If Blaise Pascal had listened to “Deacon Blues” by Steely Dan—a song about the seductive dignity of failure, self-invention, and the strange glory of obscurity—he might have jotted down a set of Pensées to dissect the Deacon Blues persona.
1.
Man prefers to be a broken genius than an obedient saint. The dream of ruin, if it is romantic enough, intoxicates him more than the dull clarity of success. He calls this rebellion, but it is merely another form of vanity—failure dressed in excessive self-regard.
2.
He who calls himself “Deacon Blues” chooses a name of ironic grandeur. He does not wish to be great, but to appear profound in his brokenness. This too is a form of ambition—narcissism inverted and dipped in bourbon.
3.
The world offers two false promises: the applause of others and the nobility of being misunderstood. Deacon Blues seeks the latter, not because it is better, but because it hurts less to fail on one’s own terms than to succeed on another’s.
4.
To live in the margins and call it freedom—this is man’s trick. He flees from the burden of excellence and cloaks his retreat in poetry. But exile, chosen for aesthetic reasons, is still a form of cowardice.
5.
He dreams of learning to work the saxophone, not to make music, but to be seen as one who has suffered for his art. In this, he is like those who wish to be martyrs, not for truth, but for drama.
6.
“Drink Scotch whisky all night long and die behind the wheel.” Thus he crowns his life not with virtue, but with stylized destruction. He does not want to be saved—only to be mourned beautifully.
7.
Deacon Blues wants a name, not a self. He believes identity is a lyric he can write into being. But names do not change the soul, only the soundtrack to its delusions.
Cinemorphosis 
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