On the Outskirts of Edge City
I live in two worlds. In the everyday world, I play a young "starving artist," struggling to live and create my writing and music and art in the belly of 21st Century corporate America. Even though I have anarchistic and bohemian leanings that place me on the edge or underground of consensus culture I am still a normal guy who works a day job, does his housemate’s dishes, goes out drinking and dancing with his friends on the weekends, and dreams of meeting a creative and compassionate woman to eventually settle down and raise a family with. Preferably after selling a couple novels to buy a house.
In the other world I am a shaman, a prophet, a warrior; an avatar of all that is good and intelligent and utterly bewildering in the Universe. In this position I know that the self and reality are merely convenient illusions to be juggled at will, and strive to use this to break humanity out of the dead end Western reality-tunnel and ease the transition into the Next, while hopefully avoiding a nuclear apocalypse in the process. This is the life of my dreams and personal mythos, and though it takes on near unbearable epic proportions, it is no less of an everyday reality then my "normal life." I am always wearing both masks.
Though these worlds exist simultaneously they are rarely compatible, except at night or at protests, and I often end up feeling like Superman, pretending that I am Clark Kent so I can get by in a world that just doesn’t believe in super heroes. From my experience I don’t imagine many people see or want to see their lives through such a mythic interpretation. Even crazy artist types can have a limited sense of the real. It takes too much strength and calls too many basic truths into question, and it’s already near impossible to eke out enough of a living to enjoy a few moments of freedom a year in the everyday reality. Why bother going through all that strain and near insanity of envisioning another?
For me the reasons are obvious. They might be for you too, but I can’t even say that much without getting frightened or pitying looks from even my closest friends (except for the few that face this dilemma in themselves). Sure, I can hang out at the local coffee shop and chat amiably about the weather, work, the latest bands and art projects, "even the state of the world these days" (as if the world and its wars weren’t here). But in my head the shaman-warrior frantically wants to grab people’s shoulders and shake them, screaming that they "can and have to take up their own power, now, because the war is here and it will take all our imaginations together to see its end." The words and spittle flying from my mouth like some deranged harbinger of doom and gloom. Occasionally I imagine putting on a dirty robe and standing on the street corner with a sandwich board that reads: "The End is Here!"
Not that people really pay much attention to such extreme tactics in the post-modern spectacle, but that certainly wouldn’t make it any easier to lead a normal life, and I have a hard enough time with that when I’m rational. Money and small talk just seem so irrelevant.
Another thing this role makes difficult is dating. I thought the last girl I was seeing had a similar enough world-view, but after building up enough trust to be able to share my pre-apocalyptic anxiety disorders with her she said it might be better off if I let myself just go mad, and that we probably shouldn’t be seeing each other (she was trying to get her life straight, I was trying to never do that again, and I wasn’t making things easier for her). Later she rewrote her memories of the relationship and decided we had never had anything to talk about in the first place, even though I distinctly remember many night-long conversations about magic, the spirit-world, and the necessity of changing the direction our world is headed. I didn’t know it was possible to drive someone sane, but it seems I did it.
Some days I just want to drop this other reality all together and go back to the ignorant bliss of the normal world where work and weather are the hardest things to worry about. But I can’t and wouldn’t even if I let myself have that option. Through the isolation and sense of impending doom that haunt my cloudier days, that deeper level contains such magic and beauty I could have never imagined had I not been there, and at this point makes my life worth living.
So I ask, how do the rest of you stay sane and functional in your everyday lives while still assuming the power and responsibility that comes with realizing your own avatarhood? Either I need to stop letting this dichotomy of worlds be a source of tension and anxiety and treat my internal god as the secret seed of hope and power I know it can be. Or I need to stop pretending that these worlds are separate at all, and start living as if real life shaman-warriors are precisely what society needs to inspire the realization that living within the mythic power of our dreams is possible every day.
In the other world I am a shaman, a prophet, a warrior; an avatar of all that is good and intelligent and utterly bewildering in the Universe. In this position I know that the self and reality are merely convenient illusions to be juggled at will, and strive to use this to break humanity out of the dead end Western reality-tunnel and ease the transition into the Next, while hopefully avoiding a nuclear apocalypse in the process. This is the life of my dreams and personal mythos, and though it takes on near unbearable epic proportions, it is no less of an everyday reality then my "normal life." I am always wearing both masks.
Though these worlds exist simultaneously they are rarely compatible, except at night or at protests, and I often end up feeling like Superman, pretending that I am Clark Kent so I can get by in a world that just doesn’t believe in super heroes. From my experience I don’t imagine many people see or want to see their lives through such a mythic interpretation. Even crazy artist types can have a limited sense of the real. It takes too much strength and calls too many basic truths into question, and it’s already near impossible to eke out enough of a living to enjoy a few moments of freedom a year in the everyday reality. Why bother going through all that strain and near insanity of envisioning another?
For me the reasons are obvious. They might be for you too, but I can’t even say that much without getting frightened or pitying looks from even my closest friends (except for the few that face this dilemma in themselves). Sure, I can hang out at the local coffee shop and chat amiably about the weather, work, the latest bands and art projects, "even the state of the world these days" (as if the world and its wars weren’t here). But in my head the shaman-warrior frantically wants to grab people’s shoulders and shake them, screaming that they "can and have to take up their own power, now, because the war is here and it will take all our imaginations together to see its end." The words and spittle flying from my mouth like some deranged harbinger of doom and gloom. Occasionally I imagine putting on a dirty robe and standing on the street corner with a sandwich board that reads: "The End is Here!"
Not that people really pay much attention to such extreme tactics in the post-modern spectacle, but that certainly wouldn’t make it any easier to lead a normal life, and I have a hard enough time with that when I’m rational. Money and small talk just seem so irrelevant.
Another thing this role makes difficult is dating. I thought the last girl I was seeing had a similar enough world-view, but after building up enough trust to be able to share my pre-apocalyptic anxiety disorders with her she said it might be better off if I let myself just go mad, and that we probably shouldn’t be seeing each other (she was trying to get her life straight, I was trying to never do that again, and I wasn’t making things easier for her). Later she rewrote her memories of the relationship and decided we had never had anything to talk about in the first place, even though I distinctly remember many night-long conversations about magic, the spirit-world, and the necessity of changing the direction our world is headed. I didn’t know it was possible to drive someone sane, but it seems I did it.
Some days I just want to drop this other reality all together and go back to the ignorant bliss of the normal world where work and weather are the hardest things to worry about. But I can’t and wouldn’t even if I let myself have that option. Through the isolation and sense of impending doom that haunt my cloudier days, that deeper level contains such magic and beauty I could have never imagined had I not been there, and at this point makes my life worth living.
So I ask, how do the rest of you stay sane and functional in your everyday lives while still assuming the power and responsibility that comes with realizing your own avatarhood? Either I need to stop letting this dichotomy of worlds be a source of tension and anxiety and treat my internal god as the secret seed of hope and power I know it can be. Or I need to stop pretending that these worlds are separate at all, and start living as if real life shaman-warriors are precisely what society needs to inspire the realization that living within the mythic power of our dreams is possible every day.
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