Choke

by Chuck Palahniuk

“Art never comes from happiness.”

The point was, it’s not the sex part of pornography that hooked the stupid little boy. It was the confidence. The courage. The complete lack of shame. The comfort and genuine honesty. The up-front-ness of being able to just stand there and tell the world: Yeah, this is how I chose to spend a free afternoon. Posing here with a monkey putting chestnuts up my ass. And I really don’t care how I look. Or what you think. So deal with it. He was assaulting the world by assaulting himself. And even if the guy wasn’t loving every moment, the ability to smile, to fake your way through this, that would be even more admirable.

Without access to true chaos, we’ll never have true peace.

Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because nothing is as exciting as your fantasy.

The people you meet behind unlocked doors are tired of talking about the weather. These are people tired of safety. These people have remodeled too many houses. These are tanned people who’ve given up smoking and white sugar and salt, fat, and beef. They’re people who’ve watched their parents and grandparents study and work for a lifetime only to end up losing it all. Spending everything just to stay alive on a feeding tube. Forgetting even how to chew and swallow.

Or maybe when people are treated like cattle, that’s how they act. Or maybe that’s just an excuse. Maybe they’re just bored. It could be that nobody’s made to sit all day in a cramped packing crate full of other people without moving a muscle.

spent my life attacking everything because I was too afraid to risk creating anything . . .”

Denny says, the longer we can keep building, the longer we can keep creating, the more will be possible. The longer we can tolerate being incomplete. Delay gratification.