Every time I drive up to the grocery store on Arapahoe and Yosemite in our cookie cutter neighborhood shopping center, I see the same haggard older gentleman in the same trance. Dirty and grizzled he stands, mostly silent, with headphones on connected to a Walkman on his hip or in his hand. Depending on the season he wears varying numbers of layers including ripped jeans over purple sweatpants and invariably, the same gray hoodie. But whatever the season, he is always there. Always. This morning was bitterly cold and for some reason I buck what seems to be the sensible trend of sleeping in when you have a day off and headed over to the coffee shop next to the grocery store. By the way, I've been playing over five nights a week for several weeks now and do try and find the time to blog, even despite my now deformed and non-functional computer. I wish I could start dictating to computers while driving.
Anyway, my limited and what now seems like distant education in psychology tells me that this omni-present force in front of the grocery store has a mental illness which both by neccesity and comfort causes him to repeatedly dwell in the bustle of the store front.
My heart tears just a little every time I see this guy. I have a schizophrenic uncle and the confusion and ulitmate ambiguity of the illness is nothing less than heartbreaking. But I've seen this gentleman so many times now that I'm over my initial questions of if he will be OK in the long run. He'll be there. The repetition keeps him alive. I'm also determined to talk and be kind to this worn soul at some point. The only other existence I've ever observed like this was a veteran at Cafe du Monde in New Orleans who sat in the same chair every night drinking black coffee. I glanced over his shoulder one night and realized he was dwelling in the comfort of writing poetry about his experiences in the Korean War.
As humans I think we seek repetition and comfort, even if moving or living a nomadic life is the constant. I lived in the same house for 18 years before college and now am essentially living out of a suitcase. Except for the occasional existential breakdown, I enjoy this nomadic life as a musician. The kindness of others is something I depend on and it takes more creative effort to survive, but as some psychologists will tell you, it is the sedentary lifestyle we've adopted as Americans in the information age of screens and Twitter and HDTV which have led to inumberable physical and mental health problems.
In other words, human ancestors spent their ancient time thinking about how to eat, how to heat their home or make very basic ends meet. The great "acheivement" of humanity is introducing repetion, industrialization, so that we can spend limitless time thinking about our next Tweet, what happened on Desperate Housewives last night or even that sexy co-worker across the office. You're already getting the paycheck, heating the house, so why not?
But we have cancers resulting from processed foods, anxiety disorders as a result of having literally nothing to do with our time. We've become so comfortable that we are doing ourselves in. The worst part about it is that we now have all the time in the world to put a label on phenomena that were never seen as problems until very recently.
Children are restless and spent their evolutionary history picking berries or sewing garments, not sitting in classrooms for 8 hours a day. Let's call it ADD and make some cash by selling pills.
My girlfriend broke up with me. I'm sad so let's call it Depression and make some cash by selling pills.
Modern psychiatry is bullshit.
I'm a firm believer that human potential is absolute and manifests itself in different ways. Who knows what my man in front of the grocery store is thinking. His thoughts might be of profound insight or artistic depth, with no outlet for the flood of visions and observations in a society that will hardly look at him, much less listen. I do think if we lived in a world more like the ones our ancestors enjoyed, local food sources, small family oriented networks, we'd be happier.
Modern society isn't all bad. There's still football. And music.
Thank god for music, it's the best drug out there.
Frogs Gone Fishin' are mixing their second album with Brad Smalling in Evergroove Studio, due out in March on Mountain Size Records. Spring Tour starts in March and will go through the Midwest and South, culminating with Frog's yearly residency in New Orleans for the month of April.
