8/52: How Should I Know? (No, really, tell me how...)

“Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.” - Carrie Fisher

Dear Internauts, 

You keep reading 'em, so I'll keep writing 'em. 

Like a couple million other folks, I just got done watching the Oscars. Believe it or don't, but I went to an actual Oscar-watching Party...with actual people and actual...conversation...and stuff. 

To think that not only could I attend a social gathering but actually participate—truly an absurd notion. And yet, there I sat, feeling all the tension gather in my neck and back after having worked out once this past week for the first time in several decades. Of course, I could spend all night or even the rest of my life going over all I should have or more often shouldn't have said, but instead I'll try to find some nebulous form of pride in only thinking about how much I'm not over-analyzing everything. 

These days I sit with guitar and wonder why I'm here. 

These days I drive 'round in my car and wonder why I'm here. 

These days I look up at the stars and wonder why I'm here. 

These days I fear I'm more far than near, unclear, peering through tears and wonder why I'm here.

No matter how many times I submit an application or email asking about a position or gather up this tiny spark of courage for reaching into the madness of consumer society where I feel more consumed than societal and if I'm socio-anything it's more than likely down a damp, dark path, and I wonder why I'm here. 

From about age seven through twenty-two, I knew for certain (and by this I mean I felt assuredly convinced) that my life was imbued with a divine purpose. After all, I'd spent most of my lifetime in the company of grown ups who told me God had created me with a very specific and important goal in mind. How specific and how important tended to vary, but that I was tethered to this buoy of existential prevenient tunnel vision stayed a constant theme. 

What my great purpose was supposed to be seemed, for the longest time, to be finding out what my great purpose was supposed to be. Never much crossed my mind that this assumption my purpose was both certain and great could lead to a tad bit of arrogance. My fear, which I imagine isn't one I held alone, was that the struggles and confusion I faced in life only added up to exactly the sum of their parts. I was all about the pursuit of some special thing hidden behind all the ordinary things. 

However, I now propose that meaninglessness and worthlessness are not the same thing. 

Maybe in my search for the preeminent extra special sauce to make my actions and circumstances feel both credible and satisfactory, I missed out on the ability to face real life. I can speak round and round the quasi-mystical wonders of the universes, but in the words of Guts from Berserk, "You can't eat honor." In philosophy you sometimes have these real out there concepts about the nature of reality and new perspectives on ethics and consciousness, but at the end of class, you close the book and gotta figure this is someone who survived long enough in human society to write a book (at least). The real revolutionary thinkers aren't high functioning individuals. This isn't me trying to be part of the cool club of intellectual introverts or start a fight against anyone paying a mortgage, but ultimately, the struggles of life continue to exist no matter whether there's a divine meaning behind them or not.

To get up and out of bed and get dressed and step outside, for a whole lot of people it's possible because they're desperately clinging to the idea that purpose is just waiting over the rainbow or in some chance encounter. Maybe this new year, maybe this new job, maybe this next prayer, maybe just a little more belief or work or money will finally be enough. Finally, I'll have whatever it is that can fill this gaping hunger inside me for more than a fleeting instant. Maybe for you, the chase to please or connect with a divine entity or mystery is enough. I don't mean to disparage that, though I've lost a great many good friends who thought I was trying to and, if you're reading this I'm sorry.

What this nonsense ramble of mine is trying to communicate is that I reached a point in my life where a one-sided relationship full of pleading, confusion, self-loathing, and abuse no longer sustained my ability to go on living. In fact, I can say honestly that if I were still a Christian, I wouldn't be, because I would have killed myself several times over. It's very possible and statistically extremely likely that this is where our paths may shoot off in vastly different directions. I'm detached from an entire culture which shaped and bound me more than and for longer than anything else besides my own family, and even that is tied in this. But it's not just about religion or even theology.

I'm writing this because I came to the place where I no longer had the motivation to live or to participate in others' lives. Though I was the one who left school, the church, my hometown, everything in me felt like something or someone had left me. There was an exile like being born.

I'm writing this because maybe someone out there can relate, at least to the extent of feeling like there is no reason to keep going on. There is no deeper, hidden meaning behind everything that happens to you. There's no massive spiritual battle going on between angels and demons over every tiny minutia of your day. And yet, all the little things don't disappear simply because they're not secretly big things. I haven't felt much joy in a long time. I used to mistake my inability to be as happy as I thought I was supposed to for a flaw in my character. Now, I think of it more as a chemical imbalance. Now, I cherish those moments that can make me smile even more for their rarity. As hard as it can be to break old habits, these days, if I do something nice for someone, I don't secretly put another mental tally mark up on my soul-board. I'm not sweating whether or not the choices I make are approved by a pastor or a fellow church-goer or even a deity. I simply make choices because I have to. The outcome of each decision is mine alone. I can't control the universe or anyone else's actions, but I can own up to my own.

All that word-vomit to say, whether I ascribe deeper meaning to it or it's simply a case of cause and effect, I get to decide for myself what my purpose is or isn't, or even if I have one. Personally, I don't think that's how things work anymore. I was born like anybody else, and I'll die like anybody else. That stuff and everything in between doesn't really mean anything or at least it doesn't have to anymore. I've stopped pushing this need for an ultimate agenda on everything and in that, yes, nihilism, I've found just the tiniest island of calm in the storm.

If nothing means anything, then it's a choice to ascribe value and meaning to aspects of life. We get to decide for ourselves what's important to us. We don't have to worry about failing to discover our purpose or missing the ark of self-discovery or believing hard enough to make miracles happen. Every tiny speck in the universe is built on actions and reactions, and somehow we have the ability to think about our own interactions.

Once again, meaninglessness and worthlessness are not the same thing.

You have worth, but me or anyone telling you that won't be enough, believe me. You have the right and the ability to choose to see that worth or not and be treated according to that worth whether or not you or anyone else can see it.

That right is one we've collectively decided as a culture is due to ourselves. Some speak of rights as something we are owed by the universe. In the US we fixate on the idea of a creator endowing rights upon those who've been created equal, and yet lines drawn in blood, gold, and compromise on a piece of paper still dictate the extent to which we recognize that equality. We imbue meaning into our discourse about these values with our actions. Mostly hypocritical, we recognize the deeper value of at least trying to improve. We obsess over our membership in groups who imbue certain values with more weight than others. We're stubborn to change, often holding more tightly to a sense of familiarity than to any real stake or dedication to our way of thinking.

After all, it only takes one example to prove a stereotype to someone who wants to believe it, but millions of counter-examples are just seen as the exception to the rule.

There are people who will be unable to see your worth because what matters most to them excludes the possibility of you having any worth. Even the simple mention that maybe you have as much worth as anybody else can set some folks teeth to grinding. Why do you suppose it is that in any survey about immigration reform, those who are most anti-immigrant tend to live in places with the least number of immigrants?

Now, I know that correlation more often than not doesn't equal causation, but what have I been droning on about this whole time? You gotta decide for yourself what really matters to you. You gotta make up your own damn mind about what it means when a preacher, politician, or partner says something. If you're happy, be happy. If you're bothered, be bothered.

Ultimately, though, it'll be clear enough exactly what is truly important to anybody. It's not in any cryptic, desperate scraping for hidden, enlightened meaning, but in the why that makes the what.

So why am I here?

And what the hell am I gonna do about it?

Thanks for reading,
Odist


p.s.- just got a notification that Joe Casey, producer of my next EP, has sent me a rough copy of track one. i'm so excited i could just sit right here and listen to it a few times.

7/52: Young Bullies in a Subjective Space

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."

- James Baldwin

Dear Internauts, 

I was bullied as a child. 

For the most part, my bullies were other children. 

There is a bitter taste to my recollection of their faces, for early on I learned to look my assailants in the eye. This only served to exacerbate their ill will toward me. However, there are so few real moral victories in childhood as we learn that our most immediate instincts are often declared socially inappropriate, so my attempts were aimed toward holding my own smug sense of inner fortitude against their smug sense of competitive superiority for as long as possible. There are, after all, only so many times it is humanly possible for one elementary aged child to shove another to the ground before recess ends. At which point, the shoved may take their own turn as king of the hill in the arena of the classroom. My arrogance—founded upon a marginally advanced reading level and the confidence afforded by having two supportive, loving, academically encouraging parents—led to a need to constantly prove how much smarter I was. I'd easily bought into the lie that it is only the unintelligent who resort to violence and name calling, and only then against those they secretly agree are truly better than themselves. I'm not sure if anyone actually told me they were intimidated by me, but at least in my young mind, that narrative served as grounds for surviving even the worst sorts of juvenile abuse I would face. 

Thankfully, I never had to deal with the constant threat of physical assault that so many young people do from their peers. When such altercations did occur, they were the result of a heat built up over at least several days. The much more common issue was the threat of attack. The names and jeering required much less effort and offered a lower threshold possibility of punishment from authority. If I responded in kind to being spoken down to or ganged up on with insults, even in the most innocent fashion, anything I spoke could be just as easily used against me as anything to which I was responding. 

I don't recall ever saying to any of my haters that I knew I was better than them, but maybe they knew that I believed it. I believed it more than I believed much else when it came to my own identity, and it was that belief which allowed me to thrive inside the classroom more than much else (besides, perhaps, the expectations I felt on my shoulders from the adults). 

I learned to loathe the word incident for how much weight adults could attach to it. Besides that sounded too much like accident, which made its use seem dismissive, when I looked up what the word incident actually meant, I realized it didn't much describe anything at all. It was as if every problematic occurrence in my young life was being summed up with ellipses. The student did something or other, etc... to the other student and well, y'know....


Such incidences happened a lot. In particular, I remember fifth grade. From my perspective, this one guy had treated me like dirt from day one. Constantly telling me how stupid I was, how ugly, how poorly dressed, how uncool, how worthless, how unlikable, etc... (ha). If I was on the computer and he wanted to use it, I'd be pushed from the seat. Same if I was on the swings at recess or about to use the slide. If I had some book, or ball, or pencil, or whatever in my hand and he wanted it or even simply wanted me not to have it, it would be slapped from my grasp. Far as I could tell, there was no situation wherein if this guy thought he could get away with shoving me aside or throwing me to the ground or calling me whatever vile new name he'd concocted, he'd take advantage of it. And as for any kind of retribution, I couldn't see him getting in trouble for any of it. I did as I was told by every adult, and reported every instance I could to my teachers, school staff, the administration, family members. But of course it did no good. The result of my "tattling" was only a heightened danger from the one I'd reported, to the point I legitimately feared for my safety and would go out of my way to hide from this kid. For whatever reason, our teacher just couldn't see what I was facing or didn't seem to care, even when the bits or paper, rocks, or pens were being chucked at me across the room right in front of her eyes. Maybe I'd have been able to concentrate a bit better in class if I didn't have to play goalie for my face. Granted, that was at least some variety from when he was seated right behind me and he'd enjoy switching from kicking my chair to stabbing me with his mechanical pencils.

One day, I get called in to talk about the situation. Finally, I think, I'm being taken seriously. The truth will out. Hallelujah!

Yeah...not so much.

I walk in to find four chairs arranged by the rug. My teacher in one and next to her the other guy, the bully, the bane of my young existence. Next to him, however, was a woman I didn't know. Maybe some kind of school guidance counselor I'd never seen around before or an FBI agent come to take my statement? Nope. This, as I soon found out, was the kid's own mother. Told to sit at the one lone chair opposite those three, I felt before I realized that this was not going to be the kind of reckoning to which I'd been looking forward. Oh no. My fifth grade self was on trial. Representing myself. Already declared guilty, with only the sentence to be levied. My dress code appropriate polo-collared neck felt the noose begin to tighten. My darker senses on the nature of life and justice began to confirm themselves all too well as I slid my khaki-covered butt onto that plastic seat.

My crime was told to me as this: in second grade, this woman, mother of the other child in the room, had visited for the day. As was common practice for the small private school, parents would often come in to help with special projects or talk about their work or volunteer in some other fashion. On this day, I was told, eight year old me had marched up to the front of the room, pulled on her sleeve, announced in a loud voice that everyone in the class hated her son, then called for a vote from everyone in the room on the matter. With my vast charm, I buoyed up a rallying cry from all my fellow students, the classroom resounding with the collective animosity of twenty-five or so young voices all aimed at her poor boy. This day of vast injustice laid a kernel of rage inside her son, and from that day forth this rage grew into an unstoppable inferno, for which the only outlet is, of course, an understandable dislike and occasional act of harmless ribbing toward the monster from his past—namely, me.

Any illusions I'd had about ending my suffering were dashed. The great diplomacy I'd pictured, wherein he and I would talk out our differences under the intermediary grace and wisdom of our teacher, went poof! This handshake in my head had instead become an iron grip around my neck. Not only was I to look into the face of this fellow student whose torment had driven me to tears nearly every day for months, but I must look at both my own teacher and his mother, these two grown adults, as they all stared me down—the criminal, the monstrous ring-leader. How dare I act like I'd been wronged? After all, was I not facing just punishment for the years of grief I'd caused to this wounded soul? No, not even just punishment. It was not enough.

My teacher thanked the mother for coming in and her son for being so brave to share this story. When they'd left the room, she made sure I knew how shocked and appalled she was at what she'd heard. How dare I blame this innocent student of hers for anything, when it was I who was the great mastermind of his inner torment? How dare I come to her day after day spinning tales of violence and intimidation when he was suffering so under the weight of my abhorrent behavior? She was tired of the disturbances I'd caused to her classroom and hoped that there would finally be peace, now that the truth of the matter was out.

He and his mother were brought back into the room, and I was told to apologize for what I'd done. The part of me that carries this memory would maybe like to think that I stood up for myself, but I'm pretty sure I didn't. Far as I remember, I said sorry and he told me he forgave me (we were at a Christian school after all). For the life of me, I couldn't recall that day in second grade. I certainly remembered being bullied by him back then as well, but pretty much all the guys in second grade bullied me. They were proud of his maturity and his bravery in coming forward about this painful memory. To this day, all I can recall from that day his mom came into class is exactly the details she told me three years after. Nothing changed in his behavior toward me from then on. If anything it got worse, and I knew there was no use in telling anyone about it, especially any adult.

There have been plenty of studies of memory done to discredit the heavy use of witness testimony in criminal court cases. After I was robbed a few years back, the investigator in charge of the case had me look at a series of pictures of faces, despite the fact that the guy with the gun was wearing a mask the whole time. Thankfully, I'd taken psych 101 between fifth grade and that moment in the hotel, so I could pick up on how heavily he was trying to persuade me toward certain faces at least a little. Honestly, it felt more creepy and pathetic than action-drama conspiratorial. But then most everything about that night felt creepy and pathetic.

Originally, I was planning to write about bullies because I thought it would somehow relate to foreign policy. I still feel like this blog can hold its title as a music blog mostly because my songs tend to be based on whatever I've been caught up with a lot at the time. If it's running around my head enough, when I get a bit of music going, the lyrics tend to follow in kind. Thus, when I write songs about love or faith or friends or weather or national identity or the rise of artificial intelligence in a post-truth society, it's because that's what's been screaming so loud trying to crack my cranium of late.

A few weeks ago, I heard a military rep declare a particular bombing mission to be a complete success. I live in the jingoist capital of the western world so that's nothing new, but this wasn't just any typical bombing mission. (Or maybe it was. What's typical anyway?) See, they were aiming for leaders of a terrorist sect in this village. The bombs killed civilians, though. Men. Women. Children. All civilians. (I emphasize civilians, because human being isn't a label that garners enough sympathy for it to matter to anyone.) This is nothing new, since we're not really at war with any particular state, so our war crimes are allowed to be vague. Thing is, some of these civilians were American citizens. Oh no. Now, there might be an issue. Because us American citizens only care about American citizens in these sorts of stories. Now, maybe they're a bit more sure about who got hit and who died, but at the time of the report, they were only kinda sure that maybe some of the bad people might have also possibly been hit too. So, the rep said because of that possibility, they can still declare the mission a complete success.

The following has been going around a while, originally posted by a Boston minister after the Superbowl Win Parade(s).

You know I have my problems with the abuses of religion, both those I've faced personally and those faced by others with whom I sympathize. Within the particular vein of religious institutionalism in which I was raised and others I've observed, I truly do believe there is a serious need for honest criticism and openness to reflection and growth. Privately, do your thing. Publicly, however, there is too much abuse which is hidden within the pretext of privacy. For instance, the physical and emotional abuse within the protestant Christian denominations is even more vastly under-reported than the still vastly under-reported abuses of the Catholic Church.

That being said, the kind of anti-Muslim rhetoric, legislation, action, and environment which has swelled up in the United States has grown far beyond what is tolerable. This is the severest of understatements. We cannot continue to treat those who speak in the terms of ethnic cleansing as if they are talking about common sense security procedure. The executive order travel ban is not only blatantly racist, but it is misleading and contributes to the culture of racial hate and fear at the core of the militant right. In the same fifth grade year as the earlier bully story, I saw an act of abominable violence set this nation's foreign policy down a path from which it may never recover. I speak of course of when the US Army first started bombing Afghanistan and almost immediately began an unending war on children, families, and hospitals. While we blame mental illness and violent themes in the media for true plans and acts of terrorism, we allow our liberty, our sanity, and our national identity to be hijacked in the name of protection against a foreign boogey man we ourselves created.

The Vice President has referred to Iran as the biggest supporter of terrorist groups. I propose that in fact it is the United States which is at fault for the current state of terror hype in the world.

When asked why certain nations were blocked in the travel ban and not others, one of the main reasons cited by this administration is that the nations from which major terrorist groups actually originate have better record keeping than these other seven, majority-Muslim nations. Further, the majority of attacks and possible attacks which occur within the US have mostly come from those who are already here and already citizens. So let's be clear, this is not a protection against possible "bad guys", but against the unregistered, the unrestricted, the unaccounted for.

The US government is not at war with terror. That's a catchy slogan, but the truth is what it has always been. The government is at war with a loss of its own control over its people. Remember how the White House knew about Mike Flynn's naughty behavior for three weeks before he "resigned" but only did anything once the public found out? Remember how the NSA was definitely not spying on us until of course they were once the "criminal" whistle-blowers like Snowden blew the story open wide? Remember how everyone goes crazy about how important it is to vote and how much your vote matters and go vote go vote go vote until you do and it doesn't matter because screw the popular vote, the electoral college chooses for you, nerd.

The kind of paranoia that thinks a wall, mass raids by ICE, and storm troopers asking for your papers is good immigration policy is the same kind of paranoia that thinks the best place to stay safe and warm is in a gold-plated bunker by the light of the nuclear reserve. It's the same kind of eyes that look at history through a lens which can ignore Teddy Roosevelt's lust for war with the Philippines because he was "such a badass". It's the same kind of foreign policy that forgets you only make room for a Third Reich when you try to make an example of those you've crushed with the Treaty of Versailles. It's the same kind of gung-ho nationalism which says the best thing for the populace to do after a national tragedy is go shopping. It's the same kind of fanatical racism which leads to internment camps and the Trail of Tears and box cars or slave ships full of bodies deemed dispensable.

It's the kind of compromise you learn to make when you're taught justice is two adults staring down an eleven year old telling him that the only side of the story that matters is the one of those in power.

It's the future of a country that hasn't got one.

It's the epitaph for a species of cannibals.

This past week when I did some temp work of twelve hour days delivering flowers in the snow, I knew I would never want the job of having to manage all the different routes and drivers and packages and orders. But I also knew that no matter what happened on the warehouse end, everything came down to the moment those flowers left my hands. The smile. The laugh. The confusion. The wonder. None of that was possible without me and other individuals like me delivering on what was paperwork a step or two above us. I'll try to remember that. Will you?

There is no just doing your job. There is no just following orders. There is no just walking by. 

Because no matter what a government or a nation or a sect or any institution declares or orders or does, it is in every individuals hands—yours and mine—what actually happens in this world. From the soldier with their trigger to the doctor with their prescription pad to the pedestrian and the change in their pocket. It is us, people, one to another, who make up our world community. It is us who decide the course of the future. It is us who define what words like truth, justice, liberty, equality, and hope actually look like on the daily.

And it's up to us to be there.

Thanks for reading,
Odist

6/52 - Snow on the Back Seat (21st Century Social Clusters)

They say money can't buy you happiness

Just some food on your table or a place to rest

Just some clothes for your kids or some medicine 

But money can't buy you happiness, my friend

Dear Internauts, 

How's your winter going? 

So far, I got to switch my car to the ultra-special 2 mode down there toward the bottom, whatever that means, for the first time. Oh yeah, and I left the back two windows down all night for some reason. Didn't want the inside of the car to feel left out from the snow, I guess. 

Thank you, by the by, for making last weeks post the most viewed I've had probably ever if not just in a VERY long time. Honestly, I don't have very high expectations for readership or statistics, but it is nice to know that maybe some folks other than me get something out of this little space. 

So I guess the Grammys happened tonight. I mean this is a music blog or something, but I've never been very in touch with popular music. I think I've heard most of the winning songs and artists at least a few times in stores or on the radio, but most of the music I listen to regularly is either stuff from a decade ago or from folks I've played on the bill with or that one Acoustic Africa CD my mom got me a while back. I've no idea what they're saying, but it's very upbeat and relaxing. So, congrats to the winners, but mostly here's to all the kids out there who watched it and thought that maybe someday they could be up there on that stage. I've been you, and kinda still am you as far as those dreams go. 

Generally, I think we're in an age well past the days of the Record Labels as gate-keepers. The big decline probably started even before Napster, but it has much less to do with file sharing than it does with the infinite niche cultures springing from the interconnectivity of the online age. Streaming sites allow for some personal curating of style based on similar sounds, but I believe the biggest cause for anyone listening to a particular artist or style is what it has always been—word of mouth. That word may come via text or facebook chat or reblog of a video, but when it comes to music, movies, tv shows, and games, who do we ultimately trust more than our friends? Even if those friends are only known to us by way of the similar groups we belong to online, there's a connection there which weighs heavy with reasonable authority because of our similarities. 

When I was a kid, I remember playing with a bunch of other kids who lived on the same street. Besides where we lived (and our reason for living there often having to do with where our folks worked), there was nothing immediately tying us together based on our interests. Proximity was all it took. Far as I know, none of us live within walking distance of that street now. I'll hear bits and pieces, but for the most part I've no idea where they are or what they're doing with their lives these days. School is kinda like that too, in that you're forced into a big social group with kids of like age, and somewhere in there friends form up. Or not. Like I imagine it may have been with you, there were some years I had a good friend or two and some years I really didn't. Still, in both cases of housing and education, friendships form of a kind of social necessity. You're gonna be around them anyway, so you might as well make the most of it. 

While I think there's something optimistic and wholesome to the idea that we can get along with those around us and build attachment into a source of happiness without needing the other person first to fit a checklist of basic criteria, I actually find the kind of communities formed online to be a fascinating and positive development in human society. Not only can I join in conversation, learning, sharing, and fun with a group of people with similar interests, but that group can consist of people whose lives and locations mean we never would have met otherwise. Sure, this can lead to enormous echo chambers and a massive case of confirmation bias, but it can also mean we maybe don't have to feel quite so alone.

It was either in high school or college that we had a day in which each student was given a number before lunch. Each would sit at the table of that number, with the goal being to spend at least one meal with people you may not otherwise interact. As an introvert who had enough trouble sitting near anyone during meals, the hours (or weeks) leading up to this lunch filled me with more dread than reassurance. Sure, I didn't have to pass some silent test to determine whether or not I could sit at a certain table without being told off or the rest of the table getting up to leave, but it also put a weird pressure on me to interact with people I didn't know. Granted, my college and high school both had relatively tiny student populations, so we'd at least likely recognize each other...

Maybe I should present to you the challenge of getting out there and getting to know new people. Maybe this post should be about how a stranger is just a friend you haven't met yet (or a friend is just an enemy you haven't made yet). But morals and platitudes frustrate and bore me. 

Besides, we just lost power for the second time then got it back again, which reminded me to look at the time and set my alarm for tomorrow. Monday and Tuesday of this week—presuming I can get my car out of the driveway—I'll be delivering flowers for all the lovely lovebirds out there. Should be interesting. 

Latest update on the EP is that Joe Casey has finished getting the drums all shuffled around and is laying down some bass tracks before he'll send the early drafts. Being as he (and like nine other people I know) just became a parent, it may be a little while, but I really like the drummer for these songs and def think some good stuff is on its way. 

I've been trying to get out to open mics when I can. Often it's snowing because apparently that happens in New England sometimes. Or I'm just wiped of all energy because that's the way I roll lately. Still, it's important to keep trying, right? 

For my recommendations this week, I choose the film Paterson

The graphic novel Blame! by Tsutomu Nihei

and

The book Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

To finish off, here are some sketches I've been working on of late: 

Thanks for reading,
Odist

 

 

5/52: When I Was Hungry... (or A Mediocre Super Hero Origin Story)

PRETENTIOUS.  Adj.
-attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed

Dear Internauts,

I despise blogs, articles, speeches, or conversations that start off with definitions, don't you?

It's such a giveaway that the writer is about to contradict that definition, offering something new and enlightening.

Or perhaps, sometimes—maybe more often, maybe less (how should I know, right?)—the aforementioned writer will instead use the definition as a launching point to jump into their persuasive (or not) presentation. It's like they've got one "fact" set up right for the thesis paragraph.

Open strong, right? And it's just like oh great, he must've used that New Oxford American Dictionary built into his lappy tappy computer gizmo. 

Well, you're right. I did.

Anyways...

I'm not one to throw the word fascist around—everyone knows it's a melee weapon best for close combat—but certain current events have me wondering at exactly what point I need to digitize my favorite books and maybe build a secret room in the attic.

Having spent the past weekend stocking shelves at local grocery stores for a certain snack food company—let's call them Neato-Yay—I can say with an anecdotal certainty usually reserved for panel shows that there is enough food in south eastern Massachusetts to feed exactly four gazillion people, if their diet mainly consists of bowl-shaped corn chips. I know this because just trying to keep up with Hurricane preparedness levels of consumerism has left me physically and emotionally shredded. Much of the physical shredding is due to having lost the oversized work gloves I'd bought at 7-11 the night before for a buck-fitty because they got too sweaty so I put them in my pockets but how in the world are you supposed to fit keys, phone, notebook, pen, timesheets, instructions, and gloves too big for my apparently trumpian-sized hands in freakin' khaki pants, huh? Answer that one.

I'll give it to Carlito's Way though, they sure do have seventy billion four hundred and twenty-six different sizes of the same generic, over-priced, addictive...cheesy...salty...crunchy...

Wait, where was I going with that?

So this one time, I was maybe nine or ten, right? You ever been there? Yeah? Cool.

In this particular bit of recollection, all the church people got onto this kinda fancy ferry boat sorta like the ones in The Dark Knight with the detonators and the prisoners and the not-prisoners etc...except this one had less explosive barrels on it (i assume). I guess this happened annually, but I was only seven or eight, so what do I know? The captain and his brave crew of hunky polo shirts took the boat and its occupants out on a nice little loop around the Hahbah, and there was food and drinks and dancing (except minus the drinks and dancing but plus a lot more food because well, you can figure it out...)

Afterwards, the flocking mass (or massive flock, idk) disembarked on a gangplank with real nautical-looking rope railings. I myself, being an eager-to-please young lad of maybe five or six, personally volunteered to stand on the dock, just to the side of the intersection where plank-ramp met pier-dock. There I stood, hat in hand (here meaning "holding a plastic bucket which had likely once contained popcorn or disappointing off-brand candy"). As the pooped-out parishioners were pooped off the poop deck (I know it's not the poop deck, okay? I've watched Muppet Treasure Island like 30 times a month since I was about three or four years old), I would be there to hold the makeshift coffer before them and passive-aggressively insinuate that God may have made the sea but he didn't pay for you to gorge yourself on fried chicken while riding around in a loud eyesore fueled by dead dinosaurs on it.

So while I stood there, an infant of one or maybe two years old at most, implying with a practiced smile that the family who prays together sure better pay together, I noticed the descending crowd swelling beyond what the allotted wooden plank space could comfortably contain. What a predicament, my probably fetal brain thought. What shall I do to accommodate these restless worshipers' transition from seaworthy shuttle back to good ol' terrarium firma?

Of course, in my single-celled yet somehow sentient mind, I pulled a very practiced move known well by anyone of the introvert persuasion. I got out of the way. I removed myself from the equation. I vanished into the background. Already, I'd become simply the basket, but now I would also be the opening up. Space was now available where before it had been absent. The place which had been empty of emptiness was now emptier and thus less empty of emptiness in its newfound emptiness.

And me? Well, in that next instant, this little Punnet Square learned a very important lesson. A very wet, very cold, very sudden lesson.

Strange isn't it, how we could make a buoyant, butter-battered bucket into a box for bucks but not a huge building with more rooms and far more space than most motels into somewhere safe and warm on a cold night for someone who might have nowhere else to go?

Weird.  I guess it's a good thing I live in a country that's founded upon the principles of neighborliness and welcoming in strangers and immigrants with love and generosity, building a collection of diverse and multi-layered generations of cultures and persuasions of humanity in order to form a more beautiful and more perfect union.

Oh well, where was I? Ah, yes.

Picture a child's windbreaker jacket, good for late summer/early fall in 90's New England but not so much for the frigid winds just along the coast. Imagine, if you will, the accordion-esque elastic strap at the bottom of said jacket which held the space-age membrane around the child's waist in just such a way as to pull up at the worst times, bringing with it the bottom of his shirt and surely frost bite to his pudgy little tummy. Imagine what happens when a significant patch of air surges right up under the waist band and into the jacket. Normally, this air would disperse through the neck hole, sleeve holes, or back out the way it came. In this purely hypothetical case, however, the airflow is momentarily  halted inside the jacket by an opposing force.

This patch of air cannot escape upward as is the natural want when in a drop of a meter and a half-ish. The naive bit of protogenic sludge wearing the jacket has foolishly zipped it all the way up to his chin in a failed attempt to stave off the chill. The sleeves, surely? But alas, they soon are weighed down by the great equalizer. After all, water always wins.

From waist band to collar, this polyester parachute of public punitivity has popped, pillowed, and plumed into a sphere most sardonic. Like some gum-chewing pre-adolescent in a confectionary manufacturing establishment, I blue up.

Ballooned as such, I bobbed like a buoy between the boat and the dock. The positioning of both, along with the tide, could likely have caused an unfortunate collision to crush my cranium, but enough alliteration already, are we agreed?

From up in the night sky, the stars twinkled with exasperation. The city lights echoed their chorus all to serve as backdrop for the moment. Yes, it had finally come. With the flame of purpose burning in his proud chest, a lone crewman saw his chance. Vaulting o'er the rope's cautious arm, he spun into a gold-medal-worthy dive and plunged his chiseled magnificence deep beneath the salty swell. Like Namor the Sub-Mariner himself, this marvel burst forth from the waves only at most ten or twenty seconds later. He swam like mermen might someday swim, perhaps when hipster culture reaches Altantica. Wrapping his own railing-worthy nautical ropes around me in an embrace so fierce it forced all the air out of my jacket-bubble, he scrambled to hold on as I rocketed several feet into the air. Not having yet developed the kind of gravity-defying acrobatic skills I would later come to give up on ever developing, I fell back into the water, submerging once again into the dank depths. Thus, with my daring rescuers herculean strength to assist, I hopped on the deck and flopped like a fish. 

Those in the crowd could later be heard gossiping about who occasionally likes a glass of wine with dinner and saying, "how'd you get all wet?", "whose kid is this?", and "oh, don't let him drip on me!"

IF there is a moral to any of this, I guess it's maybe don't be so consumed with trying to get out of everyone else's way that you forget you deserve a spot on dry land just as much as they do.

And the money?

It all washed away. 

Thanks for reading,
Odist

p.s. - CLICK HERE FOR THE TOP TEN CUTEST PUPPY MOMENTS YOU WON'T BELIEVE