Real animals and plants
separated from their spiritual truth
slowly rejoin the empty objectivity of tools,
the mortal body is gradually assimilated to the mass of things.

Insofar as it is spirit,
the human reality is holy,
but it is profane insofar as it is real.
Animals, plants, tools, and other controllable things
form a real world with the bodies that control them,
a world subject to and traversed by divine forces,
but fallen.

-excerpt Theory of Religion by Georges Bataille, p. 38, pub. 1973

I started crying again as hard as I could. My sobbing had no point to it at all.

The emptiness was enduring. An idiot who soaks himself in alcohol and weeps
–that was what I was ludicrously becoming. To escape the feeling that I was a forgotten outcast, the one cure was to swallow drink after drink. I kept hoping to get better of my health, perhaps even of a life that had no justification. I had a notion that drink would kill me, but such ideas were vague; I might go on drinking and thus die; or I might stop drinking… For the time being,
nothing made any difference.

-excerpt Blue of Noon by Georges Bataille, p. 32, pub. 1957

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In retrospect, (is there any other point of view) the existential turning point for me came when I gave myself permission to recognize the standard Christian doctrine of “original sin” to be repulsive, a superlative anti-human idea…  For as long as I could remember I felt, and I thought, I had an indelible flaw.  There was a stain, something beyond repair, a “mark of Cain” if you will.  And was not this tragic, self-loathing assessment authenticated by the low grade depression, a deficit of self-esteem-funk that never runs its course… reason enough to be done with Christianity?

But, is some version of the matter true?

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Is there a song, a tune suited to hold onto?  There certainly is.  This rock opera by Queen gets the job done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMPOMT251mQ

Bohemian Rhapsody

By Queen

Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide
No escape from reality

Open your eyes
Look up to the skies and see
I’m just a poor boy, I need no sympathy
Because I’m easy come, easy go
Little high, little low
Any way the wind blows
Doesn’t really matter to me, to me

Mama, just killed a man
Put a gun against his head
Pulled my trigger, now he’s dead
Mama, life had just begun
But now I’ve gone and thrown it all away

Mama, ooh
Didn’t mean to make you cry
If I’m not back again this time tomorrow
Carry on, carry on as if nothing really matters

Too late, my time has come
Sends shivers down my spine
Body’s aching all the time
Goodbye, everybody, I’ve got to go
Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth

Mama, ooh (Any way the wind blows)
I don’t wanna die
I sometimes wish I’d never been born at all

I see a little silhouetto of a man
Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango?
Thunderbolt and lightning very, very frightening me
(Galileo) Galileo
(Galileo) Galileo
Galileo Figaro
Magnifico-o-o-o-o

I’m just a poor boy, nobody loves me
He’s just a poor boy from a poor family
Spare him his life from this monstrosity

Easy come, easy go, will you let me go?
Bismillah! No, we will not let you go (Let him go!)
Bismillah! We will not let you go (Let him go!)
Bismillah! We will not let you go (Let me go!)
Will not let you go (Let me go!)
Never let you go (Never, never, never, never let me go)
Oh oh oh oh
No, no, no, no, no, no, no
Oh, mamma mia, mamma mia (Mamma mia, let me go)
Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for me

So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye?
So you think you can love me and leave me to die?
Oh, baby, can’t do this to me, baby
Just gotta get out, just gotta get right outta here

Ooh, ooh yeah, ooh yeah

Nothing really matters
Anyone can see
Nothing really matters
Nothing really matters to me

Any way the wind blows…