I may talk a lot of shit, but I have nearly zero active beefs. Let me think, let me check, pretty close to 0 beefs. Talking shit to me, is not beef. I hardly believe in the shit I talk. Talking shit is, to me, a creative exercise. A martial art. How to best use words to stir up strikingly dramatic images and feelings that entertain, mostly with the goal of validating a negative feeling that a friend of mine is having. Talking shit feels severe, but is often a helpful step in shifting gears towards becoming a little more gentle. Engaging with the most extreme version of a thought can make me realize how far I am from centered, and can show me the road home.
I can’t resent anyone for too long, which is mostly a blessing, but is sometimes not useful, like when engaging with a person who has hurt one of my friends. I might badly want to resent them; but I know people who have hurt people, and I know people who have been hurt by people, and I mostly know people who have done some of both. It’s harder for me to imagine as many truly evil people (excluding cops and politicians) as I can generally flawed, generally neutral people, who hurt each other mostly by virtue of not fitting together as well as they both would like.
That said, fence-sitting is not typically helpful to a friend in crisis. A sentiment I’ve offered that strikes my ideal balance is to tell a friend that if I was running hell as a small, drive-in motel, I would book those who have hurt them for a discounted stay in my torturous but ultimately hospitable enterprise.
Hell looks different to everyone who imagines it. The Hell I grew up with was full of Hindu demons and snakes and skulls. Some Hells I’ve encountered are described as eternal punishments. When Prometheus stole fire from the gods to create humankind, they chained him to a mountain and invited an eagle to pick at his organs for all of eternity. As much as that sounds painful, I love a mountain view. Maybe they were taking that for granted in ancient Greece. If I was running hell, or administering eternal punishment, it would look pretty different.
My Hell would have a pool, because even though it’s Hell, it’s my Hell, and I want to be living large if I have an entire realm to play with. Pools still feel like the height of luxury to me, even though many pools I’ve been in are pretty unideal. My Hell would have pool party vibes, but unfortunately the pool would be filled with bugs and maggots and fish with weird textures that rub up against your leg and you never really get fully used to it. The temperature in the pool is both a little too hot and a little too cold; it transitions between the two but fast forwards through the comfortable middle ground so you predominantly feel it leaving you.
At this really bad, hellish- not even hellish, just fully hell- pool party, people are having awful conversations around you. Every single person is one of those people who if you met them when you were around your friends, you guys would heavily debrief your interactions with them for like a week afterwards. They would become one of those people-memes that you all remember for years to come. But none of your friends are there.
Where are your friends? They’re actually at one of our partner Hells across the street, and it looks way cooler over there. Except when they look at our Hell, it looks a lot cooler over here. Because oftentimes Hell is fomo.
These awful people at the pool party won’t let you leave, or even just paddle your feet and think to yourself. They are always searching for your eye contact and trying to make you participate in the conversation. Hell is a party that you have to be at long after your social battery has run dry.
They are constantly passing you really sugary drinks, and there is no water. You feel gross, slow, and lightheaded, but every time you finish a drink, you are given a new one. Some people might like this, but to me, this is Hell. Probably we’d tailor your Hell experience to your particular vices. We want to say that too much of a good thing will be a bad thing. We would like to make you hate the stuff that you love until you don’t love anything that much anymore. Hell is when you can no longer love.
In Hell, your eyes are super tired but you cannot close them. We clip your eyelids to your eyebrows so your eyes are constantly open. There’s a lot of pollen in the air too. Your eyes can’t rest, and we make you have at least 8 hours of screen time a day. These screens have day mode and night mode. During day mode, you see people who don’t like you having things you would like to have. During night mode, you see people you love, who love you, having a really bad time. Again, you cannot close your eyes.
In Hell, you are so tired, but you cannot sleep. You are always hungry, and can always eat, but the texture of the food is really bad. Most of the food is the part of bone-in chicken that you don’t know if you should be eating or not. You’re mildly allergic. It all tastes like nothing.
Once an hour, every hour, you stub your toe.
The music we’re playing is incredibly mid, and every so often, it gets way too loud. All of the artwork in Hell is AI generated. You get out of the pool, and see a group of people you’d like to be friends with. You stumble into a conversation, and it becomes clear that everyone thinks you’re really dumb.
Thankfully, you spot a free car rental. That’s great, because in Hell, you’re always pretty close to being out of money. You go on a drive around Motel Hell, but there’s traffic. You get a flat. The check engine light turns on, and you’ve barely started your trip around the block. I, unfortunately, have to come up and tell you that you are legally and financially responsible for these issues.
Retiring to your room, you constantly find it’s smaller than you remember. Everything is at a weird angle. Your rug won’t lie flat, and you keep tripping on it. A record player has all your favorite music, but the record skips. Everything is slightly out of tune. None of the doors shut all the way.
You get fresh vegetables and put them in the fridge. When you take them out, mere minutes later, they have already gone bad. You cook them anyway, and they immediately turn into the weird parts of bone-in chicken again. You are more allergic than you were before. At dinner, you sit at the table with someone who looks directly at you but does not speak. Then, right as you’re done eating, they start talking and won’t let you leave. You learn that they hate you. You go to wash the dishes, and no matter how hard you try, a little bit will always be left on the dishes; you can never scrape it all off.
At some point, nursing a migrane from being constantly both drunk and hungover, you return to the pool party happening in the parking lot. You sit in the pool, look around, and wonder if there’s anyone worth getting to know. Then you remember you’re in Hell, so everyone around you sucks. A weird fish brushes up on your leg.
Be nice to my friends. Because I wanna sell this place and get something beachside.
love this world building! so real