The Wildness Quotient

Terrence was in one of his happy trances again - wide awake yet staring off into space, trudging along with that unique stride, with that unpredictable, whimsical bounce in his step, secretly proud, giddy, impatient to speak with Simon and Fiona at the gelato shop, wanting to tell them about how he too was THERE at that lecture the other night on campus - that he had snuck in to see the renowned and controversial Katherine Bourgeois-Pain, that he had remained incognito in a dark blue hoodie - that he had not blurted anything out - despite the heckling that went on - that he had actually listened to what this amazing woman had to say, about the present state of the impersonal, mechanized technology-laden, late-capitalist behemoth-leviathan, about the role of women in society, about the crimes of manbeast, about the amnesia that the younger generation is so afflicted with; he listened and he went away thinking that something was missing - he wanted to find a way to speak with Professor Bourgois-Pain up close and personal - to tell her how thought-provoking her speech had been, to tell her how brilliant he thought she was, and - possibly - to remind her - ever so subtly - that she had (perhaps) forgotten to mention a crucial detail - had forgotten this strange intangible factor that Terrence had dubbed the "wildness quotient" - which, he felt was also the key to Simon's dilemma - when he had heard Simon complaining about the "absolute nighttime of the world" and the terror and brutality that lurks just below the surface of mundane normalcy. He thought about all of the members of the prophecy club - those goofy, grail-quest pilgrims, hungry for some purposeful activity, in need of a spiritual goal or goals, not to mention a path that was actually viable, that could actually be believed in without being laughed out of the room. This "wildness" notion that he'd been kicking around and poking at for years and years - that was somewhat different from Simon's notion of the "invisible terror" - because, in contrast to Simon's moralistic sense of outrage at the sad, unbearable silence of non-oracular, non-deified matter, the disenchanted eery presence of mere atoms and void unwilling and unable to respond sufficiently to human needs, wildness was not in itself either good or bad per se, because this idea of "wildness" could not be reduced to an abstract theory or a logical argument - because it was so expansive and divergent - it touched upon so many aspects of experience and would appear here or there never to be pinned down - that it just was such an "uncanniness principle" that had to be taken into account - not that it totally negated all forms of logic, language, science, philosophy or tangible discourse - but just that it represented that weird "ineffable energy" (or call it what you will) the unique self-assertion, the inexplicable aggression, the volatility, ambition, wanderlust, disorder - housed within all living creatures - within entities as such for that matter - that had to be reckoned with - that one could not confine to this one group or this one individual...And because it was not a theory, not even a fact or a set of facts of an event, but more like a story, a mythos that called for interpretation by persons dealing with "situations" at various times and places, he felt that he had succeeded in some kind of breakthrough; he wanted to explain how this "wildness" factor that came to visit now and then and brought with it by turns, chaos, destruction, terror or else (perhaps by corollary) adventure, rapture, heightened awareness - like a contagion spreading by means of various unlucky "carriers" and "infected ones" - sometimes a villain, sometimes a tragic hero...or involving, for lack of a better term "innocent onlookers" and "affected populations." Was this enough to rebut Simon and that old soul mentor of his - with their world-weary explanations - with their instinctual religious melancholy lashing out against the raw data of human vulnerability before the randomness of time and chance that "happeneth" to all? He thought again of that remarkable woman, that quintessential aging rebel and her radical indictment of relations between male and female throughout the animal kingdom, ending most conspicuously with men and women of today....it occurred to him that she had perhaps not felt the need to invoke any over-arching metaphysical principles or general concepts as part of her discussion, and yet...there was no doubt a philosophical underpinning to her remarks and a definite sense of cosmic injustice meting itself out. Did she believe that "justice" was then but a human construction along the lines of socially-constructed gender relations? Did she believe that nature itself somewhat of a hoax, a misnomer, a false construct, an illusory panorama of make-shift order and stability projected outward like some false glittering advertisement or continuous hologram that people simply absorbed as part of the scenery without noticing the role of language in the very acting of seeing and perceiving the natural universe?

Can Someone Just Agree with Me?

Lionel H. was sitting in the barber's chair at the Clip-n-Snip discount hair salon, petulant and brooding, high up on his perch, chair #4 to be exact, monitoring the haircut in progress - his own in fact, a sacred event on his calendar, a mental cleansing similar to yoga or meditation;  yet there he was on a lazy Sunday afternoon, holding his head stiffly in place while fiercely admonishing the young stylist with a strangely impulsive laundry list of do's and don'ts; nothing unusual here except that for Lionel haircuts were typically so fluid and serene; he had frequented this humble salon as a means of lessening his anxiety, and felt that nothing was so soothingly beneficial as a properly rendered (i.e. close-cropped) grooming. On this particular day, however, he felt uncharacteristically flustered, frayed, on-edge. He felt like screaming at the top of his lungs and berating the stylist, a young brunette woman with long fingernails and wild, amorphous, curly hair who for many months had been relied upon (trusted implicitly really) to give him that elusive "clean-cut look" - a look that in reality was so simple and banal, hardly worth mentioning, but one that he went on and on about in his mind, and would "unpack" for her in excruciating detail as if describing a DNA molecule, a Bach concerto or the latest panacea for a migraine headache. Eager to vent, he nevertheless held himself in check. Although nothing was out of the ordinary, with the casual pop music droning on in the background, with the Us Magazines and Men's Health periodicals strewn across the waiting area couches, with the lighting near the mirrors dimmed appropriately to accentuate the best skin tones of the pale, pasty customers, something just felt wrong. A cheerful blonde woman wearing a shapely and presumably "in vogue" happy-face t-shirt stood at the register, nodding politely at everyone. In the waiting area, two young boys sat next to an elderly woman. A young man with short hair (seemingly without need of even a trim) was happily immersed in reading the sports page. The temptation to explode was so overwhelming that Lionel could barely keep his hands from shaking underneath the cloak, and the young woman was so placid and compliant, so good-naturedly willing to endure any complaint or snide remark, that he found himself sending out a barrage of emphatic commands, albeit in fervent, hushed tones: Could you cut a little more on this side? Don't forget the top layers. The back feels a little full. You're not done in back are you? Do you remember what I told you? The stylist on this particular day, indeed remembered, but could not help feeling that Lionel was revising what he wanted every five minutes. You said not too short - I thought? she said perplexed. Yes - not too short, but I need a definitive haircut,  a haircut that is noticeable. Can you use a 3-blade with the clippers on this side here? Or maybe a 2. We'll have to see. The young woman suppressed a smile at this point, half-amused and half-mystified, and could not repress a playful gibe about about certain customers needing to "go back on their meds." Unfortunately for her, Lionel instantly latched onto this barb (reading into it far more than was intended) and indignantly replied: Oh, right. Oh right. Like I'm....Like I look the type...Oh, please.  - But I just meant ----- She could not get the words out before the barrage of indignation erupted in her general direction: Just for the record: I don't do drugs, okay. I'm not - I'm ....Drugs are for freaks, okay? Yes - I mean it. I'm going there: for freaks, losers, hooligans, hedonists, criminals, wayward types, drifters, people lacking a purpose. And as for medication, the only meds I'm on right now are caffeine and aspirin - two of the best substances known to humankind. Look, I'm sorry if I sound demanding, but I do need this haircut done right. I need a certain look - okay?" After such an awkward exchange the stylist was now flummoxed for a segue. But Lionel provided it. Yes. I know. I know. I'm a little stressed out today. That's why I like getting my haircut. It helps me relax. Better than a spa or whatever it is people go to nowadays. It really is. It works for me. Oh great - said the stylist, happy to be back in (for the moment at least) Lionel's good graces. I didn't mean to imply that you were on drugs. Lionel felt a brief spasm of rationality overtake him: Oh well I'm sure you didn't...but that's a hot button issue for me. Drugs, that is. And don't get me started about those annoying potheads. Next-gen stoners, pot-growers, pot-bakers, pot-gardeners, pot-advocates. Don't even go there.  I can't stand them and their wretched gateway addictions, their beloved cannabis plants."  Oh - said the stylist innocently, trying once again to diffuse a needlessly tense situation, I thought marijuana was considered more like a medicine nowadays. I mean for some people. You know they use it for nausea and for um....for people who....who use it to.... help their.... um...I can't remember what it's called..." "Their glaucoma,"- said the customer sitting in the next chair. You're right to say that marijuana is viewed more as a medicine these days than a so-called 'gateway drug.' And the convenient thing is that most people don't even need to light up. Somewhat annoyed by this interjection, Lionel glared at this customer - a pert, seemingly agile, grey-haired fellow, obvious "boomer" who it turns out grew his hair out in a long pony-tail for six months out of the year and then sheared everything off  (including his scraggly beard) from April-October thereby achieving a total transformation for no apparent reason from looking like an aging hippie mountain-man survivalist to a conservative financial planner in one fell swoop. But Lionel was not one to let such a comment go unchallenged. Before he could offer a devastating logical argument to silence his opponent, his fledgling adversary chimed in again:  I hate to break it to you... (laughing)... but you are a little BEHIND THE TIMES on this one... what you just said about lawful cannabis users is just a tad...oh how shall I say...rigid.... (heh, heh, heh). He said it laughing as if to show his good faith. Oh - here we go. Lionel groaned inwardly at yet another defender of the current Zeitgeist.  I'll take that as a compliment he said  in response. I'd rather be rigid - that is to say - principled - than on drugs. I guess I just belong in some other century than be surrounded by loopy, out-of-touch potheads on their way to crashing and burning. I know it may sound harsh - but I happen to dissent from the majority opinion - on - this -one. I don't trust the majority...The semi-affable hippie/mountain man soon to be cubicle-dweller or shall I say aging boomer coming back down the mountain to the bourgeois camping grounds, was in no mood to hold back: I understand. You have your opinions. It's just that they sound very judgmental. The times have changed, chief; you just have to adjust, you know: go along, get along, live and let live...   This was quite enough to push Lionel over the edge....He wanted to enlist the young stylist as an advocate, but feared that this would be a long-shot. What do you think about all this? he blurted out with maximum subdued demeanor. Oh dear - what do I say now?  thought the stylist, not wanting to offend any of the surrounding clientele who were now being drawn into the argument. Well - maybe it sounds a little judgmental (she giggled) as in opinionated (she giggled). I suppose everyone is like that to some extent, it's just that most people - Most people keep silent - because they've been cowed into submission, because they know that the thought-police will drag them through the mud with every manner of calumny. Am I right? -"Whoa there... my... my... you - uh - seriously - uh need to -  just take a deep breath and REALIZE that times have changed. I'm amazed at how - uh - what's the word - sheltered you are to talk about us cannabis advocates as somehow living on the margins...You've heard of alternative medicine haven't you?- Don't call me naive, sir. I know ALL ABOUT you dope-smokers. It's so interesting not only do you fail to allow me my rights as a dissenter- you don't even have the courtesy to ask whether I myself have ever had a bad experience with drugs. You ever think a-that? Some people have terrible, terrible traumas that all have to do with drug abuse. Do I make myself clear? And because I'm here on a Sunday trying to get a measly haircut so I can relax - you come along and accuse me of being some totalitarian boot-stomper just because I hate dope.   - Okay, fine. You can think whatever you want - but your way of expressing yourself is really offensive - because you  -" - Because I - Because you sound like such a puritan - what I call a "wound-too-tight." You don't seem to have much empathy, son. Can you conceive that some people may have had a positive experience where you perhaps had a negative one? Can't you wrap your head around that? Can't you accept that as a possibility? - No I cannot. One side of the equation is delusional." - "You know. Your problem really goes beyond this little debate we're having. I wouldn't be surprised if you make a lot of enemies wherever you go." - No doubt I do. Is that something to be ashamed of? - "Yes." By now Lionel was exhausted and practically in tears. - Is it too much to ask, he said looking around, for someone, anyone to agree with me? Can someone just agree with me? Anybody??? Now is the time to speak up... The young stylist knew it was time for an intervention. - Um sir, maybe we should take a break before we finish with your hair...Would you like some complimentary coffee? - Coffee - there's a nice drug for you - said the hippie. - Lionel nodded at her despairingly, feeling suddenly defeated by the world. The only words he could muster were to the effect of: What is your name. I didn't catch your name. I should know your name by now...

God's Favorites

The old soul was reeling from this latest round of spiritual malaise, or "Melville's disease," as he called it - having been accosted, literally swept off his feet by Wills and Fiona and plopped down on a park bench so as to feed pigeons and ponder calamities - or rather having resorted to feeding pigeons first, he then found himself bookended by Fiona and Wills spontaneously generating before him.  Sitting there holding his head, groaning to himself, gently rocking himself like a catatonic patient, oppressed by the warm breeze, the puffy clouds and intermittent sunshine. A few pedestrians sauntered by thinking that a mild head injury had occurred and was being attended to. Trapped within that familiar haze of melancholy which so many others falsely attributed to him as a flukey mood disorder, a temperamental pinched nerve unique to himself alone, as if to say well but, you know, it stands to reason that for every 100 residents of a small town, there has to be at least one "sad sack of a youthful malcontent with delusions of grandeur running amok...", caught up once again in the "dark cloud" that so many thinkers, observers, artists, writers, misanthropes of various stripes grapple with like people gasping for fresh air when enveloped by ceaseless plumes of smog.- What is it F.G? What is it? Fiona and Wills kept saying, but they sort of knew in advance or at least had their suspicions. The old soul looked around, but R.J. was nowhere in sight -  R.J.  the charismatic youthful svengali, ringleader and instigator of this entire mess.  Emerging from his mental daze, he found himself muttering something about Billy and Gabby - those would be "prophets" and "psychics" - the "lost souls" - as he called them - who to no one's recollection ever looked as forlorn or miserable as the old soul himself. Something about the escalation of tensions, recent incidents, quarrels and actual fights breaking out, threats of harm and prophecies of doom. Well - that was par for the course where those two "heavy thinkers" were involved. And wouldn't R.J. be right there, defending them somehow as "sensitive types" with "real potential," in need of proper "channeling." Because they had such morbidly original insights, because they had such amazingly vivid, apocalyptic dreams and visions, had made real predictions (with prodigious accuracy) about bus drivers getting fired from their jobs, about cafeteria workers fainting on hot days, about fourth-graders falling (or jumping) from trees during hide-and-seek, about missing cats being found in obscure locations,  etc. etc. - or else they had felt so deeply about matters of spiritual import, more intensely, more ambitiously than your run-of-the-mill teenager, or because they needed, so desperately needed a higher calling, a cause, a meeting of like-minded souls with which to interact, for which purpose, R.J. was more than happy to "house" them and include them in the mix. How to unpack all these thoughts bouncing around in his head! Finally the mumbling became coherent as he literally clutched at the respective shirt sleeves of his two companions.  Have you ever noticed how when people talk about God and Religion that it always boils down to God shining a light on a small random corner of the universe that happens to revolve around them...as if to say that God's plan is mapped out for their benefit alone, that everything happens for a reason, that every iota of time is calibrated toward their own self-advancement... with their every response to each new situation it's as if you can see their guardian angel nodding in the background (yea or nay) And of course God agrees with them when they choose vanilla over chocolate chip or when they approve of this movie or that video... or that God is likewise repulsed by the sordid goings on of the people down the street...or that God leads them to pursue this and avoid that, to justify every misdeed with a wink and smile, God applauds as they hop safely from one wretched moral pose to the next...God sent a judgment upon those people sitting over there while they won a sordid little prize... Always the same unseemly rationales, the smug intonations, the appalling spiritual vanity and self-absorption of these would-be prophets.  Wow. Was this really the old soul talking, venting, carping against the same aimless vagabonds that he had helped to shelter and guide barely 9 months before? Even as he said these things, however, he couldn't help but consider the few remaining strands of worn counter-arguments that had kept him so faithful for so long. These zealous driven ones - were becoming so loopy, yes, so headstrong and arrogant - to the point of becoming walking parodies - but did they not share with him that moral outrage - that probity of conscience that seemed literally to be fading out of existence - and was there not something to be said for that weird puritanical streak of theirs that always inclined them to utter "No" and "Don't" and "You can't....you must not....Beware!" when others shrugged "why not?...if it floats your boat?" Because it was becoming impossible to live in a world where the sense of sacred prohibitions was disappearing - in the sense that no-one could publicly agree upon them; but on the other hand, was it possible to live in a world where fanatics and mentally unstable zealots spoke for God? Based on what she had just heard, Fiona, somewhat astonished, but also relieved, was nodding her head wildly in agreement. Wills threw up his hands and laughed out loud - as if to say, hey buddy, are you just now finding out? I can't believe it took you this long, Wills said. Never could figure out why you gave those wackos such a long leash....? - You don't understand.  R.J. had everything under control. I could never trump R.J.'s optimism with my own negativity. - Ah. R.J. that seductive spin-meister. The dreaded moment had arrived - it was time to declare himself officially "non-affiliated"-  once again set adrift, untethered, alone, disenfranchised from one of the few institutions in his brief life that had given him some measure of sustenance. There he sat, thankful for the moral support provided by these two peers - both skeptical compadres, one of whom served as part-time provocateur for the free-thinker's consortium, the other, a lively free spirit who caused the first stirrings of schism within the prophecy club. -Look. I get it. We've created this breeding ground with this supposedly innocuous prophecy club of ours...by attracting these unstable types, these miniature fanatics... making them think they have something special to offer by way of psychic powers or hidden revelations...It's very damaging really...I can't believe I've been part of it...  - We hear you, Quentin. We're with you on this... You've got a soft spot for eccentrics. We all do. But we're talking about an obnoxious strain of dimwits who are ruining it for all of us. We've had to bail as well... - You don't quite understand. I can't do what you've done.  I've got nowhere to go. I don't approve of what the other side is doing either. I'm caught in the middle... - You're doing the right thing just by expressing your discomfort. You should listen to those ridiculous "heavy thinkers" and their stupid propaganda. Don't believe everything you hear about the free-thinkers.  -After all - you're looking at one of them - said Wills. And I'm not so bad right?  -Make that two - said Fiona.  I mean on one level - I get it. I do. These poor wretched anonymous types - creeping through life in their drab grey smocks, grunting and screeching as they go - suffering terrible feelings of neglect and anonymity...but instead of channeling any of that anger and resentment in a positive way, they just have to conjure up some really nutty - completely implausible - actually impossible explanation by which they become the center of attention for the entire universe... - You need to get R.J. to listen. He is letting all this happen. He thinks he is doing these people a favor by providing them with a place to go, a group to belong to. - Oh please. I'm sick and tired of hearing about R.J. the humanitarian. R.J. - everyone's heroic elder brother.  Alas - it was true. R.J.'s eccentric maternal grandfather, who as a dean of English and comparative literature sometime in the remote past (perhaps the 1950s or 1960s) had, in the midst of some ongoing debate with a rival academician (perhaps a philosopher, perhaps an art historian), issued instructions for the founding of the prophecy club along with an endowment of 10 million dollars or some such outrageous/exorbitant  amount. As a result of this prior drama, R.J.'s one mission in life - a pre-condition for receiving and utilizing such cash - was thrust upon him by way of inheritance, namely, to keep his grandfather's pipe-dream afloat and ensure for its continued growth. It was not as if people knew of  R.J.'s wealth per se; some hint of money was evident just from his manner of speech and dress, his well-pressed shirts and occasional bow-ties, his wacky, motley, colorful socks, his continual name-dropping of people, places and hard-to-find commodities,  a sort of elan, a charisma of good breeding which seemed always to announce his entrance; more importantly the uniqueness of R.J.'s situation was epitomized by that strange, inimitable goofy cheerfulness and perpetual giggle that made light of any serious situation and posed such a foil to the old soul's gloomy gravitas....such that when the old soul tried to warn him of the danger, the instability, the irrational contagion lurking within, R.J.'s answer was always the same...relax, grasshopper, one must be subtle when dealing with acolytes  in need of guidance and structure...Allow them to think that they are in charge when really....And here R.J. would break out into his ridiculous laugh... At least they're on a mission. They have a definite purpose. Imagine what they'd be like if they didn't.