Pleasure valued more than life

"Shoots" on seven sins, seven virtues, and the ultimate victory

“S”: You ever see the show Primal?

L: No.

“S”: Shoots, all right, well…. It’s nothing too crazy. A caveman teams up with a dinosaur to fight other dinosaurs. And it’s pretty cool, because the caveman dies, but not before he has a kid. People say there’s no meaning to life, but there’s a lot of meaning in having a kid. It’s the ultimate victory, the only real victory in nature.

L: Are there any other victories?

“S”: Nothing meaningful, really. You can be a good person, but that’s a spiritual thing. On a material basis, having children is the only way to say I won at nature. Every nature documentary is about finding food so you can have kids.

L: And what are you triumphing over? What is your victory against?

“S”: Oblivion. You’re fighting against time, time and oblivion. Each of us exists because hundreds of generations of animals won; they passed themselves on to their kids. If you don’t have one, that’s just game over on a natural scale.

L: What’s the closest you’ve come to having a child?

“S”: [Chuckles] Ah, I’m a Catholic boy. I ain’t never had nothing like that.

L: You’ve never had sex?

“S”: Not explicitly. I got drunk one time, but that was… Nah, that was nothing. It was some hookup at a bar, but that’s not a real victory, because we weren’t trying for nothing.

L: What would constitute trying?

“S”: Ideally, we’d be married first, ‘cause humans found out that helps us to win.

L: How would you choose a person to share this victory with?

“S”: I’d like them to be healthy, and to be good. A lot of people think you can do better in life by doing evil things, by indulging in greed, in the seven deadly sins. Truth be told, the virtues are the real attractions.

L: Will you describe the virtues to me a little?

“S”: I know there’s seven of them, opposite the seven sins. There’s prudence, and… what was it? Humility? The opposite of pride. The deadly sins provide a basis for all the ways you could be, good or bad. They’re a pretty thorough list.

L: Of those sins, which one do you struggle most with?

“S”: Pride! The biggest of them all. A lot of people think pride is being braggadocious about yourself, but that’s not really it. You overestimate your abilities, you’re too proud of yourself, and that leads you to ruin, faster than any other sin.

L: What do you overestimate about yourself?

“S”: My intelligence. I’m a pretty smart cookie, I can figure things out, but it’s the stuff you don’t figure out that gets you in the end. You try to be too witty; you think you know enough about politics, current events, the natural state of the world…

L: When’s the last time you were wrong?

“S”: Oh boy, that’s a really good question. I thought we were gonna jump into Ukraine, and I’m thankful I’m wrong about that. I have a pessimistic attitude towards the world, its events and how they’re going, so I’m happy to be wrong pretty often.

L: Are you often wrong when you evaluate situations, or people?

“S”: A roommate of mine was together with this girl for a while, and when they broke up, she took a lap with all of his ex-friends. It was a great tragedy. I was like, Whoa, I didn’t expect that. I thought there would be a little bit more understanding.

L: Took a lap?

“S”: I’m under the impression that if your friend dates someone, you should never date them, out of respect for your friend. Every moment he sees you together is a moment he can’t, or shouldn’t, have. People will get over that, but until they do you’ll remind them of what didn’t work out, which is never a good feeling.

L: Could you like somebody so much that this rule wouldn’t matter?

“S”: Probably, but I’m yet to meet someone like that.

L: Who’s the person you’ve liked most in your life?

“S”: It was [D], a classmate of mine. I got really sick, and kept imagining I would come back healthy, and work things out with her. She was never very interested in me, but I thought that could change with time. I didn’t know that was impossible. Looking back, I think I liked the idea of her… I don’t like people too much, but I love ideas.

L: Who’s liked you the most?

“S”: Oh, shoots… Anyone who talks to me for five minutes, but not longer than ten minutes. I make a good first impression. But since you’re asking about a single person, I’d say it was actually a friend of [D]’s. She offered me sports lessons, and I never took her up on it. I was crushing on [D] too hard.

L: What do people discover after ten minutes that puts them off?

“S”: That I like the bit too much. I like jokes; I can’t ever be too serious, and that turns people away, or at least makes them say, This guy is cool to hang around with, but I wouldn’t want to get serious with him.

L: You said you like ideas more than people. What are some ideas that you like?

“S”: I like the American Dream; I like happily ever after; I’m a hopeless romantic. You fall in love with these ideas and then hope that reality will follow them, that you’ll have vacations, young love, that kind of stuff.

L: Do you know anybody who has fulfilled those dreams?

“S”: My parents. They met when they were [teenagers], on a blind date; dated for [years]; had me and my siblings; and moved [somewhere exciting]. After watching [a kids’ movie], they promised that if one of them could find a job [in the state where the movie was set], in two weeks, they’d move. My dad did, so they stuck to their guns.

L: Do you think that believing in these exalted experiences makes it easier for people to find fulfilling love?

“S”: No, no. It makes things a lot harder for people. They overvalue themselves, get caught up in pride. If you’re really blessed, you can have a happily ever after, with the looks and the charm and all that, but it doesn’t happen to everyone, and it not happening can create a lot of bitterness.

L: If you never had a child, would you be bitter?

“S”: I’d try to make the most of it.

L: How would you do that?

“S”: I’d get into some kind of teaching thing. I’d tell kids, Don’t listen to happily ever after if it doesn’t work for you. If it does work, congratulations, life spoiled you. That’s why a lot of teachers do what they do; they don’t have kids of their own.

L: What would you like to teach?

“S”: Shoots, I’d teach anything. Mostly history, though. History is pretty cool.

L: What kind of history?

“S”: Geopolitical stuff, you know. The obvious answer is the Roman Empire, because it’s pretty sick, but I’m interested in any historical event that can prove a point, be a cautionary tale for people about what to believe in the future.

L: What should people believe in the future?

“S”: Have a little pride in your nation, a little pride in your people. Be accurate about how you view things; don’t let yourself fall into pride. Don’t create rules to keep each other in line. Treat other groups like you treat your own.

L: What do you think is a good reason to die?

“S”: Well, of course, there is the big Jesus guy. He died for our sins, which was pretty cool, very nice of him. I think the only reason for us to die is to further the success of our own kids, our own families. Maybe of our country, but a country is not nearly as important as a family.

L: How important is your country to you?

“S”: Pretty important. I don’t know if it’s just pride talking, but I think the US is doing darn good historical-wise. We got problems just like anyplace else, but compared to a lot of history, we’re pretty awesome in the ideas that we like, the things we hope for and recognize.

L: Do you ever get dissuaded from that idea by current events?

“S”: Not really by current events, but sometimes by history. A lot of problems we’re dealing with now result from our own blunders.

L: What are some American blunders?

“S”: Ooh, boy. I don’t think we should have stopped with Germany in World War II.

L: What should you have done?

“S”: We should have followed Patton’s rule and continued all the way east, all the way to Asia, so we wouldn’t have to deal with the Soviet Union.

L: How would that benefit the United States?

“S”: I think life would have been a little harder for America; there wouldn’t be so many spoiled boomers around. Times would have been tougher; we would be more grounded in reality, like the rest of the world. And the Cold War set up some pretty nasty philosophies, some nasty ideologies, that we’re still dealing with today.

L: Is it hard not to have sex?

“S”: Not really. It only feels hard when people around you are doing it, like when you don’t drink at a bar.

L: Your own desire is not hard to resist?

“S”: It shouldn’t be. You should be responsible for your own body, but you also shouldn’t kill that drive. So much of what we do, both guys and gals, is for that genetic victory, the victory in nature.

If you take that away from people, they become husks of themselves. Nothing pushes them to be better anymore, which is much worse than having a kid they wouldn’t want by accident.

L: So you can kill desire?

“S”: It’s entirely possible, but I wouldn’t ever do it. I think that’s what a lot of guys do when they get addicted to porn. They’re low-energy, weak-willed, getting flooded with reward chemicals, which are nature’s way of saying, You win. But they haven’t won, and the fake success makes them ill.

L: Do you know people who’ve become ill like that?

“S”: Not personally. I read this on the Internet. I’m not a biologist…

I try not to scroll too much. I work a lot. I want to make a lot of money and send a bunch of it to my family. I feel I owe them that, because I had such a great childhood. I’d like to spend the rest on my kids… The goal in life is to make things easier for your kids, or less treacherous. There is a difference between easier and less treacherous.

L: What is a treacherous life like?

“S”: You’re always looking over your shoulder. If you grow up on a farm, seeing farm animals die, you naturally form this emotional body armor. That doesn’t happen when you’re in a rough neighborhood, where people are getting shot, because that’s an unhealthy kind of death. It makes people narcissistic, dangerous and desperate.

L: What do you think is the healthiest possible attitude to death?

“S”: Hoping you live through a full, natural life cycle. If you’re seeking death before your grandkids become successful, you’re doing it wrong.

L: What gives people a death wish?

“S”: Anything under the sun. Maybe they don’t feel like they’re good enough; that’s the biggest one. Maybe it’s out of spite for the people that didn’t care much when they were alive. Maybe they’re addicted to some kind of pleasure, pleasure valued more than life.

Christians talk about a culture of death. That doesn’t mean you’re walking around with skull masks; it means you put death before other priorities. A culture of life is one that celebrates kids. It celebrates there being life, more and more life, until you’re laid to rest.

Post image from The Wind (2018), dir. Emma Tammi.