It's not hard. Sure, it may sound disgusting at first, but after a while you can actually aquire a taste for it.

A penchant for this particular delicacy starts out in such a unobtrusive way. Somebody doesn't like something you've done. Somebody takes you to task for it, and usually, it's your mother or father, and really, you don't have much choice but give it the blanket okee-doke. I mean, after all, they're the ones supplying the roof and the chow. So, even though you know in your heart that they are wrong, you take your first taste of feces. It's just a little lick, after all, and what harm could it really do? And then you get to wash it down with ice cream. Yummy!

Soon, maybe it's not your parents anymore. Because you grow old enough to know that they really aren't going to kick you out of the house and that wonder-of-wonders, they're actually human and just as fallable as you. So you come to an uneasy truce. Then, its the girlfriend or boyfriend. C'mon, you can fess up to it. We've all been in love and said "I'm sorry," while "Fuck you!" gets buried somewhere under the freshly dug soil of your dignity.

Then maybe its your professor. He subscribes to a Dickensian world view. You, more like Orwell. But you write the paper knowing that, well shit, it's just a grade after all, and I really need that piece of paper to make it in the world, and well, its not really that big of a deal.

And every inch of the way, every lick of that fecal cone you take, leaves your soul screaming as you bury it alive.

Boys and girls, the next time someone tries to take a shit on you, shove your foot up their ass. All the way to the knee. Because Uncle Joe is here to tell you, if you just sit there and take it, then you, the shitee are just as responsible as the shiter.

Nice words, huh? For every one of you cock-suckers out there that stood up and gave a mighty "hurrah!" I've got some news. Get used to it. Unless you're brilliant, or rich, or you're simply an uncaring prick, you'd better aquire a taste. Because the reality is that there's always going to be someone who holds a trump card of one type or another, be it emotional, or financial or intellectual. Someone is always going to hold your well being in one hand and a shit-cone in the other.

So what, you ask, can we do? Well, I've got my solution. And yes, I'll share it with you.

There are only a limited number of people in the world who hold those trump cards. Your boss, should you be in a oversaturated job classification. Your spouse, because lets face it, it's just as much your emotional devestation as it is theirs. (For example, I hated my ex-wife for the last three years of our marraige. When she finally left me, I bawled for days straight.) And then there's your parents, because let's face it, who can really go without their love on at least a partial basis. You may not like them. Hell, you may even despise them. But if you do, it's most likely because they didn't give you the love that you so desperately craved. So no matter how much time, distance or enmity chasms the emotional ties, your parents will always hold a trump card.

My solution? Minimize the deck. There's nothing wrong with giving your heart. You should give your heart. But please, friends, please be careful into which recepticles you pour your emotional survival. Count your friends on one hand, and be true. When they're shaking from too many pills and the razor blade keeps beckoning from the medicine cabinet, be there to hold them. Next time, it's going to be you trying to make it through the night.

And for those others, when they go to shit on you?

Kill the fuckers.

Until next time,

Joseph Haines, signing off from the Edge of The Abyss.