The Beast

You’ll know him when you see him: Chapter 1: Simplicity’s Hideous Inelegance

There is a beast in me I feel exists in all persons or at least in others enough to lend me some kind of forgiveness for my many beastly acts. Trying to fully grasp the Self that makes us up can be a daunting task, but as part of Ego Integrity, it’s a vital and necessary step. No one lives an honest life without looking at his own soul. 

I have apologized at various levels of sincerity, hypocrisy, and thinly masked disdain for some of my more beastly acts. Sometimes I have felt truly guilty, ashamed, and bad about myself for such acts. 

But other times, to be painfully honest, often while delivering these apologies, I’ve been thinking silently in such moments of my faux humility and contrition, “What did you think would happen when you chose to be with a beast?” Never mind that I had always kept my beast as well-hidden as my conventional, middle-class upbringing had taught me to manage. 

For most of my life I have neglected to accept or admit that my beast was here: Violent, sexual, selfish, crazed, and ravenous. The beast is rarely good company and frequently far more dangerous to you than you can imagine. 

The beast in myself and the beast I have glimpsed in others is sometimes well-hidden and full of stealth. We needn’t be standing in a dark corner on a foggy night thinking about our demise so much as simply waiting for the right moment to help it along. 

The beast in us is a predator. 

The beast in us is a seducer. 

The beast in us may or may not know the difference between right and wrong or truth and lies, but to the beast, these distinctions are irrelevant; all that matters is feeding our beasts. 

The beast in us has many hungers and a constant need to eat souls or flesh and usually both. 

There is a beast in me, I suspect lives in all men and all women. Or at least in a great many of us; I see it often in the eyes and words and actions of my fellow beasts. 

It is still here. 

It will always be here. 

Approach at your own risk. Indeed, approach anyone with a sense of risk because odds are their beast of self is approaching you as well. 

This is the last warning you’ll get from me. 

The Beast casts a dark shadow. Once you have encountered him, you won’t forget it.