Unless everything can get worse, it won’t get any better

I just finished reading Choke, a book by Chuck Palahniuk. He's the guy who wrote Fight Club. The two stories have a lot of the same themes: chaos and order, addiction, 12 step programs, group therapy, death, etc.

The big difference here is sex. Lots and lots of sex.

The main character is a sex addict who works at a colonial theme park (imagine Colonial Williamsburg). The high points - or perhaps low points - involve anal beads, role-play s&m style rape, public restroom sex, and step by step tips for joining mile high club with complete strangers. The narrator is a former med-school student, so he talks about all of these activities in graphic detail. This is a novel that clearly belongs on the high school summer reading list. It's got more valuable info than health class.

There's also the sub-plot that gives the book its name, where the main character intentionally chokes on his food to get attention (and money).

All of this apparently stems from the way the guy was raised. His mother told him all kinds of shit when he was a kid. Some of it seems crazy, and some of it seems like true words of wisdom. Here's an example:

People had been working for so many years to make the world a safe, organized place. Nobody realized how boring it would become. With the whole world property-lined and speed-limited and zoned and taxed and regulated, with everyone tested and registered and addressed and recorded. Nobody had left much room for adventure, except maybe the kind you could buy. On a roller coaster. At a movie. Still, it would always be that kind of faux excitement. You know the dinosaurs aren't going to eat the kids. The test audiences have outvoted any chance of even a major faux disaster. And because there's no possibility of real disaster, real risk, we're left with no chance for real salvation. Real elation. Real excitement. Joy. Discovery. Invention.
The laws that keep us safe, these same laws condemn us to boredom.
Without access to true chaos, we'll never have true peace.
Unless everything can get worse, it won't get any better.

Good shit. Reminds me of my frequent ruminations on good vs. evil. It's what keeps The Churning in motion.