Today I was thinking about the world of 1,000 horrors. This was prompted by watching someone shovel snow. The world of 1,000 horrors is where I was lost for a long time. That was my walk through the Valley of Death. That was my dark night of the soul.

Because, let's face it (and I am not a life-hater), but this world is a place of slavery, servitude, pain, loneliness, age, loss and death. Anyone who does not believe me need only visit an Alzheimer's ward.

But there is another world. A world that's both constant and constantly changing. No, I'm not becoming a holy roller. Religion worries too much about morality. In this world of pain, carnality is one of the greatest gifts we have. This world is mostly amoral. It can be kind and then cruel in a heartbeat. It can be heaven and hell or back and forth or both in a heartbeat. It is a world of individual and a certain kind of collectivity. But there too the individual comes first.

What bothers me most on a daily basis (the small stuff) is petty authoritarianism and bourgeois money-grubbing. Both are so related as to appear almost entirely identical. This is murder of the imagination. This is what fuels the world of 1,000 horrors.

I think of a certain someone ratting me out about my lawn. This was the same person I was watching today. He's a very handsome man. As cute as he is, he is a part of that world of 1,000 horrors. Thank goodness there is a refuge from him and his kind. I am no longer lost in his world. Lost and in pain.