When we are grown?
Staying with old friends, they have a son, 14. I drove him to school today. He drops into conversation, about physics and poems. Engaging and awkward then I thought, what commission of ephors came up with the idea that we grow out of 14? And what motivated that commission or culture? He is rational until he isn’t, but at this stage more rational than I. He is trying it out, probably what one should do with rationality since our objectivity will be at war with our subjectivity for at least 60 more years. There is no victory there. Imagining in our civilization that the objective, rational ever wins is just soooo subjective. Our subjective always irritates, demanding maidens when we claim we are celibate, clawing at us till we satisfy it/her/him/them. I am keen on adult hood but it is not abandoning youngness and love and extremity that brings it upon us, it’s about, to me, being big, bringing it all with us, carrying the whole load and letting it all go, once or twice. For respite and humility. We are not palaces, we are not temples, we walk in them but we are the bigger thing. The deeper song. We roll along.
There is no thing above but a tall tree. It’s a kick to climb for the view, maybe once, just enough so you give the whip hand to no-one, again. It is what we do, we invent our substitute. “Here you do it, you tell me, what to do, you teach me.” And you are took. Hooked.
So these boys and these girls are bursting and something is surely wrong that we say that they have no invention. When we smugly mock their alphabet generation designation which makes us lost ones feel superior. That are as all things as you were except you were not: jealousy is the root of your disdain. You played by the rules and invested in them and found the steady misery you should have known was coming. Hardly a qualification for getting it.
So it must be propaganda. I remember the inane question of ambition at fifteen. Ambition? What a waste of space in my heart that would have been. Aspiration? To what? I had it all already. What they really meant was attrition and accumulation. That needs no help. We are just naturally hoarders, just someday we oughta burn it all and start again. The boy, my friends son, will do that some day, for the first time, the burning of the trash, the flotsam, then he will be a man, that day, a woman, that day, the first of many burnings with memories of coal and it’s diamonds.
What proof had I at 14 of an enthusiasm that would reassure my mother and ancestors, an enthusiasm for their misery, a desire to follow, A Pledge. To do so. “Which Colleges are you applying to hon?” None. Why? I am not on a shelf, in a hurry to wait. I am here. Can you hear me breathing mom? Here listen. Ah. You don’t want to know.
What a presumption the patriarch makes! His lore is all undiscovered, it is studied and defended by younger men who will die for it for a while. The patriarch is not young or old, he is death with walking sticks. Lore and law and orthodox is fine but it is too, the ancient duty of the child to say no or why or show me, you chanter of chants. Let me see the light you say you saw. I don’t believe you enough to take your word. Assuming you can lead because of books you have read and the intensity of your claims and meeting a sullen or amused stare is perhaps what you’re mistaking for apathy.
It is the fusion that delights, if it is possible. Maybe. I have found my subjective needs feeding and fulfilling a lot. Clamoring for songs. My rational shows his peaceful face. When he sleeps.
It is neat and Greek that they have their rational who suffers with rage and is vain as Apollo, and Dionysus who is not vain, whose rage is not subjective, but reflexive, exploding on those who deny his existence, like we do. It is the foundation of our creed, believers or not, that Dionysus has a hold no longer. It is ridiculous, while he rampages everywhere that we cling to this and call him silly names like Satan, and cower. A civilization that cowers and kneels to the god of insurance. So yes, to be grown up is fusion and acceptance that we will be blinded often by ourselves. You cannot keep climbing the tree, Go once or twice and remember what you saw. You will dream it anyway so once is enough.
I had a look at life and the world in microscopic at Waffle House the other day, there is rarely a place where so much can be seen so quickly. “Race relations” are bad right now, as they should be, because they are. This is a place where rationality lies heavily, the healing must be irrational. Fear is a feeling after all. Anyway… I am a white fella with a beginning beard, an earring and a bomber jacket when I drive. I think it was North Carolina. Waffle House.
Bill Maher is an idiot to even admit he has never been to a Waffle House or a Cracker Barrel but is qualified to say only idiots eat there.
Anyway there I was at a shiny noon a hundred miles in front. Country ham, eggs over easy, Just yum. My waitress was a black woman and dismissive, it seemed and I thought well, we have earnt this haven’t we, at least, and she is really only copying the manner that she has had to endure, I am sure, for centuries. Before all the killing was on tv. Before she would know that I knew like we all do. Then something adjusted and changed. I don’t know why or how. Or who let something go. I was insistent, as I am, with my thank you for coffee and cream. Then there was a small joke, something opened. She lit up. It was fun and sexy. Again. Then a total meeting of the minds over strawberry jam.
That is why you go to Waffle House Bill. Take your massive frontal lobe in there and learn something your undeserved fame and fortune miss, every time.