Thirty-Five Unprincipled Expedient Indulgences
I.
Cultivate fanatical opponents and invite their pathetic attacks.
II.
Fill your assailants with unremitting despair.
III.
Shame your antagonists into hopeless resignation.
IV.
Frustrate then humiliate your rivals.
V.
Expose your self-inflicted wounds as evidence of your invincibility.
VI.
Never rest until you can easily smell the sweet pain of your enemies.
VII.
Sow seeds of unmitigated greed; let your foes reap the poisonous envy.
VIII.
Appeal to others' despicable prejudices for your immediate advantage.
IX.
Bully the wealthy into coveting your wastes by mocking their ignorance.
X.
Celebrate your intense dismay as proof of the profundity of your convictions.
XI.
Cloak your evil schemes in exaggerated piety.
XII.
Measure the peaks of your success by the depths of your nemeses' grief.
XIII.
Disguise your contempt as compassion.
XIV.
Never forgive, never forget, and avenge every slight.
XV.
Elicit pity through your wretchedly miserable behavior.
XVI.
Admonish your adversaries to worship failure.
XVII.
Confound so-called intellectuals by speaking only in unfamiliar clichés.
XVIII.
Enjoy true comfort by inflicting misery on the weak.
XIX.
Betray your friends without hesitation, for friendship is temporal.
XX.
Contrive dramatic crises to diminish your boredom.
XXI.
Burn the velvet glove to reveal the cold beauty of the iron fist.
XXII.
Become a caricature of yourself to taunt your detractors.
XXIII.
Claim your ridicule of the needy is a catalyst for their independence.
XXIV.
Venomously attack anyone who stands in your way.
XXV
Mask your inadequacies with high culture.
XXVI.
Lick the hand that feeds you until it bleeds raw.
XXVII.
Cripple the weak so that the strong may thrive.
XXVIII.
Scorn praise and flattery; glory only in violent condemnation.
XXIX.
Encourage the incompetence of your perfidious colleagues.
XXX.
Abandon all hope to achieve a modicum of satisfaction.
XXXI.
Drink rich red wine until your genius is obvious.
XXXII.
Exhort the feeble to take solace in their petty hatreds.
XXXIII.
Despise what you cannot destroy; destroy what you cannot despise.
XXXIV.
Scorn happiness as the false creation of modern advertising.
XXXV.
Become utterly bored to experience unworldly bliss.
©1996
David Glenn Rinehart
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Old art