It Is, I Suppose, The Common Grief

There Are The Those Whose Own Vulgar Normality Is So Apparent And Stultifying That They Strive To Escape It. They Affect Flamboyant Behaviour And Claim Originality According To The Fashionable Eccentricities Of Their Time. They Claim Brains Or Talent Or Indifference To Mores In Desperate Attempts To Deny Their Own Mediocrity.

My Perception Of The Human Animal Is As An Extremely Dangerous Predator. That's Who I Perceive Us To Be As A Species. Maybe The Most Dangerous Predator On The Planet, With The Exception Of A Few Microbes. I'm Really Grateful For The Degree Of Socialization That Prevents Us, Most Of The Time, From Killing And Eating Each Other. And I Admire All The Social Structures That Have Been Designed And Layered And Niched In That Encourage Bonding Toward A Kind Of Social Harmony That Is Meant To Contain And Counteract Our Natural Inclinations Toward Predation, Ferocity, And Eating Whatever Moves.

[i] Am Reading No Ordinary Joes. Should Have Had A Medical Checkup Before I Started It. Colton Makes Us Fall In Love With These Guys, Then Puts Our Hearts In Harm's Way. It's Lovely And Ghastly And Extremely Powerful. His Best Yet.

In My Next Life, I Plan To Be A More Respectable Creature. For Now, This Is What Is Given To Us. So I Don't Know - I Think We're All Freaks At Heart. I Think Some People Strive Desperately To Be Normal, And I Think Other People Strive To Be Abnormal.

I Do Consider The Human Capacity For Violence Is The Central Issue Of The Social Contract. In Boxing We Have A Peculiarly Civilized Form, In That Boxers Don't Screech And Holler. They Don't Use Weapons. All Of This Seems To Me Quite Amazing, Because It Is So Disciplined, So Controlled. It's Ritualized, But Absolutely Genuine. And The Cultural Structure Built Around That Ritual Is Absolutely Fascinating To Me. And It Seems To Me That Boxing Is One Of Those Structures That Is Designed To Promote Harmony. I Think That It Is A Stove That Contains That Fire In Us And Makes It Safe And Useful.