What society wants, contra what WE want

Dear diary,

I wake up and find myself living in a society. So I spend my day trying hard to figure out what this society desires me to do. Why don’t I just do what I myself desire to do?—follow my instincts and impulses? Because I assume that what I desire is different from what society desires.

So let’s make these wishes concrete, nail them down. What does society want from us its people? And what do we want for ourself?

That first question—“What does society want?”—is unanswerable: I mean, I can’t answer it because I do not know: Didn’t I say, just above, that I spend my day trying hard to figure out what this society wants from me? If I knew clearly what society’s demand-sheet sez, I’d either exclaim “Oh, what a relief, you & I want the same things: I’ll obey all thy commandments post-haste and with gladness!” or else I’d take a firm stance against this society.

Perhaps that’s why society doesn’t provide us, its members, with a clear tablet of instructions: because it fears that none of us really share its aims. For if I had to guess what society wants, based on what it feels like to try to adhere to society’s vaguely implied expectations, I’d say that society desires each one of us to nullify ourselves — basically to become like a figure that’s connected to the gears inside of a cuckoo clock, which pops out and presents itself every hour, on the hour. And most of us would rather bend time than bow to it; so this plan must remain safely kept under wraps.

Now what about that last question tho, since I can’t say yea or nay to selling my soul to society: “What do I want for myself?” — This is just as tricky to answer; maybe even trickier. So let me focus on the details: What would I do, right this moment, if I had been born into freedom?

It’s 5:45 a.m. & I’m sitting on my sofa, writing a letter to myself — is this really what I would be doing, if I were in the Land of the Free?

My first thot is that, were society’s unwritten rulebook to be nullified instead of my drives, I would walk outside and sing songs and chant some poems. I would talk to the animals, especially that bird that built its nest in the wreath on our front door, and I would also deliver a speech to the squirrels in the trees. Even tho it’s very dark because the sun has not yet risen, and there are thick clouds and downpouring rain, I’d still go outside & sing & chant & wax eloquent. That’s what I’d wanna do, for the moment.

But the reason I stay inside and silently write to you (that is, to me), in the pages of this journal, is that I’m afraid the rest of society would consider me mad if I began celebrating at this hour, especially under such violently stormy conditions. — Yet I love that song “Blow, blow, thou winter wind,” from the plays of Shakespeare; and I enjoy shouting it at the sky during inclement weather, regardless if it’s not now technically winter. Society, however, isn’t so forgiving of such liberties — no: society sez “It’s officially spring, Bryan; go back indoors and nullify thyself.” And then society rolls its eyes and turns to its respectable members and remarks “That fellow’s a loon.”

Then when the sun comes out, I’d walk around the neighborhood and greet everyone I see and ask them questions:

How are you? What are you doing today? Are you satisfied with our country? Do you find life meaningful? What are your interests? Do you have a favorite movie? Are you a believer in destiny? How about religion: what’s your religion — or what’s your philosophy on all this stuff: where do you think it’s all going? Do you think there’s something we’re all supposed to be doing; some common goal we all should be working to achieve — or do you find life essentially pointless? I myself think that life has no inherent meaning but that we living creatures bless life with whatever meaning we choose to give it. What do you think about that? Do my words make you want to fistfight me? Hey, I happen to have my smart-phone handy; do you wanna read my diary entry that I wrote today? I can navigate to my website, using the Internet from my data plan. Today I wrote a play — it’s the first time I’ve ever tried to do that. My diary’s basically a place to experiment with creative writing; and I also lodge my thots there. During this lockdown period of the plague, my sweetheart and I have been reading a lot of Shakespeare, and we started with the famous and best titles; so we read Hamlet and then King Lear and after that A Midsummer Night’s Dream and finally last night we finished Othello. So those works were on my mind when I was writing my mini-morningplay. Isn’t that wild: that you can write a fake play in a couple hours before sunrise! While quill-penning it, I allowed myself to include as many nods and cliché references from those aforementioned Shakespearean masterpieces as was possible; so it comes off as sorta jokey, but I swear I was more in a dreamy state of mind than in stand-up comedian mode.

The one thing that I wanted to capture — I’m not sure I did it, that’s why I’m explaining it to you now — is that my favorite movie Wrong Cops (2013) has an exchange between its officers Duke and Rough, which weirdly echoes an exchange between Iago and Roderigo from near the beginning of Othello. I just find that curious — I wonder if Quentin Dupieux, the Wrong Cops screenwriter, has even read Othello — cuz I’d presume that he couldn’t care less about William Shakespeare (to me, Dupieux seems more inclined to care about the modern Surrealists — but he doesn’t offer undue reverence even to them); and it seems more likely that the two matching moments are a totally innocent coincidence rather than an intentional homage.

Here, neighbor: I’ll read each excerpt for you, and you can decide what to make of it all. I tried to work both quotes into my mini-play (which you can read to yourself later, at your leisure; it’s too long for me to voice aloud here on the curb while you’re taking a break from mowing your lawn — society might condemn us both as madmen if we were to spend our afternoon reading creative literature while peacefully leaning and loafing on the grass), yes, I planned to frame both passages side-by-side in my own tiny drama, but I don’t think I made the Othello reference clear enough—so here it is, without frills:

IAGO
What say’st thou, noble heart? [...]

RODERIGO
I will incontinently drown myself.

IAGO
If thou dost, I shall never love thee after. Why, thou silly gentleman!

RODERIGO
It is silliness to live when to live is torment; and then have we a prescription to die when death is our physician.

IAGO
O villainous! [...] Ere I would say I would drown myself for the love of a guinea-hen, I would change my humanity with a baboon.

[Act 1, Sc. 3; lines 304-ff.]

& now, here below are the lines from Wrong Cops — tho I cited them obviously in yestermorn’s experiment, I’ll re-copy them so that you can prove your grace by forgiving my obsession:

OFFICER DUKE
Rough, are you there, buddy? [Opens door.] What are you doing all dressed up in your full uniform and lying in your bathtub?

OFFICER ROUGH
[Lifts hand out of the water, revealing that he’s holding a firearm.] I wanted to kill myself.

*

[...later, on the phone...]

DUKE
So, you’re alive?

ROUGH
Yes, I’m alive. I’m fine.

DUKE
You sound strange. Why are you breathing like that?

ROUGH
That’s nothing. I’m just cold. [...]

DUKE
Good. If I ever see you in such a homo state of weakness again, I will kill you myself. Do you understand?

ROUGH
Yes, do that. That works for me.

There. I just wanted to copy these two passages next to each other, so that there’s a place where students of both cinema and literature can gather to marvel at this juxtaposition.

*

I know that I began by comparing what society presumably wants of us, its members, versus what we ourselves want; but I’m bored with that idea now. Plus I already got to go outside & sing & chant this morning. That was fun. And my favorite part of writing this entry was when I got to talk to my neighbor. If I had more energy & care, I’d relay my neighbor’s responses to my barrage of questions; yet, for the time being, I’ll let you ponder what you yourself might’ve said in the same circumstance, O gentle reader.

...However, now that I’ve placed you, this entry’s only reader, in the position of my neighbor, I’ve rejuvenated my interest. So lemme see how well I know you. Here is my prediction:

Your own expected reactions to my inquiry

To the question “How are you?” my guess is that you will answer, “I’m just fine, thanks! How about yourself, Bry?” And I would ignore your pleasantry and continue my inquisition: “What are you doing today?” And you would reply “I’m just mowing my lawn. Can’t you see that I’m sitting on a riding lawnmower here — I had to shut it off to greet you.”

And when I say “Are you satisfied with our country?” You’ll answer: “Yes.” (Here’s where I’ll wish you had the courage to express your true feelings.) Then when I say “Do you find life meaningful?” you’ll reply:

“Yes, I do. I find meaning everywhere I look. I see the bees building their apartment complexes, and I wanna go live with them, they’re so cute — I’ve loved them dearly ever since I learned that honey is not something that they make by stirring a bunch of tasty ingredients together in a mixing bowl, but rather it’s a natural substance that they barf up like cow cud.”

Then I frown and say “I think you might be wrong about that last fact — that doesn’t sound pleasant, and most of reality is pleasant. Anyway, so what are your interests?”

I imagine you’ll answer this by saying: “I like pinball & tart-baking. Someday I wanna visit Hawaii, because I read somewhere that they have the largest pinball arcade in the known galaxy. And also I really love baking cherry tarts.”

So I move on to “Do you have a favorite movie?” And you say: “Yes, I do.” And when I say “Are you a believer in destiny?” You say, “No — I AM THAT I AM: in other words, I believe in free will.” So I gasp and clutch my pearls and exclaim, quoting Iago from Othello again:

“I wear my heart upon my sleeve for daws to peck at: I am NOT what I am.”

Then I continue: “But how about religion: what’s your religion?” And you say “Jewish Christian Muslim.” And I say “You mean: Kabbalist Gnostic Sufi?” And you will say “Yes.” (It is your destiny to do so.) And I will say “Whew!” and wipe the sweat from my brow, which resulted from my anxiety over the tragic turn that our talk just avoided taking.

Then I ask a follow-up question: “Well then what’s your philosophy on all this stuff: where do you think it’s all going?” And my prophecy is that you’ll answer:

“I am a cross between Groucho Marx, whose campaign slogan was ‘Whatever it is, I’m against it’ and Don Quixote, who seems to me to agree with William Blake’s ‘Proverb of Hell’: ‘Every thing possible to be believed is an image of truth’.”

So I will say: “Oh my goodness, Me too! So let me ask just one final question, if it’s not too much of a bother…” And you’ll reassure me: “You’re not bothering me — I’m glad to take a break from mowing my lawn.” So I’ll say:

“Do you think there’s something we’re all supposed to be doing; some common goal we should be striving to achieve collectively — or do you find life essentially pointless?” And you’ll say: “It’s pointless. Life is a dream. Only the Outer Darkness matters.” And I’ll be aghast at your honest wisdom.

Then you’ll invite me inside your house to look at the spaceship that crashed in your yard last year. And you’ll show me the strange books that you found inside of the craft, which you’ve been studying — you even decoded the alien language in which the works were written, because you’re extremely dedicated to your scholarly hobby, and you have a knack for philology. You also show me the golden tablets that you found buried under the hillside nearby your goat barn.

I’m captivated by these treasures that you’ve let me glimpse: I can’t wait to return to your house in the following weeks and study them further. You’re probably the best neighbor I’ve ever run into.