The Return of the Mack

When he came home the lights wouldn't turn on. He knew why. Not even bothering to take off his soaking wet shoes and jacket, he slumped in the filthy sofa and closed his eyes. When he awoke several hours had passed. He tried to turn on the TV and remembered that he had no electricity. He smoked a cigarette and let the smoke form in blue plumes over his head in the dilapidated living room. Summer was over and it was already dark outside. He was hungry, but that didn't bother him now. Nothing bothered him anymore. After having sat like this for a while, he got up and went to the bathroom. The floor was covered in dirty clothes, newspapers and other shit. He looked in the mirror. Despite the relative darkness in the flat he could make out the worn features of his face. His hair was shabby and greasy. He looked old and worn. It had been a while since he last showered or washed. How long he didn't know. Standing there, looking at his dark reflection in the dirty mirror, he couldn't help but to smile. 'I look like shit' he thought, and he was right. Still, with no one to impress or even talk to, it hardly seemed of any significance now. He had lost his mobile phone a while back (was it last week? Or last month?) and he hadn't checked his email since he walked out of work months earlier. He stood like this, staring at his haggered physical manifestation, well aware that there was such a thing as the point of no return, and that he had reached it by his own free will.
He cut his hands as he punched the mirror repeatedly.
He returned to the living room, still wearing his big jacket and filthy sneakers. As the blood streamed down his arms, onto his sleeves and slowly coagulated into dark brown crust he lit another cigarette.
Through the windows of his tenth floor apartment he could see the lights of the big city and hear the never ending hum of a million cars, buses, people and air-con systems.
He finished the cigarette and put it out on the laminate flooring with his shoe. He stood up, rummaged around the room and found a crumbled piece of paper in a drawer. As he left the flat, he flicked the light switch well knowing that there was no light to turn off in the first place. He took one look back at the unlocked front door, and walked down the stairs. He knew he would never be back.

-/+

Life is only good when it's wrong

nice

Once again awake. At work. Not that it matters. I could be anywhere, doing anything. It doesn't matter. Can no longer find solace in music or art. It's sunny but it doesn't matter. Hot or cold. They're just physical sensations. Meaningless. Fucking shit.

Who made you God?

Despite all my ranting about the events in the middle east and elsewhere, I nevertheless feel more strongly about something else.

WHO MADE YOU GOD?

My point is this:
Who or what gives anyone the right to decide what is right and wrong?
I am possibly playing devil's advocate here, but even so. All human beings have an innate sense of what is right and wrong, as well as a conscious sense of the same. And we all, to varying degrees, express those views through our actions and judgments.
Which is natural, and as such unavoidable an to most of us, useful (the fact that many people think murder is wrong makes all our lives easier as opposed to a society where murder is considered normal, i.e. not deemed a bad action by the majority of the population).
I am not condoning (or even suggesting) anything here, this is purely a philosophical question, but does moral views really matter?
Granted, we adhere to the moral viewpoints of any given population at the time. We do so mainly because we fear the social and legal repercussions of taking actions that go against the prevailing moral stance. Not, in my view, because we actually feel an action is morally right or wrong. Social disdain and the threat of incarceration are much more powerful deterrents. We've all lied to people at various stages in our lives. Deep down we probably all believe lying is wrong, yet we still do it.
Actions 1 Right/Wrong 0.
We would be much less likely to commit fraud or perjury, as we'd rather not go to jail or be known as criminals in our society. Fraud and perjury are forms of lying. So why can we live with one and not the other? Because any action that entails a high risk of punishment is less desirable to carry out than one that isn't.
As we've seen as recently as when Hurricane Katrina hit the southern US, mayhem broke out among the survivors. People looted, raped and killed each other, partly due to the extreme circumstances but also (and perhaps because of these circumstances) due to the fact that they were outside the 'jurisdiction' of law and society.
Without those restraints we revert to a more animal state.

What gives anyone the right to preach what is right and wrong?
I mean, according to whose bench mark?
We've been put here like animals with the ability retain knowledge (beyond that of instinct) from generation to generation, enabling us to evolve the brain quicker and more successfully than other mammals. We're adapting with intelligence now, not physical evolution. But that is it. None of us are gods. None of us has the right to tell anyone else what is right or wrong. And you shouldn't expect that others should have conform to your moral stance.

Equally, you don't have to give a shit about what I'm writing and I don't expect you too.