Reading Nietzsche’s “The Genealogy of Morals” has led to my consideration of the morality of custom. You know, those unspoken things that a person should not do, or behaviours that we “just don’t do around here”. Ways of being that while perfectly legal are just frowned upon within a certain culture. This morality of custom also includes the things we “must do around here” and a person being frowned upon if they do not do these things
I was always a strange child, but not in a cool way at first. As a fan of horror movies, I’m sad to say that the horror heroine that I understand the most is Carrie White, ostracised alone, simply not fitting in, a subject of derision by most of her classmates. I relate to that very well.
I was different in a way that could not be explained but I felt that difference and so did everyone else. Somehow, I was breaking the morality of custom. I was not one of them but an outsider. As I moved into my teenage years, like most teenagers I wanted to fit in and I tried, but I did it wrong. I’m not sure how I got it wrong, only that I could not understand what was expected so I could not make myself fit into a pattern that was alien to me. My attempts to fit in with the morality of custom did not work and made me a bigger target than I already was.
As attempting to fit in did not work for me I decided to throw caution to the winds and do whatever I wanted to do. After all, if I could not make my peers happy regardless of my attempts to embrace the norm then I may as well make myself happy by embracing me. My distain for cultural and sub cultural norms became an art form and I presented myself to the world as an expression of what I felt within. Bright, bold, happy colours, ribbons, bows, multi-coloured hair, symbolising my desire to embrace all the colours of the universe, and my great love for life. While this led to further social issues with my peers I also knew that some secretly envied my ability to not respond to cultural pressures and simply embrace what I loved. Instead of holding my head low like the tragic Carrie White, I looked people in the eye and dared them to have a go.
This became an excellent training ground for strengthening the magical will, as I developed an ability to take a position and maintain it no matter what. Through my will to live outside the norms that my village had set down for me, I would transcend. I would live beyond what was considered socially moral in order to embrace and express my love for life, in a way that felt right for me.
It was this desire to experience all the colours of life that led me to the magical path, for what is magick but an attempt to experience the Universe more deeply. I became a chaos magician by accident. The IOT happened to be opening a working group in my area at the time when I was looking to join a group, which is why I joined. I quickly saw how chaos magick encouraged one to take ones freedom of expression and live outside the rules if that’s what you need to do. In chaos magick I am not a Carrie White but an adventurer, an explorer into the realms of human consciousness, knowing that each individual is a manifestation of chaos including the people who have sought to curtail my expression. Chaos in all things, the good, the bad and the shades in between.
