It’s around this time of the year that people around the world really begin to pay attention to my subjects: the many liquors, beers, and wines of the world. I see people raising the wrist all over town, and hear people hiccup to one another “T’is the Season!” – which warms both the cockles of my heart, and the heart of my cockles. It pleases me to know that I can in some way bring joy to people at the time of their year when they celebrate the birth of a 40th century jewish stone mason.
However, a certain story in the news which came to my attention recently has brought me some dismay – I don’t like to see my subjects besmirched in the media, after all. The story is -of course- the recent ’scandal’ surrounding Miss USA, Tara Conner. Miss Conner has been stomped from all sides by the media in the last week or so for doing no more than ‘drinking under age’ . . . something any well-rounded individual has done in their own past (easily forgotten when on the witch-hunt bandwagon). How under age was she exactly? About a week; Tara turned 21 (the abominably high legal age in most US states) this past MONDAY. She almost got dumped as Miss USA for drinking a week before her birthday.
I feel at this point it would be prudent to remind my readers that Eris is also the goddess of Bureaucracy.
My point, though, is not about her drinking under age. My point, rather, is directed at the last sentence in the most recent article I read about the incident: “Miss Conner will be entering rehab.” She will be WHAT? Entering REHAB? For drinking a WEEK before her LEGAL BIRTHDAY? What in the goddess’ name could be the point of this? Are there not hundreds, nay, THOUSANDS of people more legitimately needing rehab counseling than this poor woman? She should be drinking for krist’s sake! SHE’S 21! I don’t even remember the age of twenty-one.
This obsession with rehab has grown to monumental proportions. There are two things the people of North America love: someone entering rehab, and someone forced to apologize.
I need a drink.
Anonymous Hermit Day
Today is the day when all intelligent aspiring hermits remember the life of Paul of Latrus, and vow never to repeat his mistakes. Paul had always wanted to be a hermit, ever since he was knee-high to a pariah, and had been hording hermitty things in preparation for years: lanterns, furs, nuts and berries, pornographic etchings for those long winter solstice nights . . . not to mention dreaming up strange and glorious manifestations of his chosen deity’s awesome powers; truly an important part of a hermit’s repertoire.
He was more than ready for life in solitude when he finally waved goodbye to his family and friends and trudged up the mountain to the cave which would be his home, sanctuary, and bathroom for the rest of his life; but he hadn’t anticipated the biggest problem that every prospective hermit faces: fame.
Paul found it very difficult to rinse his socks out in the nearby River Hotsauce without hordes of curious onlookers watching his every move; he was unable to meditate while standing on his head -as was his wont- without fans asking “does it make your face hot?” or “can you hear China now?”; he wasn’t able to chant through the Trumps of the Tarot without people shouting out cards which didn’t exist (like ‘Halitosis’ and ‘Stubbed-Toe’) in a deluded attempt to help him out. In short, his new career as a hermit was already the pits.
Paul had an idea. He decided the best way to get rid of the crowd of gawkers was to frighten them away with his awesome connection to the Higher Beings, and promptly began to start vomiting blood everywhere and anywhere he went. True, he was dizzy, but he felt that he would finally have the solitude he had constantly craved.
Did it work for Paul of Latrus, I can almost hear you ask . . . of course it didn’t, did you read the opening sentence? His stardom, of course, rose to heights he had never dreamed of, and he was a constant attraction in his part of the land for the rest of his life, with an entire industry built up around him: selling candy apples, pony rides, face-painting, etc.
So, let this 30th of Chico be a lesson to all prospective hermits: if you are planning to walk off into the woods to become holy, KEEP IT TO YOURSELF, dammit!
He was more than ready for life in solitude when he finally waved goodbye to his family and friends and trudged up the mountain to the cave which would be his home, sanctuary, and bathroom for the rest of his life; but he hadn’t anticipated the biggest problem that every prospective hermit faces: fame.
Paul found it very difficult to rinse his socks out in the nearby River Hotsauce without hordes of curious onlookers watching his every move; he was unable to meditate while standing on his head -as was his wont- without fans asking “does it make your face hot?” or “can you hear China now?”; he wasn’t able to chant through the Trumps of the Tarot without people shouting out cards which didn’t exist (like ‘Halitosis’ and ‘Stubbed-Toe’) in a deluded attempt to help him out. In short, his new career as a hermit was already the pits.
Paul had an idea. He decided the best way to get rid of the crowd of gawkers was to frighten them away with his awesome connection to the Higher Beings, and promptly began to start vomiting blood everywhere and anywhere he went. True, he was dizzy, but he felt that he would finally have the solitude he had constantly craved.
Did it work for Paul of Latrus, I can almost hear you ask . . . of course it didn’t, did you read the opening sentence? His stardom, of course, rose to heights he had never dreamed of, and he was a constant attraction in his part of the land for the rest of his life, with an entire industry built up around him: selling candy apples, pony rides, face-painting, etc.
So, let this 30th of Chico be a lesson to all prospective hermits: if you are planning to walk off into the woods to become holy, KEEP IT TO YOURSELF, dammit!
The Eris Society
I stumbled across this group about a year ago, meant to look into them more, then completely forgot about it, as is my unfortunate wont. For some reason I stumbled across them again last week and decided to test the waters with them . . . they didn’t seem like the kind of group open to just anyone but I was interested to see. I suspected they couldn’t be as insufferable as the GD, but who knows?
I filled out the online application form, and was quite pleased that I was able to list “The creation of the Nation of Quebec” as one, feeling certain this would gain me access to the group. Just to be safe, I made sure to include my desire to give a speech outlining the esoteric aspects of the Carry On film series – knowing that it would cinch the deal . . .
Well, it’s been over a week and I still haven’t heard back from the Eris Society . . . I guess my initial reaction must be right, I guess they are just fat, spoiled, middle-aged hippies who feel guilty that they sold out so early and are now desperately attempting to cling to the last faded vestiges of their youthful anarchism.
I hope they read up on Eris thoroughly, though, before they decided to take her as their namesake – she has a way of dealing with people who pay only lip service.
I filled out the online application form, and was quite pleased that I was able to list “The creation of the Nation of Quebec” as one, feeling certain this would gain me access to the group. Just to be safe, I made sure to include my desire to give a speech outlining the esoteric aspects of the Carry On film series – knowing that it would cinch the deal . . .
Well, it’s been over a week and I still haven’t heard back from the Eris Society . . . I guess my initial reaction must be right, I guess they are just fat, spoiled, middle-aged hippies who feel guilty that they sold out so early and are now desperately attempting to cling to the last faded vestiges of their youthful anarchism.
I hope they read up on Eris thoroughly, though, before they decided to take her as their namesake – she has a way of dealing with people who pay only lip service.
A PSA from Wilhelm Reich:
Listen, Little Man: Your heritage is a burning diamond in your hand.
See yourself as you really are. Listen to what none of your leaders and representatives dares tell you: You are a “little, common man.” Understand the double meaning of these words: “little” and “common.”
You are afflicted with the emotional plague. You are sick, very sick, Little Man. It is not your fault. But it is your responsibility to rid yourself of this sickness.
You confuse the right to free speech and to criticism with irresponsible talk and poor jokes. He who has to protect the living against the emotional plague has to learn to use the right to free speech as we enjoy it in America at least as well for the good as the emotional plague misuses it for the bad. Granted equal right in the expression of opinion, the rational finally must win out.
What is important is not individual treatment but the prevention of mental disorders. You have locked up the crazy people, and the normal people manage this world. Who, then, is to blame for all the misery?
You have begun to play a governing role on this earth. It is on your thinking and your actions that the future of humanity depends. You give impotent people with evil intentions the power to represent you. Only too late do you realize that again and again you are being defrauded. You must come to realize that you make your little men your own oppressors, and that you made martyrs out of your truly great men.
You are different from the really great man in only one thing: The great man knows when and in what he is a little man. The little man does not know that he is little, and he is afraid of knowing it.
For you are afraid of life, Little Man, deadly afraid. You will murder it in the belief of doing it for the sake of “socialism,” or “the state,” or “national honor,” or “the glory of God.”
I recognized the deadly fear of the living in you, a fear which always makes you set out correctly and end wrongly. You had the happiness of humanity in your hands, and you have gambled it away. You had the world in your hands, and at the end you dropped your atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Through the centuries, you will shed blood where life should be protected, and will believe that you achieve freedom with the help of the hangman; thus you will find yourself again and again in the same morass.
I found what makes you a slave: YOU ARE YOUR OWN SLAVE-DRIVER. I have ceased to be willing to die for your freedom to be anybody’s slave. I tell you: Only you yourself can be your liberator!
You yourself create all your misery, hour after hour, day after day. You think the goal justifies the means. You are wrong: The goal is in the path on which you arrive at it. Every step of today is your life of tomorrow. You stand on your head and you believe yourself dancing into the realm of freedom.
You could have long since become the master of your existence, if only your thinking were in the direction of truth. You are cowardly in your thinking, Little Man, because real thinking is accompanied by bodily feelings, and you are afraid of your body. Many great men have told you: Go back to your origin – listen to your inner voice – follow your true feelings – cherish love.
The kindly individual believes that all people are kindly and act accordingly. The plague individual believes that all people lie, swindle, steal and crave power. Clearly, then, the living is at a disadvantage and in danger.
There is only one antidote to the germs of the emotional plague in the mass individual: his own feeling of living life. The living does not ask for power but for its proper role in human life. It is based on the three pillars of love, work and knowledge.
You beg for happiness in life, but security is more important to you, even if it costs you your spine or your life. Your life will be good and secure when aliveness will mean more to you than security; love more than money; your freedom more than party line or public opinion; when your thinking will be in harmony with your feelings; when the teachers of your children will be better paid than the politicians; when you will have more respect for the love between man and woman than for a marriage license.
You will no longer believe that you “don’t count.” You will know and advocate your knowledge that you are the bearer of human society. Don’t run away. Don’t be afraid. It is not so terrible to be the responsible bearer of human society. Inflated leaders would have no soldiers and no arms if you clearly knew, and stood up for your knowledge, that a field has to yield wheat and a factory furniture or shoes, and not arms. All you have to do is to continue what you have always done and always want to do: to do your work, to let your children grow up happily, to love your mate.
You are GREAT, Little Man, when you are not small and petty. You are great when you carry on your trade lovingly, when you enjoy carving and building and painting and decorating and sowing, when you enjoy the blue sky and the deer and the dew and music and dancing, your growing children and the beautiful body of your woman or your man, when you learn to understand and think about life. You are great when you hold your grandchildren on your knees and tell them about times long past, when you look into an uncertain future with their trusting childlike curiosity, when you lull your newborn to sleep, when you sing the good old folk songs.
Follow the voice of your heart, even if it leads you off the path of timid souls. Do not become hard and embittered, even if life tortures you at times. There is only one thing that counts:
to live one’s life well and happily.
excerpt from “Listen, Little Man” by Wilhelm Reich, 5948 YD
See yourself as you really are. Listen to what none of your leaders and representatives dares tell you: You are a “little, common man.” Understand the double meaning of these words: “little” and “common.”
You are afflicted with the emotional plague. You are sick, very sick, Little Man. It is not your fault. But it is your responsibility to rid yourself of this sickness.
You confuse the right to free speech and to criticism with irresponsible talk and poor jokes. He who has to protect the living against the emotional plague has to learn to use the right to free speech as we enjoy it in America at least as well for the good as the emotional plague misuses it for the bad. Granted equal right in the expression of opinion, the rational finally must win out.
What is important is not individual treatment but the prevention of mental disorders. You have locked up the crazy people, and the normal people manage this world. Who, then, is to blame for all the misery?
You have begun to play a governing role on this earth. It is on your thinking and your actions that the future of humanity depends. You give impotent people with evil intentions the power to represent you. Only too late do you realize that again and again you are being defrauded. You must come to realize that you make your little men your own oppressors, and that you made martyrs out of your truly great men.
You are different from the really great man in only one thing: The great man knows when and in what he is a little man. The little man does not know that he is little, and he is afraid of knowing it.
For you are afraid of life, Little Man, deadly afraid. You will murder it in the belief of doing it for the sake of “socialism,” or “the state,” or “national honor,” or “the glory of God.”
I recognized the deadly fear of the living in you, a fear which always makes you set out correctly and end wrongly. You had the happiness of humanity in your hands, and you have gambled it away. You had the world in your hands, and at the end you dropped your atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Through the centuries, you will shed blood where life should be protected, and will believe that you achieve freedom with the help of the hangman; thus you will find yourself again and again in the same morass.
I found what makes you a slave: YOU ARE YOUR OWN SLAVE-DRIVER. I have ceased to be willing to die for your freedom to be anybody’s slave. I tell you: Only you yourself can be your liberator!
You yourself create all your misery, hour after hour, day after day. You think the goal justifies the means. You are wrong: The goal is in the path on which you arrive at it. Every step of today is your life of tomorrow. You stand on your head and you believe yourself dancing into the realm of freedom.
You could have long since become the master of your existence, if only your thinking were in the direction of truth. You are cowardly in your thinking, Little Man, because real thinking is accompanied by bodily feelings, and you are afraid of your body. Many great men have told you: Go back to your origin – listen to your inner voice – follow your true feelings – cherish love.
The kindly individual believes that all people are kindly and act accordingly. The plague individual believes that all people lie, swindle, steal and crave power. Clearly, then, the living is at a disadvantage and in danger.
There is only one antidote to the germs of the emotional plague in the mass individual: his own feeling of living life. The living does not ask for power but for its proper role in human life. It is based on the three pillars of love, work and knowledge.
You beg for happiness in life, but security is more important to you, even if it costs you your spine or your life. Your life will be good and secure when aliveness will mean more to you than security; love more than money; your freedom more than party line or public opinion; when your thinking will be in harmony with your feelings; when the teachers of your children will be better paid than the politicians; when you will have more respect for the love between man and woman than for a marriage license.
You will no longer believe that you “don’t count.” You will know and advocate your knowledge that you are the bearer of human society. Don’t run away. Don’t be afraid. It is not so terrible to be the responsible bearer of human society. Inflated leaders would have no soldiers and no arms if you clearly knew, and stood up for your knowledge, that a field has to yield wheat and a factory furniture or shoes, and not arms. All you have to do is to continue what you have always done and always want to do: to do your work, to let your children grow up happily, to love your mate.
You are GREAT, Little Man, when you are not small and petty. You are great when you carry on your trade lovingly, when you enjoy carving and building and painting and decorating and sowing, when you enjoy the blue sky and the deer and the dew and music and dancing, your growing children and the beautiful body of your woman or your man, when you learn to understand and think about life. You are great when you hold your grandchildren on your knees and tell them about times long past, when you look into an uncertain future with their trusting childlike curiosity, when you lull your newborn to sleep, when you sing the good old folk songs.
Follow the voice of your heart, even if it leads you off the path of timid souls. Do not become hard and embittered, even if life tortures you at times. There is only one thing that counts:
to live one’s life well and happily.
excerpt from “Listen, Little Man” by Wilhelm Reich, 5948 YD
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