The road to Hell

The event that ultimately led to this website’s inception was when I managed to deliberately orchestrate, through a conscientious application of my will, effort, imagination and belief, an outcome as improbable as changing the past. I figured if I was capable of pulling off a feat on that scale, then just about anything must be possible.

At the time of writing, I’ve endured some failures that have been so monumental, so cruel and so acute, I feel like some of that hubris has been bashed out of me. As a result, I am forced to revisit one of the assertions I initially made, and take a slightly meeker line with regard to the successes I tend to guarantee for anyone who chooses to apply themselves systematically toward their goals.

Nevertheless, I’m a resilient bastard, and not only am I getting through these adversities with my usual grim resolve and nuclear indomitability, but I also continue to stand by the underlying premise of the message I endeavour to share with the world.

That message is: if your life sucks, change it. Even now, after all my heartache and what amounts to a loss of god, my internal jury is still out on the subject of whether or not one can actually break physics. But irrespective of that, even if I end up concluding it really is impossible to regrow limbs, reverse ALS, or save a child from leukaemia, I believe I will maintain until the day I die that what we make of the difficulties life throws at us is overwhelmingly our own decision.

(And as an aside, I am convinced that it is only a matter of time before advances in medicine render the three examples above, redundant.)

I don’t want to be an angry man. I like myself better -- and I am more useful to others -- when I am blazing with happiness, clarity and empowerment. But if anger is the weapon I must use in order to survive my darkest hour, then that is what I shall wield. And when the battle is over, I will return that weapon to its resting place, radiating heat and stinking of cordite, and turn my inner eye to reflect on the path of destruction I have wrought through the barricades at the opposite border of Hell.

It was thanks to a song by Bruce Dickinson that I first became aware of the saying ‘the road to Hell is paved with good intentions’. I pride myself on taking a notoriously non-standard view of accepted beliefs, so it follows that my own interpretation of this aphorism is a variation on the usual themes.

Specifically, my take on it is that -- despite all the reams of reassurance that abound about everything turning out OK if you live well -- no amount of nobility, kindness, hard work, or belief in happy endings is going to save you from getting comprehensively fucked up at one point or another.

Such is the natural order of life, and even though it is certainly within one’s power to minimise the frequency and duration of one’s sojourns in the abyss, I don’t believe it is possible for anybody to avoid the left-hand highway altogether. Maybe the Dalai Lama can, I don’t know.

But that place doesn’t scare me anymore, because I have never failed to make it out in the end. Perhaps one day I won’t, but honestly, I doubt it. At this point, I think I’m just about eligible for dual citizenship -- even though heaven will forever be the first home of my heart.

And as has oft been said by many a sagacious traveller: the only path to heaven is the one that leads through Hell.



Please note: if you are curious about the song that lends its title to this entry, please listen to it on YouTube and buy it on Google Play or iTunes if you like it.