This society hasn’t changed one bit. People who don’t fit into the village are expelled: men who don’t hunt, women who don’t give birth to children. For all we talk about modern society and individualism, anyone who doesn’t try to fit in can expect to be meddled with, coerced, and ultimately banished from the village.
This topic has been the subject of conversation throughout my life with multiple posses of friends.
Bender and I went over time and again the idea of his that there are two types. Yes, I know it seems a bit black and white given my love for the grey and the muddled, but given the subject matter, the memories came to the surface and float there still, and besides, it’s certainly not a poor concept.
Bender and I went over time and again the idea of his that there are two types. There are those that stay. There are those that leave. The former remain to keep the traditions and some might say rituals of the village alive. They perpetuate its legacy. The latter are the banished. Well, according to our original conversations, not exactly the banished, but the ones who choose to leave (or are self-banished), though in the context of the quote above, I’d say the choice is heavily influenced by the cognitive dissonance involved in living and / or growing up in said village. The latter may choose to leave, but their choice is in line with their “rejection” by the former of the two types.
One important point here is that those of the latter type - the banished by their own freewill - are not all of the same mind or, shall we scribe, type. Their only commonality is that they do not wear a skin that suits the village. This by no means indicates that these banished are able to relate psychologically amongst themselves.
Most recently, Christian and I have touched on the subject time and again. And it is clear to me that I am one of those black aardvarks who is indeed, in the end, banished from the so-called village.
Well, one must just go out and start one’s own village, then, eh?
When the topic emerges from the morass of conversation, I’m always struck by the fact that I am much more interested in those that are on the verge of or have already been banished from the village. The ones who are out. These are the people I relate to. Or at least I relate to their context. As mentioned above, I may not be able to relate to all of them or even the majority of them personally or ideologically. They are, in a sense, my “extended family”. They are the ones who either couldn’t stand to or couldn’t be bothered to conform enough to fit the role or wear the skin.
Biologically, some would say, and you know who I’m talking about, when those who are out are tossed from the community, only the void awaits, but I am in disagreement. Sociology be damned. Sociology is a kick the pregnant woman in the belly sort of pursuit, in any case. Those busy with riding on the raft that drifts in a straight line down the only river said to be correct by the sociologists are seeing a narrow slice of reality. The jungle springs up on each side of said river and within it seethes creativity - a deviant procession of fractured routines. We, the out, even at times watch as the raft wafts along. And, of course, there are hangers on. Those who tread beside the raft as quickly or as slowly as it goes and keep track of its goings on no matter that they are out. They are the fools of the out. Traipsing through the jungle at our own rhythms, polyrhythms, ever external from that miniscule capsule of so-called “order”, we live on the love to create.
How long is it possible to subsist with no “support village”? I’d say eternally, but most would disagree. I may even disagree with myself at times, and especially during the days after a binge has left me weak of body and of mind. When depression sets in like any illness, the brain behind the forebrain pines for the village. It yearns for support - a structure to uphold it. The solution is to never put oneself in the situation where depression (weakness) reigns. As there are more situations in life than extended hangovers that weaken one’s spirit, the solution is to move to Greenland. It’s obvious.
So what can uphold someone other than the village? The solution that I see, besides or possibly including moving to Greenland, is the richness of an inner life that resembles a village. It’s a virtual world within one’s mind. One lives in it, eventually, more completely than in the so-called “real” world. It becomes one’s village. It becomes the village (or, more specifically, collection of villages) in which those traipsing through the jungle live instead of creating their own sort of “raft” to let float on some offhand tributary but not along the main stream. “Mainstream”. Queue the song by Kansas.
Keiko in Convenience Store Woman found a trickling tributary to build her own raft on. It was a microcosm that was the Convenience Store. She could relate to no other environment. She spoke constantly during the book about how her family and friends wanted to cure her. This simply meant that they wanted her to reboard the “raft” that floated down the widest river. Unbeknownst to them, however, and even to her until the end of the novel, she had already found a smaller stream that suited her just fine.
As long as you wear the skin of what’s considered an ordinary person and follow the manual, you won’t be driven out of the village or treated as a burden.
The personaje Shihara is the voice of the out in the novel. He even reflects it in his “appearance”. He is unwashed, voices his thoughts directly without any “filter” and obeys none of the unwritten cultural rules. So he’s basically me. Interesting that he is the “author” of the above quote, but he follows none of its “advice”. He wears only his true skin. He won’t lower (in his eyes) himself to wear the skin of the masses and therefore be accepted, or at least tolerated. His outcome is to find a place to hide from society. He wants nothing to do with it. He doesn’t want anyone to bother him or even communicate with him. So he’s me, or at least me when I’m on a boat in the middle of the Pacific with nobody but the “cat”.
I have severe psychological issues when I feel I have to wear a “skin” to fit into any given situation. I know it is uncommon and one of the major reasons that I am out. I discuss it with Christian often. I also discussed it with Jeremy when last I visited him and perhaps also the time before. If you pluck any arbitrary human from the seething masses, or at least mark him, you’ll observe that depending on the environment he is in, he quickly covers himself with a “skin”. His gesticulations, articulations and diction changes subtly and sometimes not so subtly depending on with whom he is. The portion that strikes me as rancid is that it is a plea for acceptance. It is a form of begging. For without said skin, he would be regarded as someone who does not belong. He’d be rejected, detained, jailed or even murdered, depending on context.
Is the need for acceptance a survival instinct?
It most likely grew from survival. Humans originally had to belong to groups to “make it” in the so-called savage world. Some (including Shihara) say that we haven’t changed much in the intervening years, decades, centuries, millennia. I disagree. The simple fact that one can become a hermit and get along fine “in the world” denies the deniers. The ache to be alone can be fulfilled. It has been able to be fulfilled for centuries now.
Memetic inheritance may push against the wish to be alone. It may scream at us from our so-called primal brain, chastising even the thought of ceding from society. I’ve certainly learned to ignore this so-called primal brain. I suggest you do, as well.
You eliminate the parts of your life that others find strange - maybe that’s what everyone means when they say they want to “cure” me.
Being in West Texas, I can’t help think from time to time about growing up, though not in Seminole, but in a similar place - the fetid dump that was (and surely still is) Fort Stockton. Why was it a fetid dump? The smell? The stench? Well, the metaphorical stench was very difficult to abide. The strangeness that I inhabited in my natural skin opposed the idea of elimination of the stench by wearing a new skin, albeit a false one. It would have been a skin that would not just have camouflaged me but would have created of me a new being altogether.
Being that it was High School, I naturally got the curious stares and even the “why are you so weird?” from the token “popular girls” that I shared some classes (notably Journalism) with. They didn’t know it at the time, but they wanted to cure me. Or perhaps they did know it on some level that wasn’t only unconscious. In their universe, the day-to-day was all about fitting in. It was all about conforming. It was all about manicuring the skin that allowed one to flow fluidly with the masses. The masses here meaning the hip crowd, for lack of a better phrase.
So what could I have eliminated during that portion of my life to become something more fluid with the mainstream? An obvious one would have been to stop listening to weird music. Stack all my Pink Floyd, Blue Öyster Cult, Nektar, Jethro Tull and Klaatu records in a heap in the back yard and start a bonfire. I could have invited Sharon Weber over. She would have embraced me and yawped for joy at my new persona. Or at least she would have died of smoke inhalation. I hear that burning vinyl exudes toxins. Fuck um. And, hey, from where I sit now, Pink Floyd, Blue Öyster Cult, Nektar, Jethro Tull and Klaatu really aren’t all that weird. It’s all about context, vole.
I would have eliminated my apathy towards fashion. I’d’ve gotten me some trendy threads. I’d’ve eliminated my desire to read long form Science Fiction and fantasy and taking joy in solving mathematics equations. I’d’ve eliminated my apathy towards sports and joined the polo club. I’d’ve been number one, vole. Number lippin’ one.
Numerous other items‘d come to mind were I to sit here and muse. And I’d’ve been cured. My skin’d have been fluid. I’d mingled and melded. I’d’ve been whole.
Cured == whole.
Fuck um.
