EPISODE 345: FORGET IT, JAKE. IT'S GONDOR
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
Have you ever daydreamed about having a totally different life? I was waiting in line at the post office today, it was this little hole in the wall of a place in a strip mall about two minutes’ walk from the Pacific Ocean. The postal attendant was this older man with a scraggly but sort of winning white beard and a colored T-shirt underneath his very worn postal uniform. And I found myself thinking, this guy lives around here by the beach, he puts in his time at the post office and then immediately throws off the uniform, pulls on some swim trunks and enjoys a life just wandering along this beautiful stretch of beach. How about that for a life?
It’s sort of nice, humoring a daydream like that every now and then. It shows you stuff. Like what’s the appeal of being Steve my imaginary near-retirement postal worker? I think it’s the fact that he has stopped trying to save everything, to take a stand or make a difference or even just understand what’s going on. When you’re standing in front of the ocean, the attraction of concepts like “understanding” quickly fade. The ocean is like a gentle spouse, always willing to listen, but mostly trying to help you move beyond the worries and the can you believe they said thatand it’s time to take a standto a place where you can just be.
I freely admit there’s a bit of Odysseus and the Lotus Eaters in all of this, life lived in a pleasant fog. But it’s a daydream. It goes where it goes.
And you should never begrudge your daydreams; they’re like your soul trying to give you something. For instance, I think everything remains pretty overwhelming right now. (I’ve been so obsessed with the misadventures of Theresa May and the Brexit negotations; imagine what it’s like to live in Great Britain and not be able to do much of anything except watch your leaders so invested in political machinations and games they’re willing to tear your country apart.
Of course we just announced that Vietnamese who came during and in the aftermath of the Vietnam War are now eligible for deportation. It’s like we’ve instituted a new Bizarro World version of the draft where when number comes up the government gets to send your non-white European ethnic group away forever.)
And one response to all that is to try and find a way to step up to the plate and Get Involved. A good response. But it also seems like some of that stepping up to the plate can end up more reinforcing the system in place. Individual 1 -- a totally random fictional name that I have just made up -- shouts awful things on Twitter, therefore I shout back on Twitter things defending people or practices, and now we’re all shouting on Twitter and I just want a lozenge.
Maybe there’s something revolutionary in ignoring the fight at times. To focus on living and breathing rather than get drawn in. It’s a constant process of discernment, clearly. I just know, I was at a march on gun control a couple months ago, and it was mostly by the numbers talks and singing to demand change. And something in me wondered if this wouldn’t be more effective if instead of shouting and demanding and giving witness we just had a big party and let that speak to the world we believe in and want to live in.
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I know. Hey California, go eat your granola. And the fact is, Steve has terrible sciatica. He’s stuck in a little box by himself eight hours a day. His computer is crap, and he’s also probably just about too old to be able to figure it out any more. It’s not the life we hope for, either for ourselves or for our parents.
But can’t that be true, and also the idea that we have to work for the world we want to live in, and that it’s also okay to float along the surface and let go? They clearly contradict each other, but for some reason I think that might mean they’re all correct.
(Guys, just let me have my dreams of being a surf bum aging postman.)
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One of my favorite concepts from The Lord of the Rings is the closer you are to the Bad Place (aka Mordor), the more skewed your own vision of reality becomes. Face to face with darkness, the people of nearby Gondor become dark and bleak themselves – so dark their leader eventually sets himself and his son on fire.
As much as we know they’re awful and resist them, darkness and its children are also terribly magnetic. Gaze upon them very long and soon you’ll be inside them looking out. It’s like staring into the sun, except you never realize you have gone blind, you think you’re actually seeing more clearly than ever.
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It just struck me that one way of summarizing all this is I’m getting a little tired of my own capacity for hysteria and outrage. Ouch.
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Kieron Gillen, one of my comic book newsletter spirit guides, writing on the frequent comment to aspiring creators that if you want to be a writer, then just do it; the real problem isn’t the business, it’s that you aren’t jumping in:
The very idea that you're allowed to do something is not naturally there – it's something that the world around you informs you, and so if the world doesn't inform you, it's something that's denied to you. 'That is someone like you allowed to do it?' is there. The social pressures on individuals are likely to push you away from modes of expression. This only gets worse for more marginalised creators, when you see no-one like you in the form, in the credits, wherever. It simply isn't an option you could have considered. The privilege to imagine yourself in a place is also a privilege.
Those of us who have always felt we have had permission should feel sympathy for those who don't.
The most pernicious boundaries are ones which you just assume are there. You're in a field and you assume you're in a cage, just because everyone you see is acting like they're in one.
Sometimes you can run.
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Cardinal George Pell, the third most senior figure in the Catholic Church, was just convicted of child abuse. It’s more stunning, horrific, devastating news.
I wonder if it will make much difference in the character of the Catholic Church. The release of information of widespread abuse in 2002 put in place important child safety protections, but it didn’t change the general character of how we operate. It was just a few years later in fact that hierarchs in Rome and elsewhere decided to dismiss the Church’s own committee of liturgical experts and produce a new translation of the Mass that is at times very difficult to follow, not for pastoral reasons but just because they wanted the Mass to be more like the original Latin. Which is sort of like insisting everyone in your business dress and talk like characters from 80s movies because that’s what you grew up with.
Gondor, baby.
Within a month of the Pennsylvania announcements a friend of mine was dealing with an East coast diocesan figure demanding he rescind an invitation to a speaker on the grounds of something he had once said about homosexuality or women’s ordination or something. Making a call like that was within the figure’s rights, but the fact that’s the battle they thought it made sense to fight right now just seems so bizarre.
They’re gonna give Daddy the Denethor suite. You dig that? We’re going to Gondor, baby. GONDOR.
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Speaking of traveling, I have to get on a cross country flight in eight hours and have yet to pack. So I better go. Look after yourself. Take a walk. See a movie without pre-planning it. Be gentle. Souls need sunshine.
++ LINKS ++
The Thing You Wish Everyone Who Ever Hit Reply All Would Have to Read and then Rewrite on a Chalkboard 1000 Times.
Alexander Skarsgård Teaches you Swedish Slang, Just Like You Always Wanted.
When Jean-Luc Picard Sang “Let it Snow”. (NB: If you are patient I guarantee this video will make your day better.)
Parents, This is How to Stop Your Kids from Downloading New Apps without Thinking.
And What Bad Stand Up will Look Like in the Future.
Don’t you hate it when you pack the family into the VR room for some recreational virtual time travel, and the damn kids keep asking, “Are we then yet?”
I know it’s far more efficient for us all to share the same consciousness. But I still wish this were a joke I was telling you and not one you already knew.
The other day, I told my A.I. that I love shrimp tempura, and it said, “What’s that?” I said, “What’s shrimp tempura?” and it said, “No, what is love?”
See you next week.