Going Feral In Times Of Woe

"So the recuperation of the incarnate, sensorial dimension of experience brings with it a recuperation of the living landscape in which we are corporeally embedded. As we return to our senses, we gradually discover our sensory perceptions to be simply our part of a vast, interpenetrating webwork of perceptions and sensations borne by countless other bodies---supported, that is, not just by ourselves, but by icy streams tumbling down granitic slopes, by owl wings and lichens, and by the unseen, imperturbable wind."-David Abram, in "The Spell of the Sensuous"

A wild werewolf has always skulked inside the rational soul of each and every one of us. The impetuous howls cause us to cringe, or run, or fight. We don't like embracing this wild force, do we? We rather do away with it, keep it on the margins, spurn it, boil it, burn it, and forget about it. This force is taboo in cultures that are wholly indoctrinated and enclosed. And yet it is real. As real as the cryptic constellations scattered across the abyssal cauldron of deep, unfathomable space. This is why the "wild" is truly a threat to the civilized and puritanical mindset of us city dwellers. It threatens to pummel and bludgeon monochrome monotony, and the mediocrity of the monochromatic. Can we really blame it for trying?

Wild voice #1: The wild must first clandestinely infect just the small stones near riverbeds. Then towers and empires come next. Too much wild in too little time just makes things messy. Gradual doses of undiluted wild fosters brilliance.

"Going feral" in times of monochromatic monotony is not meant to be a throw back to the halcyon days where we wore skins and sported spears and revered nature and all that jazz. "Going feral" is all about creating a hybridic identity that balances supposed opposites without trying to undermine either side of the polarity. The hybrid would take into account the civilian and that which is opposed to docility in every single way. The hybrid would de-program the tamed mind of the upright and uptight citizen so the indeterminate wonder of the immanently miraculous could re-program it. It would be up to the "civilized module" in the hybrid mind to translate the teachings of the wild side. This would come in the form of an ethical eco-mandate that could help others who are still controlled by monochrome monotony. This would be the hope anyways. Good things come in pairs, after all.

Wild voice #2: "You need my words like creation needs form."

I think the feral side of our human genetic make-up--the wild and woolly side of our biology--has been stifled by the work/play dichotomy. When I was a young boy, I remember cramming a welter of factoids into my porous mind for a significantly longer time than I remember playing tag during recess. This prepared me for a life dedicated to work, sweat, and the rock-solid facts of a regimented society built upon work and sweat. The play part was banished to the margins as a sort of reward for studious efforts or good grades or for being a good listener. It wasn't at the forefront. The grand arbiter of knowledge, or the school system, decided to rip asunder a way of knowing that would greatly benefit mankind. Now we're stuck with the dichotomy. The feral side gets no grades. The domesticated side gets muddy and no accolades.

Wild voice #3: "There are no grades out in the bushes. The sparrow can't stamp a letter to a piece of art, and call it crap or gold. The pines know of no pedagogy or teacher. Everything in nature is a student, and the eminent subject is beauty."

Sooner or later, and let's hope sooner, the werewolf must take the throne of the personality by storm, and have its way with the soft flesh of civility, and politics, and concrete jungles. Sooner rather than later, we must see the reflection of the moon in its glinting teeth. Then maybe, just maybe, we will see the great web of reflections that will lead us back to the cosmic maw that gave birth to our species. And then maybe we will see the birth of something truly special: ourselves.