Don't be fooled. It's simple advice but hard to heed and even harder to heel if you're already heeding. The Maps--the most trusted form of pure information--are lying. I look at them in their swatches of red and blue states, and come upon a stretch of land widely considered to be the Bible Belt.
According to the map, the Bible Belt ranges from the Southern States past the Mississippi and into the outlying regions of the Southwest. The Belt ain't a bad place. It's filled with good, god fearing people, but something is amiss when those people are everywhere. I can't step out of my little locked in closet without stepping on a Protestant.
They're the ones who got in my way but they've got some guff. Looking up with beady soulless eyes they dare to ask "Why did you do that? What were you thinking?" It's laughable but they expect an honest answer.
I shoot straight with these folks every time I come into contact with them, an event occurring with near harrowing frequency. "Hey. The soul got a little big and needed to shake itself out. I'm sure you understand."
They don't. Emotion is a threat to them. Any feeling aside from the cautious angst stemming from the fact that something might change is unwelcome in the parameters of their brain. Do something to affront them and they'll rise up but not towards you. The little squeamish folk whisper to each other in hushed voices: "I can't believe they did that.", "He needs to grow up" or their favorite "that's really unprofessional." They've got one standard and have to stick to it.
These people want to fill my veins with drugs until I walk in line and order potted plants in the window sill. I've been running from that, the group think, the idea that anything downright ANYTHING can trap me in its consequences. I've come to conclude that it can't but that doesn't stop the little folks from trying to make you a little bit more like them.
The scary thing about the new breed of Protestants is that they don't even need to be Protestants. They could be anyone. They might be your buddy, someone to share beers with, even a hippie. You could even think of them as good people, lord knows I've fallen there before. At the slightest sign of duress they burrow out of their holes and try to bury you in their ways., Sniveling noses snort in disgust at the vestige of the human spirit. You try to run but they cling to you with their grubby little hands and cool hard reasoning.
"Things aren't how they should be!"
But it's how they are. Deal with it. Move on. Get down. Sing and make a Vodka Melon.
I've always been afraid of this Earth. The moment you break free, something tries to pull you back from whence you came. Kesey saw it. He called it the combine. I see it, I fear it, I fight it. I call it the Protestants. I call it the General Malaise. It's gonna come and suck your thoughts out if you aren't careful. Ever found yourself caring so much about drywall? Well get ready to. They'll harp until you care like they care. "Your heart should be blackened" is what they'll say. Then they'll comb your hair, fix you a jelly sandwich, and make you afraid of something else.
I don't know what's going on. This isn't the desert.
In the desert, everything makes sense. Looking around, evolution is palpable. In a place filled with death some found a way to make it work. They rose from nothing and made it their own. The structure and order of everything can be understood in a vision. The beauty and the death are there together, reminding that both are not so far from reach. The desert reminds one of how easy it is to attain the impossible. Just like we can do. Just like we don't.
Here? Nothing is up and nothing is down. A friend lies catatonic on the bed. Another screams. Another cries. There aren't much happiness around and little is being done to find any. Breaking free would be so easy if not for them, the small harrowing voices.
"Stop" they whisper.
Stop you do.
And so on and so forth until the day you decide to Go Go Go Crazy.
A new morning beckons. I think I'll have eggs.
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