Let’s presume for a minute that Our Guy didn’t fall in the Hole. Let’s imagine that he jumped in. Enthusiastically, yelling “GERONIMO!!!!” all the way down. “Ride of the Valkeries” blaring in the background. In fact, Our Guy was so bumfuzzeled, he actually imagining that he was falling upwards. Hell, he didn’t know what “down” even was.
Our Guy could handle falling down a Hole, you see. Our Guy was capable, smart. Intelligent to a fault, many would say. Myself included. Even if he did realize that he was falling down a Hole, a Hole from which he could never escape, that wouldn’t faze him. If he couldn’t extricate himself from the Hole, then he would thrive at the bottom of it, becoming the master of all he surveys. “Better to reign in Hole than to serve in Heaven.”
Or something like that.
What would make a seemingly gifted, intelligent and promising young man jump into the dark abyss like that? You have to understand: he wasn’t jumping in alone. Our Guy was catching up with some friends. Poe and Parker... Burton, Barrymore and Burroughs...
Hemingway and Hasselhoff.
He took exception to Neitzsche’s ideal of “And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you”, instead considering the possibility of “I held up a mirror to the abyss so that when it tried to look back at me, it was looking back at itself.
Fooled it.
Stupid abyss...”
Fooled it.
Stupid abyss...”
For the sake of clarity, let’s give Our Guy some distinguishing facts to clarify his theoretical identity. Let’s say he’s in his early 40’s. Let’s say that he is an actor in the theatre. And let’s further say that the Hollywood Reporter once referred to him as “outstanding”, and that the Los Angeles Times compared his performance as Shakespeare’s Henry V to Martin Sheen and Al Pacino.
And let us take it for granted that he’s got bags of humility.
He was always the funniest guy in the Room. Remarkable, considering how intensely he detested being in the Room. It was in these moments that Our Guy was already looking for the Hole. Since there was no Hole in direct proximity to him, he pressed on, playing the role of a guy who wasn’t looking for the Hole.
Call it overcompensation.
Call it overcompensation.
"You know, for the most insecure guy I've ever met, you're pretty sure of yourself" remarked one individual from the Room.
It was no lie. From this dissembling came opinions. Lots and lots of aggressive opinions. Politics, religion, sex... politics was a big one. Certain events at the beginning of the millennium gave him a lot to talk about. You see, Our Guy was already in his late twenties. If he hadn’t figured our the world yet, more importantly: if others were on to the fact that he hadn’t figured out the world yet... he’d be revealed as a fraud.
A charlatan.
A failure.
And so, he continued to hunt for the Hole.
One day, as Our Guy was searching for the Hole, he had a stunning moment of clarity:
I’ve found it. I’ve been here all along. All this searching was leading me deeper and deeper until one day I’m here!
It was so easy! Lewis Carroll ain’t got nuthin’ on me!
It was so easy! Lewis Carroll ain’t got nuthin’ on me!
Well. Now that Our Guy was there, what to do with himself? The plan was to reign, correct? Now was the time to take all of his given talents and just go nuts. Wreak havoc. Uptown Saturday Night.
You want to hear God laugh? Tell him your plans.
Something remarkable (and in retrospect, not unexpected) happened. Somehow, in the process of getting to the bottom of the Hole, he lost his gifts. They weren’t there anymore.
Did you look under the existential couch?
Now, here’s the question: if Our Guy spent all of his gifts to get to the bottom of the Hole where he was going to use his gifts to reign, and is suddenly bereft of said gifts... how does he get back out?
Answer: When you figure it out, let me know.
He was a one-man Gift of the Magi.
Sacred and alone, Our Guy reacted in the only rational manner available to him.
He wept.
Like a small child lost at the department store, Our Guy’s loneliness and torment became the only thing in his Universe. He knew, deep in his soul that he would never escape this place, this place in which he had put himself. He wept epically and operatically, a tempest of tears.
Self-Indulgent? Yes. Painstakingly real?
Yes.
Incidentally, remember the story at the beginning? About when Our Guy falls into the Hole?
I didn’t finish it.
Read it again, and then add this line at the end:
And the friend says, "Yeah, but I've been down here before, and I know the way out."
Our guy wept, pained and screaming in mortal terror about how dreadfully his plans had turned out. He wept until his tears dissolved his skin, and he screamed until his bones were dust.
And then he started over. He rebuilt himself.
What else could he do? He wasn’t dead. And he couldn’t go any further into the Hole; he was already at the bottom.
He let go of his opinions, he let go of his resentment and anger. He stopped avoiding that which he thought he was above.
He reinvented himself. Organically and without design. He didn’t crawl out of the Hole. He stayed where he was and the Hole fell around him (slowly), until one day he could see the horizon.
And he was grateful.
People who know him tell Our Guy that they like him a helluva lot more today then they used to. Some have gone as far as to ask where the old asshole went, mentioning that they can’t relate the Our Guy from the Old Guy. He’s actually humble in response to comments like that, muttering a soft but heart-felt “Thank you”.
Today he’s not nearly as opinionated. Today he revels in simplicity. Today he seeks out moments to be “common” and tries to remember that he’s not perfect, not ideal. He attempts to improve himself in a humble way.
Hell, he even meditates, for Ganesha’s sake.
And once in a while he’ll be out walking, or just staying at home... and he’ll see the Hole again. He’ll look at it, remembering the thrill, the anticipation of wanting to jump in. His heart will race and his blood will turn to battery acid. The Our Guy will take a deep breath, sigh contemplatively and gratefully... and go jump in someone else’s Hole.
Because he knows the way out.
