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About the author:
Descended from old English money, Vidicon was raised by spiny echidnas in the mountainous rainforests of the North American Southeast. Lured back to society by time-traveling gray/reptiloid alien hybrids posing as renegade Jesuits, he has managed to maintain his outsider's perspective and an appetite for crunchy insects. Today, Vidicon is a world-class synchronicity surfer and an unlicensed quantum mechanic. He has a fourth-degree black belt in weird.
About his bi-weekly column:
Tales from the Third Lobe are the unfocused meanderings of the World's Smartest Moron. Topics range widely over the sciences, religion, philosophy, technology, modern culture, mysticism, Vidicon's personal history and viewpoints, and whatever pissed him off in the media last week.
View all articles by Laszlo Q. V. St-J. "Vidicon" Xalieri, 2HC Columnist...
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The Fortunate Ones Have you ever noticed how some people seem to be more there than other people? I'm not talking there as in "not all there", but there as in actually fully and completely present. More real than you.
Don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about. Because I'm not talking about famous people. Or popular people. Or smart people. Or socially "with it" people. At least not as general categories. The sets overlap in places but aren't the same things.
I'm talking about those people who, when they walk down a hallway, seem to own the hallway. When they enter a room, ongoing conversations swirl and eddy around them and get pulled off track in their wakes. Whatever mood they wear, they project like an ongoing explosion, heedless of shrapnel.
You know them. Boy, do you know them.
While some people skate across the surface skidding this way and that, some people have an oar in the water. Or maybe even a keel and a rudder. And sails. If not a motor.
And it makes the rest of us sick with jealousy.
Sometimes it's clear that these people don't have anything special. They aren't the wisest, the smartest, the richest, the most socially adept.... But they seem to be reaping some sort of undefinable benefit. They go places and do things. What they want falls into their laps, not that this necessarily brings them bliss. Not if it would unplug them from whatever power they have.
Roger Zelazny's unending Amber series of fiction novels, while not exactly his best work, gave this phenomenon a treatment: some people are genuinely real, and everyone else is a shadow or a reflection, often watered down or weakened to various degrees, like those shapes you see when you zoom into a fractal image like the Mandelbrot set, each one smaller and more distorted.... This isn't quite what I'm talking about, but you can imagine what it would feel like to be one of these distorted reflections meeting one of the originals from whom all others are copies of copies.
I've also read stories and theories that posit that people are more real the closer in nature they are to certain Jungian Archetypes. I'm not sure I buy that because those archetypes aren't as universal as one might think. The phenomenon I'm thinking about is likely to make a kind of sense in any culture....
I'm reminded, however, that certain stone-age tribes in the South American rainforests refer to strangers with the same words they use for spirits, ghosts, or demons. In fact, the term "foreign devil" isn't too far removed from usage in our own language. There's a tendency to demonize or dehumanize enemies or outsiders any time someone raises a flag, straps on colors, or makes a political speech. But this isn't exactly what I'm talking about either.
Frequently these real people are success stories, but that's not always the case. Sometimes their stories are tinged with poignant tragedy, full of "almosts" and "not quites". And in the two preceding sentences is your first hint. Mine, too, since I'm actually trying to figure out this phenomenon by writing about it. And you know why, don't you? We all want to be more real.
Don't you?
With all the confidence I can muster, I present a hypothesis to consider. These special people around whom the world seems to revolve, or at least who make the world wobble for ourselves personally...these people have interesting stories. Please note I didn't say these people tell interesting stories. No. What I'm saying is that these people live and have lived and in all likelihood will continue to live interesting stories. Maybe I should say that the interesting stories have them. As the main characters.
Stuff that has happened to us is rarely interesting. We aren't impressed by someone who has lived through the challenges that we ourselves face. I mean, we've done that. What's so special about that? We very rarely are grabbed by the stories of people exactly like us. The exceptions are worth their own essay.
We are desperate to learn from the successes and failures of others. This is a survival trait. Surviving our own trials is only part of survival. Learning how others survive their own trials before we are subjected to them—this is also critical. People we feel we could learn a lot from are flagged by our subconscious. Our cranial processes highlight them in our heads, and portions of our brains pounce on these people like a kitten after a twitching feather. In fact, I'm sure the internal wiring for the process is quite, quite similar. We are desperate for the stories of survivors and achievers, especially the ones who are superficially similar to us or are in situations similar to our own.
And that's why we resent and despise people when they are exposed to be phonies. Cheaters and liars teach us nothing.
These real people, though.... They are real to us and to others in our circles who are similar to ourselves. And they have that little something extra that draws everyone's attention.
They are aware of their own stories. They know what they've been through, they know what they're shooting for, and they know that, whether they succeed or suck eggs, the story will be worth telling. That confidence grabs our heads and yanks us around when we see it. We are attracted to people who are obviously the central character in their own stories. That's what makes them seem so real.
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Vidicon is getting married in a few days. Have mercy. |
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Pages: 1 of 1 The Fortunate Ones
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