things #22
Apples With Salt, 4 Dates In A Row, and Christ in the Wilderness (Painting)
This is the series where I talk about something of personal interest with you guys. Each week I’ll talk about 3 things in the hope that you too find the same experience that I had – or at least in the hope that you are entertained.
Apples with salt
Growing up, I remember running from school with great haste.
I ran not for Olympic Gold and not for charity.
I ran for the prospect of having a good time with my grandparents.
And when watching the latest episode of Ben 10, I was always accompanied by a fantastic snack prepared by my grandmother’s cigarette scented hands. Of these delicious items of consumption handed to me, there is one that stands miles above the rest. To this day, it remains a frequent staple of the joyous portion of my diet.
Cus everyone has different types of dietary segments: joy, utility and l’art pour l’art.
Now in this green section of the pie chart qua a literal pie to consume, I still to this day eat apple slices covered in salt.
*GASPS FILL THE ROOM WITH AWE INDUCED TENSION*
Average ILT Subscriber: Omg, I could never have predicted this. If only when reading what thou hast written, I had some sorta indicator as to the content and direction of ur prose. Currently I am inflicted with such emotion that I feel I must sit down to regain composure.
Average ILT Subscriber: It would be of great aid to all future occurrences of reading this substack if the words thou scribes from thy schizophrenic mind palace, are to be accompanied with a sub-heading.
ILT: I like u Average ILT Subscriber, cus ur right. I should defo state what I’m gonna talk about before I talk about it.
But yes, I love apple slices covered with salt. And such a love is not produced due to it’s Κλωθώ spun tether to my childhood.
No, such is not the case.
For I genuinely love the flavour profile of apples with salt. It mixes two things I cherish to a great deal – apples and salt. It’s like when George Costanza has sex and eats food at the same time – double trouble!!
And just like having a bologna sandwich during sex, do I receive a great union of taste via pairing apples with salt. So I do propose to u my readers, to consume apples with salt.
If there is no salt within ur vicinity, then crush up an opioid and pour it over the apple slices. Tis equally an enjoyable experience.
I went on four dates in a row
Apologies, I’m a bit tired and intoxicated after watching Multiple Maniacs (1970) with Freaky. I am writing this after writing the first section on apples and the final section on that painting.
I’m also currently watching this film called Catperson (2023), so I’m a tad locked out.
But yes, I went on four dates in a row. A different girl for each evening for Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
(Tis Tuesday/Wednesday as I write this section btw)
So I’ll give a short rundown.
Date #1
So with huzz 1, she was a baddie who liked everything I liked. And at the end of the night, I walked her till we reached her bus stop and said “This is where I leave u now”.
But she immediately responded with “Unless u wanna come with me?” and smiled at me with this irresistible face.
The weak man I am ofc, fell prey to her fantasticness and went back to her crib.
But to begin with, I did not do the dance with no pants with her. No no no no.
At night I did make out with her, but after a few mins I thought I need to control myself.
DETACH!! DETACH IMMEDIATELY!!
So I turned my back and fell asleep.
Yet in the morning, we kissed again. And we kept kissing.
But then she may have, possibly, sorta, peradventure, “wanted me inside her”. Perchance.
And this was too much for this lil boy to handle, so I unfortunately obliged.
Date #2
So it was with girl who I thought was cute and very kool.
Turns out she was not cute or kool.
Yeah, no. It just was not good.
Date #3
Yeah, she was cute, kool and smart.
But there wasn’t much pazzazz yk.
Date #4
So here is where major trouble comes in, cus my lobster is too buttery, steak too juicy, bed so comfy, and tummy so full.
Huzz #4 is an extremely kool, extremely hot artsy baddie. And I dunno whether to keep seeing her or Huzz #1, cus as Big Boy says “YOU ONLY GET ONE WIFE!”
In terms of some of my trusted advisors, there seems to be a lean towards Huzz #4.
Huzz #1 is supported by Saint Snail the artist formerly known as Da Snail
Huzz #4 is supported by Big Boy, Throbber, and Bajwa
Ah jeez. I just don’t know what to do. I dunno what I’m doing. I pray God gives me the strength to do what is right rather than pleasurable.
Christ in the Wilderness (Painting)
So, this here is the painting known as Christ in the Desert, or Christ in the Wilderness, painted by Ivan Kramskoi. Now one need not me to state the obvious, but shit goes hard af – very hard.
Instead, what I wish to state is the non-obvious point, and that is the complexities surrounding Christology – in particular the nature of Christ as The God-Man.
Because the notion of hypostatic union is submerged in a pool of a paradoxicality. Many thus see the logical contradictions of an entity being both equally man and God yet wish to resolve this fluxion. However, God exists in paradox, and we ought not to resolve it but to accept it and move with the ebb and flow of an unending yet ending divine river. In His incarnation therefore, we ought to ingratiate ourselves with the semantical chaos embedded within the logic of The God-Man.
But this seems not to be the case for many who discuss Christology for they accidently and/or implicitly attempt to resolve the paradox by focusing on the infallible divine nature of Christ. This is present in the near universal point that Christ could never have sinned. He was tempted yes, but He never could have sinned.
And I take huge issue with this point – yet I shall not display my criticism through deep philosophical and theological discussion but by means of this fantastic work of art from Kramskoi. Yet before I speak too much on this painting, let us take Karamskoi’s own words as a prompt for discussion.
“At dawn, tired, exhausted, having suffered, He sits alone among the stones… And He keeps thinking, keeps thinking. It becomes frightening.”
Cus tired He is. His eyes neither saddened nor soulless but hollowed. Spirit and soul remain within those dark optic orbs, yet its flesh and fat have been scooped out, as if tortured by a skilled-butcher.
And that butcher is temptation itself. He is tempted for forty days by Satan within the fortress of sin that is the deterritorialized desert, barren of virtue. Such a tribulation grips His mind, body and spirit because He was truly tempted.
Perhaps He was not tempted in the specific manner proposed by Satan. But tempted He was in the genre of interest within which exists: eating bread, testing The Father, and ruling the world. That domain being straying from the path – the righteous path. And not simply any righteous path, but the most righteous path imaginable - taking on the sins of the world.
This path is filled with the worst trials and tribulations, semiotically embodied in His Passion. Thus, to be trialed and tribulated is to experience something negative and in conflict with ur spirit. Christ therefore experienced something negative and in conflict with His spirit, as evident by his tensely clamped hands which contain His mental multitudes conflicting with one another. Yet he overcame this, and his weariness is not an object of pity, but admiration.
As V.M Garshin writes “Those features… in my opinion, do not at all serve to arouse pity for the “sufferer” (I say this because one of the interpreters found that Christ’s face is terribly pitiful). No, he at once struck me as an expression of enormous moral strength, hatred of evil, complete determination to fight it.”
Because to be in such a state as He is within this painting, is to experience. Yes, I stated previously before that the experience was negative – but pls focus on the term experience.
Christ was not a mere divine automaton, for He felt and experienced. His time on this plane within an earthly body meant that He did not exist within a value free state of affairs but a valued state of affairs whereby pleasure and pain are distinct experiential entities. Thus, this outwardly appearance of haggardness is no mere coincidence but a physical representation of an experiential, affective, somatic state.
And in this valued state of affairs, there are positives and negatives – things to experientially want and avoid since some things are valued and disvalued. Christ’s weariness over constant temptation is due to His moral struggle over avoiding that which He values yet knows He must not pursue.
Now it may exist as a tautology, that as saviour Christ could never give into those immoral actions in which He values i.e. breaking His fast. But there exists not a definitive proclamation that He was never capable of giving into temptation.
If such was the case, then He was never truly tempted – He would simply be an automaton of divine will.
To be tempted is to be pulled towards an entity of value – thus the existence of anything of value acts as an object of temptation in which one is pulled to engage in it. It is of course true that one can resist and never be pulled enough into giving themselves to that which is valued. But tis not the case that one can be tempted by that which is not valued.
If I’m offered 500 Terabytes of child porn, and I reject it, did I resist temptation?
No u fuckin idiot, I did not resist temptation cus I was never tempted in the first place. How the fuck am I gonna be tempted by something I dislike. I can only be tempted by stuff I do like, and do value, like 500 Terabytes of ASMR videos.
If Christ valued something, He is thus emotively capable of engaging with that which is valued i.e. breaking His fast. But if He is literally incapable of breaking His fast, He does not value His health and pleasure nor truly feels hunger, and thus was never truly human nor tempted.
But look at the face of this man painted before you. Is this the face of a man who was tempted or not? Could He not have given in and forsaken His moral duty?
Ah shit word count too high. My bad. I tried to keep this section as short and informal as possible.
I depart now.
So yeah, that’s this weeks edition of things. Stay tuned till next week for - wait for it - more things. That’s right guys, I’m gonna talk about more things. And then the next week after that. [Pause and think]. Yes that’s correct, more things will be discussed.
Cus at the end of the day, I like things, and I like to talk about things.
I like this - bit long tho mate.
these things are great. i like them as well