8431. THINGS ARE DIFFERENT NOW, #123

123. CRAZY ENGINE 

OF SELF

I read somewhere once that

the richer someone is, the

more they probably act like

an 18th century colonial. I

know what they meant,

whoever said it. It's all

summed up in the wacky

word 'privilege'. The

larger the lawn-spread

too, the fence, all that

gated crap, the more it's

all together like that.

Getting people all of a

sudden to not have

meaning  to you,

except to do your

bidding, all the while

you more and more

proclaim about your

own wide, unselfish

intent and positive value;

the expansiveness of 'good'

coming from you. I'll

believe that when I see

you change your own

oil. Something real

like that anyway. Not

just picking muffins.

-

Princeton just made me

want to be a bum or a loser

anyway, so it was all pretty

easy. There's no business

like NO business, so I was

set. And it wasn't just me;

the town was full of fakers.

You know, how many more

people would be out of work

or floundering with nothing

or little to do, if it wasn't

for the tech industry and all

that newer computer and

support and on-line stuff.

Ephemeral jobs to catch

ephemeral things. In order

to maintain that intellectual,

or mental level anyway  -  it's

not really 'intellectual'  -  there's

first a necessary clarity to life,

in the physical, acceptance-of

status-quo stuff that you need

to have first, in order to

acquiesce in all the junk of

tech stuff. I never had that.

And I was fine with that

(the not having  of it)  -

tracing myself back to an

older, far more traditional

lineage anyway of writers,

artists, and thinkers who

would have had no

connection with any

of that anyway. It's a

sticky situation with

this business anyhow in

a place like Princeton,

where you'd think the

high pedestals of thought

and tradition ruled. But

they really didn't. Most of

those kids  would have

rather pissed on Woodrow

Wilson than wanted to

know about him, or care,

 or see the scene of 'days

of old' as it were. That was

all gone. The place was a

mob scene not that much

different, in reality if not

essence, from Rider University,

or Rutgers  - two other places

for the common man up and

down the roads in either

direction. It's all been ruined,

and I blame technology now

for a lot of that. We've cut the

world in half  -  and let the

gentle, tradition and legacy

bound half, just off to drift

away while the highway for

phone and techno-idiocy

keeps getting new lanes

built.

-

I was never far from destruction

myself, and I knew that. In fact,

I remained quite mindful of it in

all my actions. I kept flubbing

things up. None of it ever seemed

to bother me, I guess because at

heart I didn't really care -   it was

always the others, the invested

others with concerns in the game,

who took offense or tried to sort

things out. I was so internally

anarchic that I couldn't render

a judgment, about anything

rational I mean. My internal

radar was just that, and always

on. It often screwed up external

things for me, and often for

everyone else too. At work, I

was getting screwed over royally

by some weird sisterhood thing.

I couldn't be a part of it, and

wouldn't  -  nor could I say

I understood why this was

being done to me. I stayed

outside of it...until, just until.

There came a point I just

couldn't take it any longer,

snapped a bit, got corrected

and scolded, and they

continued on. Crisis after

little crisis came to a head;

people left. No one spoke.

Finally  -  and this is, mind you,

in the placated middle of a

broad university town, the

'other' party to all this conflict

blew up, said something

outrageous, was fired, sued

the company, made up one

employment story while we

all had to sign affidavits for

the real employment story, or

'other' version of it anyway,

in litigation terms. The settled

eventually, the other party got

money. We were left holding

the same bag of shit we opened

with. Hey, you live and learn.

These are not my conflicts. I

did, once, just once, get a

verbal apology from

management for the way

I'd been mistreated, and that

was that. And then I, over

time, just slowly worked

my way out. No matter. I

could have still been there,

but it was dead-meat,

check-mate, frozen-in-place,

nobody even talking to each

other stuff. But you know

what, I'd do it again and I

 still love them all - you

know why? Because it's a

university town, and that's

what you do in a university

because nothing is real anyway.

-

I had a university and coffee

shop friend, a Hungarian guy,

Itzhak Pelzar or something

like that. We'd talk, sometimes,

in the early mornings, at length

about things. He was extremely

religious about his coffee. Seriously.

White, frazzly hair, a white beard,

sort of chubby, he'd order his

double espresso each morning, in

a small cup. He'd take it over to

the water, get a small, paper cup

of water, stare serenely and quite

meditatively out, totally still, in

thought (as I said, it was all very

religious, and I'd love watching it,

unerringly, each day's ritual was

the same). He'd slowly swish the

espresso cup and then take a sip,

drink it in, slow, eyes again closed,

moments passing  -  then he'd take

some water, I imagine to clear the

palate, and do it again, four or

five times, until all was done. And

that was it. We never, ever made

mention back and forth about this,

it was never referred to and he

never told me anything of what

was up. If he had Hungarian

Espresso Religion Syndrome,

or something, I never knew

about it. In the university scheme

of things he was big time, a dept.

head in Chemistry or the like.

Whether theoretical or real, I

never found out  -  it involved

many things, microbiology,

genetics, mathematics. One

Summer he had a staff for the

entire time, involved in some

long experiment that demanded

daily and nearly constant 

attention, to something. I was 

invited over to 'take a look' but  

-  you know, I never went. 

Amazingly, now, looking back.

One time he started going at 

me over an internal argument 

he and his people were having, 

or an argument then current 

in the theoretical-mathematics 

field, over whether 4 plus 5 

are the same, or yield the 

same results, as 5 plus 4.

Can you imagine! I had a

hard time with that  -  not 

because of the argument itself,

but more because I wanted it

for myself  - it seemed the 

perfect sort of crazy-assed 

stuff I'd go about proposing.

That crazy engine of self.