the Apollonian, the Dionysian, and the Will to Power to help someone down and out...
The clouds indicated that it was going to rain sometime Sunday afternoon, but the plants in the front yard just couldn’t wait. So, I hauled out the hose, turned on the faucet, and started spraying down the hastas, azaleas, and various flowers in the island of the front lawn. Janine puts a lot of time in planting them. The least I can do is make sure they survive the Summer.
I plug into my iPod, and get involved in a series of college-level lectures concerning Nietzsche. I’m listening to one of several lectures concerning Nietzsche’s love for the Greeks, when the rain starts coming down. Sunshine downpour. It looked like a typical summer afternoon burst, and laughing at the silliness of watering in the rain, I stood under the protection of the trees. I’m enjoying the discussion of the Apollonian/Dionysus synthesis, when I hear a voice.
Some older lady in the yard, standing in the rain, crying. She’s dressed in something like business-casual, pulling a heavy looking rolling travel bag. She asks about how to get out of the neighborhood and how to get to a main road. I start to give her directions, and then I realize what a strange situation this is. In an English accented voice, she explains that she needs to get to a bus so she can get to the airport. A bus? Out here? She obviously doesn’t know where the hell she is. And she has to get to the Atlanta Airport.
So, Me being Me, being curious, I figure there’s a story in this somewhere. So, I tell her to wait there under the trees, “Let me get my keys. I’m taking you to the Airport.” I go inside and tell Janine what’s going on. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
On a Sunday, it is just around a little more than an hour to the Airport if I’m cruising at Billy-drive as if I stole it - speed. I open the door for her, put in her bag, and off we go. Just to chill her out, and to ease whatever suspicions she might have, I explain where we are going, and what roads we’re taking. Polite introduction, she tells me her name is Vicki. She’s in full religious mode, telling me that I answered her prayers, and that I “walk with the Grace of God,” and that God is truly watching out for her, and…
Well, Me being Me, wanted to ask her that if I walked with the Grace of God, why the hell am I so clumsy? But instead, in my best joking Southern drawl, say, “Well, ma’am, we Americans might sometimes be barbaric, but Chivalry ain’t dead.” She liked that. “So, why don’t you tell me why the heck you’re out in the rain…” And boy, did she have a crazy story.
This little lady born in Romania, but raised in London, works for her Episcopalian Church. While volunteering with some organization, she meets a woman online, and befriends her. The woman invites Vicki to visit her in Georgia. Vicki takes her up on the invitation, and discovers that said woman is “crazy.” Vicki decides that she needs to get out there, and without any knowledge of where she is at, starts walking up the street, thinking that a Bus (like in England) will eventually come on by. Trusting in her Faith, she bumps into me, watering my plants in the rain. That God of hers sure does work in mysterious ways.
Between my education and experiences, plus a little training from being a Cop, I can be pretty good active-listener when I want to be. And with an Intuition that I trust, I knew how to guide the conversation with well-placed affirmations. It grew quiet for a while as she texted away on her phone, trying to contact friends in London and make some kind of arrangements. She was also involved in a text-argument with the person she stayed with. I found it funny, here I was, an audience to an argument about…what? Hell, if I knew. She read aloud both her responses, and the other person’s, and it sounded like a petty scrabble between teenage girls accusing each other of silly transgressions. I listened, and of course, I took her side. For all I knew, she was really the “crazy” one out of the two.
She kept telling me that God put me there to help her out, and that miracles really happened. Instead of talking about Nietzsche and the Norse Gods of the television show, Vikings, I participated in her worldview, and had a conversation about spirituality within her particular context. It was nice, but I was getting kind of tired of her thanking me and telling me how Graceful I was. So, I switched up the conversation and asked her about the Brexit and the UK leaving the EU. I was delighted when she that it was a good thing. She was disappointed in how her Government was busy supporting other people and ignoring their own, and how the new cheap labor pool of immigrants was affecting employment.
Eventually, after driving around the Airport (by Odin, I hate Airports), I got her to the International departures, and with a hug, and a “Walk with God,” she was on her way. Once I oriented myself westward, I plugged myself back into my Nietzsche course, and took the long way home. Somehow, the iPod had skipped a lecture or two, and I was in the middle of a discussion about the nature of Nietzsche’s vehement atheism. The lecturer quoted from the Gay Science, about the Parable of the Madman. I laughed when I heard it. I laughed, and thought, shit, Dude, I’m not sure that God, or any God, is dead…
“Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!"---As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?---Thus they yelled and laughed.”
“The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him---you and I. All of us are his murderers…”
Yeah, that’s funny. Really funny. I still dig you, Nietzsche, though. Life is tragedy, life is funny, and sometimes really absurd. Later that night, I finished watering the plants.
I plug into my iPod, and get involved in a series of college-level lectures concerning Nietzsche. I’m listening to one of several lectures concerning Nietzsche’s love for the Greeks, when the rain starts coming down. Sunshine downpour. It looked like a typical summer afternoon burst, and laughing at the silliness of watering in the rain, I stood under the protection of the trees. I’m enjoying the discussion of the Apollonian/Dionysus synthesis, when I hear a voice.
Some older lady in the yard, standing in the rain, crying. She’s dressed in something like business-casual, pulling a heavy looking rolling travel bag. She asks about how to get out of the neighborhood and how to get to a main road. I start to give her directions, and then I realize what a strange situation this is. In an English accented voice, she explains that she needs to get to a bus so she can get to the airport. A bus? Out here? She obviously doesn’t know where the hell she is. And she has to get to the Atlanta Airport.
So, Me being Me, being curious, I figure there’s a story in this somewhere. So, I tell her to wait there under the trees, “Let me get my keys. I’m taking you to the Airport.” I go inside and tell Janine what’s going on. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
On a Sunday, it is just around a little more than an hour to the Airport if I’m cruising at Billy-drive as if I stole it - speed. I open the door for her, put in her bag, and off we go. Just to chill her out, and to ease whatever suspicions she might have, I explain where we are going, and what roads we’re taking. Polite introduction, she tells me her name is Vicki. She’s in full religious mode, telling me that I answered her prayers, and that I “walk with the Grace of God,” and that God is truly watching out for her, and…
Well, Me being Me, wanted to ask her that if I walked with the Grace of God, why the hell am I so clumsy? But instead, in my best joking Southern drawl, say, “Well, ma’am, we Americans might sometimes be barbaric, but Chivalry ain’t dead.” She liked that. “So, why don’t you tell me why the heck you’re out in the rain…” And boy, did she have a crazy story.
This little lady born in Romania, but raised in London, works for her Episcopalian Church. While volunteering with some organization, she meets a woman online, and befriends her. The woman invites Vicki to visit her in Georgia. Vicki takes her up on the invitation, and discovers that said woman is “crazy.” Vicki decides that she needs to get out there, and without any knowledge of where she is at, starts walking up the street, thinking that a Bus (like in England) will eventually come on by. Trusting in her Faith, she bumps into me, watering my plants in the rain. That God of hers sure does work in mysterious ways.
Between my education and experiences, plus a little training from being a Cop, I can be pretty good active-listener when I want to be. And with an Intuition that I trust, I knew how to guide the conversation with well-placed affirmations. It grew quiet for a while as she texted away on her phone, trying to contact friends in London and make some kind of arrangements. She was also involved in a text-argument with the person she stayed with. I found it funny, here I was, an audience to an argument about…what? Hell, if I knew. She read aloud both her responses, and the other person’s, and it sounded like a petty scrabble between teenage girls accusing each other of silly transgressions. I listened, and of course, I took her side. For all I knew, she was really the “crazy” one out of the two.
She kept telling me that God put me there to help her out, and that miracles really happened. Instead of talking about Nietzsche and the Norse Gods of the television show, Vikings, I participated in her worldview, and had a conversation about spirituality within her particular context. It was nice, but I was getting kind of tired of her thanking me and telling me how Graceful I was. So, I switched up the conversation and asked her about the Brexit and the UK leaving the EU. I was delighted when she that it was a good thing. She was disappointed in how her Government was busy supporting other people and ignoring their own, and how the new cheap labor pool of immigrants was affecting employment.
Eventually, after driving around the Airport (by Odin, I hate Airports), I got her to the International departures, and with a hug, and a “Walk with God,” she was on her way. Once I oriented myself westward, I plugged myself back into my Nietzsche course, and took the long way home. Somehow, the iPod had skipped a lecture or two, and I was in the middle of a discussion about the nature of Nietzsche’s vehement atheism. The lecturer quoted from the Gay Science, about the Parable of the Madman. I laughed when I heard it. I laughed, and thought, shit, Dude, I’m not sure that God, or any God, is dead…
“Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!"---As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?---Thus they yelled and laughed.”
“The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him---you and I. All of us are his murderers…”
Yeah, that’s funny. Really funny. I still dig you, Nietzsche, though. Life is tragedy, life is funny, and sometimes really absurd. Later that night, I finished watering the plants.