the league
something disturbingly interesting happened to me a while ago. it didn't end up being much in the way of substantive, but it was sure compelling while it lasted. a month or so ago i was driving to the jules mae after work to have a beer and read my book for a while. i was driving south on airport way, musing idly about this tendency i have to look for patterns in the world that bend back around on me in a way inconsistent with the actual facts of my relation with the world as currently understood. think 'truman show'. think delusions--but putative as opposed to actual. i'll confess that it's a little embarrassing to admit this. so i'm driving down the road, thinking about this tendency in myself, and how the nature of the ostensible delusion was somewhere in the grey area between paranoia and of grandeur. meaning that it is never quite clear in my mind what the emotive force behind the possible it's-all-about-me/everyone's-looking-at-me might be, whether it might be malignant, reverent, or simply benign. this train of thought dovetailed nicely in with the swirl of mental illness references i've found myself surrounded by these past months, and i had occasion to thank my lucky stars that all of the above existed in my mind in the form of idle musings, rather than solid believings. i.e. glad that i was not, in fact, delusional. because just imagine what sorts of inconvenient behaviors would no doubt evince in myself if i actually believed these things. which, of course, led me down the mental path that mental illness is, conceptually, in large part, a function of one's functionality in social settings; that the internal contents of a person's mind are not nearly as important as the propriety of their behavior--or, rather, only become important when there is a significant breach of said propriety.
so there i am, at the bar by now, cold pbr next to my hat, my kindle propped tidily against its crown, and a facebook post coalesced in my mind. i'll need to paraphrase, since i don't remember it exactly: 'you know what's weird? having delusions of grandeur shading into paranoia that the rest of my mind is just larger enough than to keep my whole self in balance.' and then a quick comment to the effect that 'delusion' was probably too strong a word, that they were more along the lines of musings.* all of this thus far is perhaps mildly interesting, but is really pretty standard, as far as the inside of my mind is concerned. what made this day disturbingly interesting was a letter that was waiting for me in the mail that night. it said that it was from 'the league'. it said that they'd been watching me. it said that they were a collection of the best and brightest, the cream, the richest and most powerful, and that they wanted me, specifically, to join their ranks. i can see the skeptical raised eyebrows now, the derisive snorts of cynicism. but just imagine receiving a letter like this the very day i had not only had the series of thoughts above, but posted publicly about them. is not this--as it turned out to be, i now believe--scam almost magically positioned to affect me, at that moment in time? it was downright uncanny, and i'll confess to indulging in wild flights of fancy in the ensuing days. suspend your disbelief for a moment and just think, what if? what if it were true? it said over and over again that they didn't want my money, weren't trying to sell me anything, i just had to fax in a confirmation that i accepted the nomination into 'the league' and they would send me something, absolutely free, that would change my life forever.
it was heady stuff. at least, primed as i was at that point, it was heady stuff. you can imagine my chagrin (though not surprise, not really) when the next thing i received asked for a hundred and forty bucks for the next amazing thing they wanted to send me, and the amazing thing they'd sent me was a little pamphlet of improbable first-hand accounts from other members of the league, which, and here i must humbly apologize if it turns out that it is all real and i'm offending the cream of the cream here, were terribly insipid and pedestrian and geared to appeal sycophantically to the absolute lowest common denominator of sanguine entitlement and refusal to take any responsibility for one's own success or failure. ("i realized to myself, of course all those successful people must have had some magical secret. there was nothing special about them.") eesh.
and then there was the secret name of the league, which was never revealed to me, but that was said to be a latin word that meant 'magisterial', 'powerful', authoritative', 'lordly'. i did a little research and the word that fit best was 'imperiosus', the source, no doubt, of 'imperious', which is hardly a flattering or inviting word. some of the definitions they left out are 'arbitrary', 'domineering', and 'tyrannical'. yeah no.
and here i must confess**, in closing, to being ever so slightly nervous about not only spilling all these details that were spelled out as being TOP SECRET in the original letter, particularly in such an ungenerous and downright insulting manner as i have done, and even more particularly when the organization at issue calls itself domineering and tyrannical. so, just to hedge my bets, if they really are out there they will no doubt read this soon enough, so: sorry. don't worry, nobody reads this journal anyways. i will happily avail myself of magical secrets and/or effortless enrichment. please don't hurt me.
______________________
*interesting side-note, my friend greg commented 'large brains have dark corners', which i thought was both pleasantly flattering and perspicuous, as well as a touch poetic.
**i think that makes three confessions now, i'm positively catholic this morning.
so there i am, at the bar by now, cold pbr next to my hat, my kindle propped tidily against its crown, and a facebook post coalesced in my mind. i'll need to paraphrase, since i don't remember it exactly: 'you know what's weird? having delusions of grandeur shading into paranoia that the rest of my mind is just larger enough than to keep my whole self in balance.' and then a quick comment to the effect that 'delusion' was probably too strong a word, that they were more along the lines of musings.* all of this thus far is perhaps mildly interesting, but is really pretty standard, as far as the inside of my mind is concerned. what made this day disturbingly interesting was a letter that was waiting for me in the mail that night. it said that it was from 'the league'. it said that they'd been watching me. it said that they were a collection of the best and brightest, the cream, the richest and most powerful, and that they wanted me, specifically, to join their ranks. i can see the skeptical raised eyebrows now, the derisive snorts of cynicism. but just imagine receiving a letter like this the very day i had not only had the series of thoughts above, but posted publicly about them. is not this--as it turned out to be, i now believe--scam almost magically positioned to affect me, at that moment in time? it was downright uncanny, and i'll confess to indulging in wild flights of fancy in the ensuing days. suspend your disbelief for a moment and just think, what if? what if it were true? it said over and over again that they didn't want my money, weren't trying to sell me anything, i just had to fax in a confirmation that i accepted the nomination into 'the league' and they would send me something, absolutely free, that would change my life forever.
it was heady stuff. at least, primed as i was at that point, it was heady stuff. you can imagine my chagrin (though not surprise, not really) when the next thing i received asked for a hundred and forty bucks for the next amazing thing they wanted to send me, and the amazing thing they'd sent me was a little pamphlet of improbable first-hand accounts from other members of the league, which, and here i must humbly apologize if it turns out that it is all real and i'm offending the cream of the cream here, were terribly insipid and pedestrian and geared to appeal sycophantically to the absolute lowest common denominator of sanguine entitlement and refusal to take any responsibility for one's own success or failure. ("i realized to myself, of course all those successful people must have had some magical secret. there was nothing special about them.") eesh.
and then there was the secret name of the league, which was never revealed to me, but that was said to be a latin word that meant 'magisterial', 'powerful', authoritative', 'lordly'. i did a little research and the word that fit best was 'imperiosus', the source, no doubt, of 'imperious', which is hardly a flattering or inviting word. some of the definitions they left out are 'arbitrary', 'domineering', and 'tyrannical'. yeah no.
and here i must confess**, in closing, to being ever so slightly nervous about not only spilling all these details that were spelled out as being TOP SECRET in the original letter, particularly in such an ungenerous and downright insulting manner as i have done, and even more particularly when the organization at issue calls itself domineering and tyrannical. so, just to hedge my bets, if they really are out there they will no doubt read this soon enough, so: sorry. don't worry, nobody reads this journal anyways. i will happily avail myself of magical secrets and/or effortless enrichment. please don't hurt me.
______________________
*interesting side-note, my friend greg commented 'large brains have dark corners', which i thought was both pleasantly flattering and perspicuous, as well as a touch poetic.
**i think that makes three confessions now, i'm positively catholic this morning.