asleep in the jungle

I went to watch an Alabaman talk about Tibetan Mandalas last week. I should have known what to expect, I’ve heard it said too many times that critical analysis offers a bright career for the future. It’s cold calculation that reduces the many mysterious things of this world to the affairs of castles and Kings. I suppose it’s a good check on simple philosophical back projection, but it’s really no good to have these sophists take over.

I didn’t know he was an Alabaman beforehand. At the end of the event I asked the student of Sankara about his suppressed accent. "Oh, yeah," he said, "he’s from Alabama, I talked to him earlier and I think he’s embarrassed about it, you know, coming from there." "That’s odd," I said, "I mean, it’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of here, I guess maybe in some parts you might feel obliged to downplay it."

Anyway, this is not about sophistry or Alabama... Well, maybe a little about Alabama, in the sense that the water and earth down there had blended together in many ways to give birth to and nurture this hairy man. And, he was a hairy man, a big man too. He had no forehead, big shoulders, and hairy knuckles. This is not to say that he was an ugly man, I’ve no sense of beauty as I find most women physically beautiful and all men physically repulsive, myself included.. But he was a hairy man there’s no denying that, and as this hairy man was talking about the dark jungles in India and waving his arms about I noticed that he was also a married man. Or, he wore a ring in any case... And then that’s when the jungle faced away, I was mesmorized by that big ring sunken into his finger, wild hair as thick as my beard tangled all around it. And, I thought, wow, this man’s married, so the chances are that every night, well maybe not every night, but many nights this man goes home, takes off his clothes, climbs into a bed and has sex with some woman..... My god I thought, what a terrible sight...

I don’t understand what any woman could possibly find attractive about a man, any man. They’re vile creatures most of the time let alone when they’re all smelly, sweaty, panting, grunting pushing to get off, can’t wait to get off. It makes me feel embarrassed. We stomp through this world, aggressive, self-interested, and careless... and this and nothing more is what we have to show for ‘making love’, a misnomer indeed.

A woman told me once that this is what sex is all about for her, having big heavy men roll all over her. So be it.... through cold and frosted windows I’ve seen girls drinking warm tea and eating vegetable sandwiches, alone and happy, hidden behind a pile of scarves and mittens. I can’t help but wonder that maybe I’ve just yet to think of a better way.