PRIMAL
November 10, 2009
Lately, I find that I am increasingly sensitive to the realities of my deepest inclinations, and I am seeing something that I am frankly amazed that I have not seen before. I believe I have always been this way. It's not like it's something new. The only thing new about it is my awareness of it.
What I am referring to is my utterly primal character. It has very recently occurred to me that I am most definitely not a cultured (or very well socialized) person, in spite of the fact that I am widely read. I have owned a set of The Great Books for many years. I also have a college degree and even some graduate study under my belt.
But none of that seems to matter. I have not been affected by all of my readings and studies. They have, so to speak, rolled off of me like the proverbial water off the duck's back. I am yet the primal being that I have always been. But, I repeat, I have only recently realized this.
The realization came while I was reading Harold Bloom's The Western Canon, whose subtitle is The Books and School of the Ages. I was delving into the second chapter, "The Strangeness of Dante: Ulysses and Beatrice" and was naturally prompted to grab my copy of The Divine Comedy and have a go at it.
It was not of course my first excursion into this book and I recalled my previous attempts to "have a go at it", which were the same as this one: short-lived. This prompted me to begin thinking about it a little more deeply.
Now when I say "thinking about it" the "it" that I am referring to is the outdated art of poetic expression. The Divine Comedy (in case you've never tasted it) is a poem, a long poem, and if you're not used to reading this sort of stuff (and most likely you are not used to it, being the product of the 20th and 21st centuries, which have conditioned all of us to accept, almost willy nilly, the lately-christened malady so happily known as Attention Deficit Disorder), then you very likely do not have the patience for it.
I started reading it and as quickly as you can bat an eye I started talking to Dante as if he were still alive (and right there with me), saying stuff like, "Dude, why the fuck do you talk like that? Why can't you just get the shit out of your mouth and say what the fuck you mean?"
I started also to transpose his poetry into sensible modern English, to turn it into prose in other words. It was when I did this that I began to see the utter affectation inherent in poetry, at least this poetry. Now don't get me wrong. I like poetry, at least some of it. Hell, I even write it myself. Although, to be sure, there are many critics who would (I have no doubt) wholeheartedly dispute that what I write is poetry. (They would probably call it drivel.)
But, be that as it may, I offer no apologies for my outburst at Dante. I still wonder why all those dudes who wrote in that style could not get the shit out of their mouths and say what the fuck they meant. But it was another day and time, so I guess you just had to be there.
I think it was the use of the word "affectation" that really got me to thinking about my own headset and primal nature. I naturally compared myself to Dante (and others of his ilk), because I most definitely do not consider myself to be an affected person. (If you have been keeping up with my website, you know that I am very direct. I shoot straight from the hip. In fact, I'm sure that there are some who visit this site who wish that I was not so eager to so unabashedly vomit from the depths of my soul.)
The fact that I am so direct is a sure indication, if nothing else, that I am not as socialized as many would prefer. It seems there exists a sort of fine print in the unwritten socialization manual that stipulates that you exercise an element of subtlety when it comes to expressing your opinions, to which I say, "Fuck that." If you think it, say it. Why the fuck not? The only reason that I can think of to not "say it" is if you were seeking some sort of advantage and the utterance would work to your disadvantage. In other words, there are times (in society) when it pays to lie. To that I have the same response: fuck that.
There is no doubt an undercurrent of dishonesty running through the deepest strata of society, and I sometimes wonder whether society could exist without it. I do know that, as a primal man, I do not respect this seemingly necessary dishonesty. To be totally honest (unquestionably a primal quality), I'd like to be able to do whatever I want without any nod to subtlety or etiquette.
There is only one thing that inhibits my ability to act this way: Society (with a capital S). I am sure that that is the primary reason that I am so fond of saying "fuck society" whenever I feel reigned in by it.