My ‘inner dog’ has a new bone and it is so juicy, it can’t stop chewing on it.
If you are one of those kind people who puts up with my rants, you may have felt a bit confused about what this blog really is aiming for.
I can’t blame you for this because I have been feeling the same way. You see, my writing has been under a degree of tension lately because my two avatars were having a thematic pissing contest.
There is good news, but before I get into that, there is something I need to tell you. Take a big breath because we are going deep.
I was born in May 1968 during the most fiery moment of a social revolt. The burning streets of Leuven, my home town, drastically altered the destiny of my native society. On that day I took my first breath and it was filled with the scent of revolution.
Why is this important? Two reasons: firstly, I think the ambient in which I was born shipped me with a rebellious operating system.
Secondly, because the celestial elements were aligned in Gemini formation turned me into a dual being.
Now, let’s talk about my two inner avatars. They are very curious and hopelessly adventurous. They go through life as if it were a safari. They are like twins, hard to distinguish from each other and are very well synchronized.
Most of the time they take turns going out into the wild while the other stays at the base camp. This is a prudent approach that has been beaten into me by society. It is a bit like roaming around the house naked but having the decency to put something on when you go out. After all, there isn’t much of a safari if they lock you up in a padded room – that in itself is enough of an incentive to ‘sell out’ a bit.
I am hoping you don’t think this is getting creepy. True honest writing is always a bit like revealing a bit too much skin. If you feel weird, just imagine how I must feel!
Society wants us to behave well, most people think that life is very complicated. The last thing they want is to be surrounded by ‘personalities’ that turn things inside-out all the time.
Personally, I believe that most of us know we have some sort of creature lurking around in the depths of our lake and don’t want it to surface, especially not in broad daylight. We don’t want to scare the tourists away, even though they are attracted by that mystery that swims around in the murky submerged world of our personalities. We want the tourists to keep coming back.
In this society there is a reward for good behavior. Like most good dogs, we settle for the illusion of adventure within confined boundaries. Dogs that run away become ‘lost and found’ and are eventually put down. The trade-off for being good is compelling because you regularly get fed and groomed.
Our true instincts slowly slip into a coma as we no longer have to taste the warm blood of what we feed on. We lose the sobering insight that the act of killing what we eat increases the value we attribute to life for it is the awareness of mortality that helps us realize we have nothing to lose.
Ask a child today where the milk she is drinking comes from and chances are she will utter the name of the local supermarket without giving it any further thought. Even on the shelves of that place of abundance, the value of products is determined by its expiry date. The dynamics are the same, only transposed.
However, give a dog a fresh bone and all the rules change. The taste of skeleton blows open a hatch that leads into a primal space where there is no reason.
My avatars also keep a treasure of bones. When I hear the request to be more reasonable, it usually comes at a time when one of us is chewing away. Luckily the other stays on the lookout to deal with the petitioners.
I have no choice but to build some form of security perimeter around this place where I can be unreasonable and do my best work. Everytime I have created true value, I have done so by stepping into places unexplored, by trying out things untested. I have achieved most during those moments when my brain was on leave. My most profitable ideas were always those that I had trouble defining to ‘reasonable’ people.
Everytime I would ‘step back in line’ mediocrity would sneak in. The avatars would just stand their yawning. Do this for too long and the identity crisis that comes with living someone else’s life will eventually put you away in the padded room without safaris. A place where no one hears you scream…
So what’s the good news? I just embarked on a new Safari. This new juicy bone is called BD-Insider (say it out loud!). The ‘BD’ Stands for Business Development. It is a bit like a ninja academy for business developers.
One of the avatars is going to write for BD-Insider.
This medium will be more business related but that should turn out to be equally fascinating because business is probably even more absurd than life. It certainly has more rules and there is a lot more fear. Business is to life what mud wrestling would be to fencing.
The good news for this blog is that it now gets permission to dress up a bit more casually and explore more of what defines us as beings.
It is not entirely clear which side will be the base camp though. Looks like We may be up for another pissing contest….
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