by Rod Amis
YOUR DEVIL - Rod Amis's fourth post in the July Contagious Festival shares some dangerous visions.
FIDELITY, n.: A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed. - Ambrose Bierce
25 July 2006: I provide you with this particular definition from Bierce's antiquated Dictionary, Gentle Reader, because he was not up to the challenge of defining human relationships.
I am.
Let us begin.
In this last of my posts in this project, I might as get as dangerous as you have always expected you wanted me to be.
Yes, I am.
It was Ambrose Bierce, also known as "Bitter Bierce," who over a century ago set out to show the truth behind the words we casually use. He called his tome The Devil's Dictionary
In admiration of his work, I set myself the task in my youth of updating his "dictionary" to our modern era, in other words, the task of exposing hypocrisy as I saw it.
Join me here, Gentle Reader, as I attempt to provide the new definitions of the words that define our lives.
I, as you, wonder about the possessiveness of what we have called "Love." Let's face it; if you are a mature adult, you have heard various ways of looking at "Love."
For example:
There is the Eddie Murphy routine - when he was an up and comer, where he did a physical representation of coitus and said (knowing that many of us would accept it and laugh): "Whose p---sy is this now?"
And we laughed, didn't we?
The institution of marriage is based on the idea that one day, instead of having "casual sex" or " sowing wild oats" something else happened. The State and we ourselves have defined that as a form of possession.
Interestingly, to Yours Unruly, that sense of possession goes both ways. "You are My Man." "You are My Woman."
Is this primordial? Why don't you feel that same way with everyone with whom you conjoin?
I'm sure a psychologist or a sociologist would say that it is either psychological or sociological. A biologist would say, I'm sure; it has to do with genetics. Need I go on?
Maybe it's just that you want a baby with green or blue eyes. I could care less and those answers don't address the major questions of this last treatise of your least favorite curmudgeon.
I just want to delve into this ownership thang.
And I'll tell you why: I'VE FELT IT. (For fleeting moments, to be sure, before awakening from the illusion because I am still rational.)
In one instance, I, myself, fell into that cesspool of believing that I "owned" another person. Imagine the shock this was for a Black man! I almost imploded.
(Something had shifted between myself and that woman after the act, the penetration (physically and psychologically.) It was as if, as soon as the act of coitus occurred, I had let down some force field around myself. I was notice, later, that I no longer felt as if she was entering my personal space when she approached, the way I felt it with others. When I touched her, it was as though a current of energy was running through my body. You know what I mean.)
Luckily, after the after-sex cigarette, I realized what a totally SILLY idea had entered my head in the afterglow. My rationality was restored, thank the Goddess!
But some people maintain this delusion for their entire lives.
What am I to think about the future of our species when I consider that fact?
Why can't we deal with sex in a rational manner?
Dogs and cats don't feel that they "own" each other. Why do we? (In case you were wondering, yes, Wingnut, that was a baited hook.
You are dealing with a satirist and have likely not read Desmond Morris's dubious but informative treatises. You are under the equally dubious opinion that humans are somehow "higher" than the rest of the mammals. I guess you're missing all the wars concurrent or just have your head in a lower orifice.)
Moreso, what is this ownership all about and how far does it go?
Having a lifelong relationship is one thing but claiming that another person is a possession militates against everything I personally believe about a civilized life.
Why are we so afraid? Let me repeat that: Why are we so afraid?
Is our loneliness so extreme, your Devil's Advocate now asks, that we must pull another person so close to us that they are a de facto prisoner? (I warned you that you would find evil thoughts here!
And, yes, I know I'm that scary man that your parents told you you should NEVER listen to but WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO THINK FOR YOURSELF?)
If you stop to think, for just an instant - walk away from the television infusion of sound and fury, take off the headphones to your iPod, walk the Earth and look at birds and trees - get away from the NOISE and listen to the silence that is so beautiful, you begin to wonder about our basic definitions of the words that shape our reality.
I suppose the worst part of what I am saying here is that we all want (or wanted, dependent on your age, Gentle Reader) to believe that - after our period of effervescent immortality - we would have children who - after their period of hormonal rebellion - would always love us and care for us in our old age.
We would die surrounded by love and a sense that something had been passed on.
But that, as I've posited, is an illusion.
Yes, a few people die in the bosoms of their families but - frankly - the world is crowded and the majority of old people die alone. If you live in an industrialized country you might just see a nurse in an elderly home on your wa y out, if you are lucky.
Otherwise, Pilgrim, you'll just be facing the sky or the dirt. Unless you live Lebanon as I write this.
You will go to your casket alone.
Our excuse for a civilization will reap the seeds it has sown.
I know I rushed you through that. I gave you a classic rant.
BUT remember, I am competing with cartoons here. It was time for me to try a different approach if I meant to get noticed at all. The "drunk" jokes worked, from what I've seen.
In his seminal (and satirical) novel, Grendel, the American novelist John Gardner posited that we - all sentients - throw reality out in front of ourselves in the form of words. He implied that we step into a future based on our own interpretation of what those words mean and thus create our fates.
Please read that last paragraph again - slowly. After doing so you might understand the intent of this project.
I started this last essay being facetious. Now, Baby - as we would say in New Orleans, where I once lived - lemme take you home.
You are stepping into the words that shape your future.
The way your define your future is based on whether you take contrarian definitions, as I have provided you here, or definitions from other sources - television, newspaper, your boss, your lover.
So let me give you one last "Devil's" definition to bring you into my space:
Humanity, n: 1. The ability to recognize that our senses all look outward rather than inward; inward is only personal, outward requires that capacity for empathy and sympathy.
2. The dying art of recognizing the limitations of human consciousness.
Get it? Like Bierce, I am not bitter because I am a misanthrope; I am bitter because I am an idealist.
See you in Mexico.
I again must wish you:
Good night and good luck.
G21: The World's Magazine
Introduction to The Devil's Dictionary: Thinking Evil
Second Post to The Devil's Dictionary: Showing the Love
Third Post to The Devil's Dictionary: Devil's Night Out
Final Post to The Devil's Dictionary: Devil's Advocate
Rod's First Project at the Huffington Post
Rod's Second Project at the Huffington Post
© 2006, Rod Amis.
E-mail your comments to rod@g21.net.
