they've torn through and you can finally throw your old self away. Isn't it a relief to look in the mirror and see a face that's not your own, a face with maggots squirming in your sockets and cigarettes butts where your teeth should. When you see that face it's your true form so dig a little deeper til you find it.

(transformation) that was the physical this is the mental now you have to go through with it it's not enough to walk the walk you have to talk the talk . don't even bother if you're not going to bury yourself alive today.

(maturation) we miss being children because we haven't realized we hate ourselves yet and we still believe that there is some kind on innate order to things. when your parents tell you that you have to brush your teeth before bed you understand that they'll fall out if you don't but what you don't know is that it doesn't really matter how long you can go on the jump rope in gym. the universe has significantly less order than we've been led to believe.

(love) liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar

(forbidden love) ALL OF IT

(sacrifice) if you really want to do someone a favor you'll slit their throat- the ultimate sacrifice isn't dying for someone else that's way too easy. it's living for someone else and allowing them to pass on without you. even if you don't believe that humans are evil even if you have somehow managed to retain your faith your hope your whatever… why would you want Anyone to live in this world? Especially someone you love? -kill them -kill yourself -both

(discovery) coming out of the valley of death you start to realize that you thought escaping purgatory would mean an end. liberation. what you're starting to realize is that in reality purgatory goes on forever and the farther you walk and the more your feet bleed, the more apathetic the world gets to your struggle. suffer a little louder next time, if you want anyone to pay you any mind.

[REDACTED] GUESS YOU'LL NE VER KNOW

(ascension) this is it. this is when you think you've finally made it despite everything despite everyone trying to reach down when you're sitting on the bus or walking down the street and slit your Achilles tendon just to watch you fall. somehow, you're at peace.

(decision) it doesn't last.