I was reading and came across the term dark creativity. I was intrigued and after a look at the article I decided that I’ve got some of the darkness in me. I try to control it though. I try because whenever I decide to just let it flow there’s always a seemingly normal person that appears and instantly mutates into a guardian of goodness.
My wife for example.
We’ll be making our way through a normal day and something will happen. I’ll watch it happen and a thought will occur to me that I’ll immediately vocalise. I’ll know that I’ve ventured too far into the dark side when my wife raises her voice and goes, ahhhhhhh, stop, just stop, stop talking! At the same time she moves both of her hands an inch or two away from her ears and if I laugh and keep going then she covers her ears and makes random loud noises.
This can go on for a while. She’ll take her hands slightly away from her ears and if I restart the same thought then she covers her ears again, and loudly make deliberately out of tune la, la, la, la, noises while watching me until my lips stop moving. If anyone’s watching us I’m guessing they might think we’re a tad fucked up. But, I’ll wager that those observers are curious over what could possibly be going on.
Eventually I stop, my wife returns from la la land and then she turns to me and says, Jesus, who even thinks that?
An example is in order. My wife and I were driving down the street. A lady that lives down the block was shoveling snow from her driveway. I wondered out loud where her husband was and my wife informed me he’d died. Oh I replied, didn’t her first husband die too? My wife confirmed that husband number one had also died. Holy fuck I responded
she must really piss you off. My wife was puzzled as to why she should be pissed and I replied,
because you haven’t even managed to kill one husband yet.
The implication being that the thought is bad enough, but saying it out loud is even worse. This leaves me a bit confused. How the hell am I supposed to control random thoughts that pop into my head? Also, if that random thought in my estimation is funny or bizarre or even macabre then why the hell wouldn’t I share the thought?
I guess a person could train themselves to think only in terms of blue skies and butterflies. In order to do that though I think you have to see the world as one big fucking disney movie. I honestly can’t do the Disney version. I see the world as a hybrid of Monty Python and Schindlers list and there appears to be fuck all I’m willing to do to change that perspective.
An example. We were talking about Peter Dinklage. The Game of Thrones midget. I was immediately in shit for saying midget. Ok, I get it that midget is rude but little people sounds even worse to me. Little people for fucks sake. It sounds like you should pat Peter on the head and offer him some candy. I don’t think he’d like that very much. He’s got swords and success and he’s not a child. But, he is really fucking short and he possesses the skeletal dysplasia that defines dwarfism. I guess I’m going to have to get used to the idea of little people though because apparently that’s what their association has decided is most respectful. Yup, they have an association. The LPA. or Little People Of America.
Anyway, we were talking about Peter because we were talking about mentally handicapped people. My wife was talking about high functioning downs syndrome and I said that was like being a tall midget. My wife was unhappy and we switched subjects so she could give me shit for using the word midget. Then, after a discussion of all the things that Peter has accomplished I ruined it by stating that no matter how successful the man is that you can’t fucking ignore his height just because he’s famous.
Then I went on a bit of a spiel that went something along these lines.
Reality is reality regardless of political correctness and some things are hard to overlook. Well, not little people. Little people are hard to overlook but easy to look over. I would fucking love it if a group of little people had the seats in front of me at any concert or sporting event. They’d probably bring booster seats though unless they were in the front row. But, assuming no booster seats, should little people automatically be accommodated with front row seating? Also what if Pete came to pick you up in a car that had bench seats? Would you call shotgun? No, no you fucking wouldn’t and that’s where political correctness runs head on into reality.
My wife only heard half of what I was saying. Part of the time she was in la, la mode.
Having those thoughts is apparently dark creativity. You don’t even have to say them out loud.
According to the article this dark creativity can be harnessed to make you a better or more inventive terrorist. The creativity can also be used to come up with novel ways to fuck over family and work associates. So, generally speaking the darkness enables a person to use their creative energy for the entire spectrum of evil. From a practical joke all the way to poisoning a water supply.
The article also spoke of dark creativity used to accomplish something good. Like effectively lying and deceiving someone about a surprise party. So, creating a plausible lie to lure someone to a party in their honor is fine, but using that same ability to lure someone to their demise is not fine.
But the majority of the article was about dark creative thinking, and humor was mentioned at length. I have to say that rarely if ever have I enjoyed humor that could be described as wholesome. At least not as an adult. I like Bill Burr and Jared Carmichael. I like Dave Chapelle and I used to like Lewis C.K. Not sure what to think of him now. He’s probably still funny but I’d be worried that in the middle of a joke he might pull out and then pull on his dick. Then it wouldn’t be so fucking great to be the little people in the front row.
I think that dark creativity sometimes means talking about things that are controversial or that make people uncomfortable. I’m actually pretty good at this, but the opportunities to make people uncomfortable are vanishing faster than the Himalayan icecaps. These opportunities are vanishing because as a society we’re embracing this concept that anything deemed as rude, rudely honest or negative is now socially unacceptable and deserving of a darn good internet shaming.
How many words re we going to ban because they hurt someone’s feelings? We’ve got the N word. We’ve got the C word. We’ve got the M word and we’ve got the R word. We’ve replaced fat with plus sized and I’m expecting the F word to soon join the others on the offensive list. Oddly enough fuck isn’t the F word likely to be determined as unacceptable. However, very soon if you feel the need to point out someone is a fat fuck you’re going to have to call them an F word fuck.
Slowly but surely the dark humor is being edited out of existence. It’s a sad circumstance for me because I really find the darkness hilarious. Having said that, I’m going to continue to buck the trend and will do my very best to keep the dark arts alive.
At my peril I guess, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take because I’m old and I’m not going to run for public office. So, fuck the entire world if they can’t take a joke.