The Fourth Tread from âLeave Me Alone II“
“The Aesthetic Of Decay“
When I see “a gruesome suicide, painted in front of my eyes,” the image hits me with a visceral force, its vividness carving a scene of raw, unfiltered horror into my mind. The word “gruesome” doesnât just suggest deathâit drags me into a decay so deep it repulses and fascinates me all at once, an aesthetic that somehow makes the grotesque beautiful. I canât help but think of Schopenhauerâs bleak view: life as a ceaseless churn of suffering, a canvas Iâm forced to stare at, smeared with despairâs dark shades. For me, this suicide isnât just an endâitâs a desperate claim to power in a world that offers nothing but pain, the last stroke I imagine on a portrait of collapse.
But the fact that I see it “painted” shifts everythingâitâs not just happening; Iâm making it art. Iâm the one holding the brush, turning chaos into something deliberate. I stand back, not caught up in the mess but watching it unfold, a chronicler of ruin. It feels like Schopenhauerâs resignation creeping inâI know the will to live is a sham, yet here I am, still compelled to look, to record. Whether itâs “Kali” or some suffocating system Iâve conjured, its end isnât a victoryâitâs a self-inflicted fall, and Iâm the one staring at it, unflinching.
Thereâs a strange calm in that distance, a Buddhist echo whispering that nothing lastsânot Kali, not the systems Iâve built in my head, nothing. They crumble, their power fading into a smudge of paint Iâve left on the canvas. Nietzscheâs words hit me here: âWhat does not kill me makes me strongerâ (Twilight of the Idols), but I wonderâmaybe itâs not strength I gain, just the grit to keep watching as it all unravels. That gruesome suicide Iâve painted isnât just a finish line; itâs a truth I canât escape: everything mightyâgods, rules, meârots away, and Iâm left holding the brush, tracing the outlines of impermanence.
So I find myself caught in this aesthetic of decay, a twisted kind of freedom in the wreckage Iâve imagined. That suicide I see isnât only sufferingâitâs my quiet rebellion against anything lasting too long, against the lie of forever. The Bibleâs voice cuts through: âFor dust you are, and to dust you shall returnâ (Genesis 3:19), and I feel it in my bones, a truth that ties me to the dirt and the divine all at once. Schopenhauerâs gloom, Buddhismâs letting go, Nietzscheâs defianceâthey mix in me, and I turn the horror into something I can hold, something almost beautiful. Whatâs left is an image I canât shakeânot a scream, but a proof of everything falling apart, and me, still here, watching it fade.
LifeandTimelessart 