What Would JC Do?
In the video about Being Tired that I linked the other day, the narrator invented an illustrative character called Johnny Caveman to describe the differences between how we live today and how we lived (throughout 95% of our time as Humanity) as hunter-gatherers.
As a shorthand for one of my core beliefs about primal anarchy, then, I have started to ask myself: What would Johnny Caveman do?
Faced with stark current realities, would Johnny Caveman Get A Job? Probably not.
Faced with modern pressures, would Johnny Caveman take any kind of supplements at all? I doubt it.
But would Johnny Caveman, dumped off in some big city downtown, go insane?
Very possibly. I mean … give me one good reason why he shouldn’t go batshit.
I know that I have felt increasingly less sane, whenever I have lately been forced to be around big crowds of people, even in a nice place like Pike’s Market in Seattle–and being exposed to crowding is only one small facet of the horrors of modernity.
Based on those kinds of experiences and reflections, I think I’m going to make the rational choice to allow myself the luxury of going mad, if and when I need to do so.
I’m going to stand there laughing hysterically and foam at the mouth if that feels like an appropriate response in any given moment to life in this hellscape we call Civilized.
I’m going to soberly and rationally choose to believe that our rulers are secretly lizard people, if that explanation makes more sense than any other–whether or not that much-mocked Lizard Conspiracy is literally true or not. The same with 9-11, what the hell. The same for UFOs and all those assassinations.
Now it’s not the only reason I’m making this choice, but I can see how it might have some advantages for our deal.
Specifically, if I’ve chosen the path of mental illness, then you can’t very well be pissed off every time I open my mouth and say yet another thing you think is outrageous, stupid, or whack.
Because of course it is–it’s nuts because I’m nuts. I’ve studied the way you’ve reacted before, to non-violent head cases like I plan to become, if and when situationally necessary.
You’re not miffed and cold-shouldered.
On the contrary. You’re supportive and sympathetic, maybe even to a fault at times, and I completely related to it too, almost as if I still had a heart and brain that weren’t so sick.
I think that might feel good for me. Better. Which sounds narcissistic, perhaps even a little sociopathic, manipulative … All kinds of Crazy like that, yeah? Perfectly legit.
I can just add those things to my diagnosis, and be grateful for the careful caring insights.
I know that you love me and want all the best for me, and especially for me to get Well Again so I can finally have a happy, and productive, and … adjusted Life.
Now I have to warn you; it could be a real long hard road, for me to get that Well.
I might have to take a few cats to the river and drown them, so I can once more be Normal.
I might need to say yes to orthodontia and therapy and getting my vaccines updated and regular haircuts and commercial flight and staying in resorts and getting back up on Zuckerberg’s platform, from my shiny iPhone and not some retarded retro Linux desktop for fuckssake. I might have to … take your guns away gosh an’ shut up with the mis the dis the ick information already, might hafta wear a mask when they tell me to–not wear a mask when they say masks are now the threat to Security okay yeah okay got it got it
I might have to register as a Democrat again, or at least become a respectable Lincoln Log Republican like that admirably successful businessman Dick Cheney, or his cute reformed little painter friend. I might have to start shrugging dismissively when the subject of genocide comes up, and learn to argue that what looks a lot like ethnic cleansing and mass slaughter is really, in Reality, only good old-fashioned godly self-defense.
Figure out what my pronouns are … Put a blue and yellow flag in my bio–or wait, is that still a thing? I’m so far far out of the loop … loopy … Anyway, a Science placard out in the yard, you know, “in this household we believe these lives matter”, however it goes, whatever. Grow deep in my faith that China capitalists are so much worse than the ones we grew here in the Home of the Brave, and fuck that Putin, to death I tell you!
They had all been warned.
I might have to stop believing that I’m some kind of sage, or artist, or misunderstood genius, or Johnny Caveman, Anachronistic Superhero. I might have to Get Real.
I’m sure it’ll all be worth it though. I Heed The Call.
So very
very sure
it will, i mean …
it must
i mean noidea who ancient beardy guy on keyboards is but itsa warm m’heart that he was there,
1983,
representin
pour les grottes