I’m tired of hearing and reading cliché statements that people think are cute or clever. In the same breath, if you want to communicate an absolute truth in the human experience, clichés are generally, and I’ll say, unfortunately, the best way. They almost always lose their value from being thrown back and forth to exaggerate the substance of shallow platitudes in part of some half-held belief. Those who haven’t lived a fulfilled life eat them up and say they understand, but it’s only because it applies so broadly to their experiences. They use clichés to describe their experiences during routine tasks, like pouring a bowl of cereal or walking their dog. It’s good for them but not so good for the wisdom pool of the world. If we keep this up, we’ll end up with a world full of dog-walking cereal-eating sages who devalue the currency by offering what they believe to be profound insights yet of so little substantive value that we can’t possibly propel the world to a better future. Yes, I know, my old (and dare I say the unimportant— white) man is showing.
Everything happens for a reason. And suffering is a blessing. I’ve learned that when you hear people say these and similar statements during the moment of suffering, they haven’t learned the lesson (yet). However, if they state these cringe-worthy clichés on the other side of suffering after it’s over, they’ve usually embodied what they’ve been through, and it’s a different story. There’s usually a certain hesitation before they say a cliché and sometimes a roundabout paragraph-length explanation that prefaces said statement where the reader thinks to herself, “fuck man, get on with it already.” Trust me, I know.
While the preceding may invoke the idea that I have a bone to pick with clichés, that’s certainly not true. Instead, I described the way I was in years past so that readers may recognize similar emotional residue, if present, within themselves. Such self-awareness of thinking patterns leads to increased devaluation of our collective wisdom. The decline in value isn’t really a problem for the collective because everyone is where they want to be, wherever that is at any given point in time. But this does mean that if we unconsciously decide to ascribe basic information with a false sense of depth, then the meaning of life becomes far less significant within such a value system. So how can we communicate substantial wisdom in an age when superficial reason is accepted over wisdom? The answer is by sharing wisdom through memes.
In storytelling, clichés serve their purpose and have their place. They’re a valuable tool to get the reader to self-reflect and establish a connection between the reading and their own experience. The cliché often mirrors the reader’s historical experience, allowing them to be more accepting of and, at least, receptive to the story presented to them. And that’s where memes come into play. Clichés are sometimes used as the foundation for a meme; a statement or human behavior expressed through the perfect representation in an image with words, words, or an image alone triggers the exact emotion or thought reflected in the meme. The ideal meme presents a topic that can’t be avoided for the receiver, as the message is primally communicated.
But sometimes, you can’t meme or use clichés; you just have to tell it like it is (or was). And when you’re telling the story, you as the writer may seem as if you’re personally attacking people without reason or just cause, but it’s part of a deeper story being told. The harshness of your words drives the point home right where they need to be.
Such is the case in this piece: I need to tell you where I started so that you, as the reader, know where I ended up.
In my youth, I didn’t have much guidance. My dad was a hardworking yet internally weak man who would only offer, “yeah, I’m not really good with that stuff,” whenever I would ask him literally anything about anything. My mom was (and still is) a psychotic and toxic matriarch whose interpersonal problems have only progressively increased since my youth. I suspect she has less control over others, her kids, and animals. The people I looked up to were not the best role models, so I ended up lost, whatever that meant. I had no idea who I was, what I wanted to do, and what was/is (so-called) important.
The toxic home life led me to join the military to get away from it all and start new. I went to Iraq twice and became pretty jaded with the inner and outer workings of the US government to a level where there isn’t a point in explaining the how and why; I was just over it all. After serving six years, I was medically separated and on my way. But I owed a bunch of money in back pay to the Army and had to make it up somehow…so I sold a gun that landed me in federal prison for three years.
Prison was a transformative time for me. I spent the first year politicking and playing the prison game. I decided to get my act together at a certain point: I turned my outward-facing eyes inward and started focusing on myself. I went through a lot of internal baggage, trauma, and bullshit that I’d picked up over the years and started sorting through it…but if I’m honest, the inverse is more accurate. The baggage, trauma, and bullshit started working through me, not the other way around. And if I look deeper, I think a lot of the experience was triggered by Art.
As it’s been said, the teacher appears when the student is ready. When I was ready, many teachers appeared, and of such a ridiculous variety that you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you who these people were. Over the last decade, the mentors I’ve had all served their purposes in different ways, but I think the one that sticks out the most for me was Art. Like a strong older brother, he guided me directly and sometimes indirectly to see the truth in front of my face all along.
“You have to read Jung, bro.” The occasion was an hour or so walk around the track to kill time. In prison, there was plenty of it to kill. “His ideas on psychological archetypes are on point. Once you read Jung and really understand what he was saying, then you can understand people.”
He paused with a slight smile growing on his lips. “People are always the same. This is a place to learn about people. If you can survive in this environment after being tested and really get what the fuck is going on here, outside is easy, dawg. Most dudes just come in here and do their time, play nice with the guards, and go back to the same shit. But if you pay attention, watch people, and figure them out, you’ll win when you get back out there.” He remained quiet as we finished up the lap around the track, passing up other inmates. “Dostoyevsky wrote a book called Letters from the Underground — actually, I think that’s how they call it in Russian, but I think it’s Notes of the Underground. Have your girl look it up and send it in for you.”
Art stretched his back and shrugged his shoulders.
“Everyone is the same; it’s just the archetypes of these deep qualities of the unconscious that shine through and look different. If you can start recognizing them when they appear in people, you’re really going to get to know people, and you’re going to get to know yourself. The fuck do you think I’m doing over there?” He pointed over in the direction of the Odinist grove where we practiced the Norse pagan tradition of Ásatrú. “That’s what it’s all about. I’m not there to feel fucking powerful or like a man, some fucking bullshit ego-trip like these clowns, bro. I’m there for my people and stay rooted in what I am. Odinism isn’t mine but a cousin to mine; I’m Armenian.”
“I get it, man. You’ve told me before.”
He looked at me. After he saw I understood the depth of what he was saying, he continued. “That’s all I’ve done the last ten years in here, man. Do college so I can move on to my MBA. Why do you think they wanted me to hold the keys for the white dudes on the yard at Victorville? Because I know people, homeboy. These dudes that are high-power at the Pen could get out and run companies. They run yards with unmanageable heathens and keep them from stabbing each other daily. They could take those people management skills, get out, and make something of themselves. But they don’t do the work on themselves, and that’s why they’re lifers. Either that or they’re doing life on the installment plan: one term after another.”
I picked up what Art was putting down. I never read Notes of the Underground or much Jung, but I paid attention to the archetypes and applied the wisdom he offered in many other ways. And Art was right; people are the same, personalities are just segments of archetypes, and the pantheon of archetypes are simply personalities of the One.
If we ignore the absolute reality, the One, and solely focus on the relative sense, isn’t unity the best option? The intrinsic nature beyond the form is certainly one consciousness, that much can be and is experientially validated by those blessed with the experience. But isn’t the unity of the separate selves the most potent option in the relative experience, more than any other? In other words, isn’t the highest goal in the absolute sense reflected as the highest goal in the relative sense? Art seemed to think so.
I sat with Art on a bench on the south yard overlooking the harbor. “I’m trying to get out of here, man. That’s why I chose my cellie.” He was transferred to the prison from medium-security a few months before. Just days prior, he capitalized on the bunkie of a lifetime. “As soon as I saw him on the yard with his big-ass glasses — BING — ,” Art made hand gestures like he was holding binoculars, “Man, I knew he was the one.” Art let out an enormous laugh. He was talking about an orthodox Jew, whose name I’ll omit. A former investment bank owner, real estate mogul, and developer, his cellie offered more than just the opportunity of the quiet cell life of bunking with an old man.
“I’m putting in for my treaty transfer back to Armenia. I’ve been down ten years, and I’d have more than ten to go if I stay in the US. I need these Jews to help me.” He paused and looked at me. “This stays between you and me, but he’s pretty connected in the community out there. If I can get a little push from his people, I’m all but guaranteed to get home.”
I looked at him and studied him for a moment. Art looked back and was a bit hesitant. Considering the implications of where we were, racial politics were a big thing, and the Jews weren’t the most welcomed people to the white car. After a moment, I said, “goddamn, dude. That’s fucking brilliant as fuck.”
He looked at me and said, “Odin, bro.” And we both laughed. He went on, “I’m ethnically white, but I’m also ethnically a Jew. I don’t tell many people for obvious reasons. But the Jews know that I know all of the Jew things, and it’s a good card to play against the staff.” He took a pause and continued, as per usual. “At Victorville, they had a hi-power skinhead from the Pen running the yard. After a few months of getting to know him, I celled up with him. He knew I wasn’t a practicing Jew but an ethnic Jew. This dude had a sun cross on his wall and pictures of his people back home from his gang. When the guards would come by for count, sometimes they’d look at him and me and do a double-take: they knew I was a Jew, and I had a picture of a rabbi that I would frequently write in the LA area. Motherfucker is holding out his hand and shit in a religious stance. Then you have my homeboy blasted up his neck and on his head with swastikas, and we’re bunked in the same cell.” He started laughing his ass off, and I joined in. “When we’d get a new unit cop, they didn’t know what to make of it. When they came by for count-time, they’d look at him, then at the wall with the rabbi next to sonnenrad, then over at me,” he moved his head acting out the scenario, “and stop, ‘you good in here?’ My cellie would ask them what they mean, and they’d keep walking down the tier.” He kept laughing. He slowed down a bit, saying, “There’s power when we’re united, and they can’t figure shit out. There’s less of them and more of us. They know we run the yard but do it on their terms. The smart ones aren’t on this racist shit, man. It’s just a way that we get things done to bring order. Even the high-level white power dudes don’t give a fuck about the racist shit, especially when it comes to business.”
The story resonated and opened my eyes to the power dynamics due to the human ego’s desire to dominate and control. Institutional structures are perfect case studies to examine the motivating factors. As an old convict told me once, “At the Pen, it doesn’t matter if you’re black, white, blue, or a purple martian; if the staff come after an inmate, everyone checks on him, and the staff start backing up.” While there was less violence at the lower prison security levels, the opportunity to see power-dynamic operations and their mechanics was abundant and clear.
In the bigger picture, I was able to see first-hand problems as they occurred both within myself and in the psychological sense. I reflected outside myself, in the sociological and social psychological sense. I think that’s the key to my success and the true wisdom I yearned for as a kid living in a hostile family: at a certain point, I accepted the chaos and insanity inside and outside myself, embraced it, and became one with it.
