FIELD NOTES FROM THE ADDICTION CIRCLE

Location: The Gist and Tangent Pub (Back Room)

Session Title: “Equally Addicted: A Round Table on Compulsive Egalitarianism”

Moderator: Paige Turner, sub-sub librarian (observing silently)

Observers: John St. Evola, Sam Loudermilk

Council Cohort: Ethics of the Irreconcilable

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PARTICIPANTS:

Karl (Marx) – wearing a woolen waistcoat and fingerless gloves

Jean-Jacques (Rousseau) – barefoot, holding a chipped mug of herbal tea Ursula (K. Le Guin) – cloaked in ethically-sourced linen, with a hand-carved staff

John (Lennon) – in sunglasses indoors, finger-paint on his jeans

Emma (Goldman) – filing her nails with an anarchist pamphlet

Oscar (Wilde) – draped in velvet, sipping from an equal-opportunity chalice

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KARL:

Hi. My name is Karl, and I haven’t believed in hierarchies since 1844.

(collective nods, murmurs of “Hi Karl.”)

I tried to quit. I really did. But every time I see a boss, I just want to nationalize him. Even my dog has to share his chew toys. My conscience redistributes them nightly.

ROUSSEAU:

Brother, I weep. I tried living in the woods to escape the chains of civilization, but then I realized I was expecting the squirrels to abide by democratic nut distribution. Even they staged a counter-revolution.

URSULA:

There is a Tao in equality. I keep writing thought experiments where power structures dissolve, and everyone shares kitchen duty… but the dishes keep piling up. I dream of hierarchy and wake up ashamed.

JOHN (LENNON):

Imagine no possessions… I can’t stop imagining it. It’s ruining my estate planning.

EMMA:

I once slapped a man for insisting on paying the check. It was a reflex. I screamed “NO MASTERS” and kicked over the fondue set.

OSCAR:

Equality is a dreadful addiction. I once refused a velvet rope at the opera. I wanted everyone to come backstage. Even the critics.

SAM LOUDERMILK (whispering to John St. Evola):

You know what this is?

This is like a twelve-step program that skips the first step: admitting that some people are just better at walking.

JOHN ST. EVOLA (nodding solemnly):

Yes. And yet they all suffer from the same affliction: mistaking symmetry for justice, and the unnatural for the good.

(pauses, watching Rousseau pass around the “sharing stick”)

That man once abandoned his own children. Now he’s preaching nursery-level communism to a roomful of sentimental aristocrats.

SAM:

At least Emma’s honest. You see the way she stabbed the fondue pot? That was real class warfare.

URSULA (closing her eyes):

I just want to believe that no one’s above another. That even the stars don’t shine more than their neighbors.

(She begins to hum a minor key lullaby called “The Ballad of Equal Footing.”)

OSCAR:

But some of us sparkle, darling. Some of us must.

NOTES (Filed by Paige Turner):

Session terminated early due to spontaneous conga line of collective guilt. John St. Evola later cited this meeting in his lecture, “On the Tyranny of Sameness: Why Gravity Itself Discriminates.” Sam Loudermilk requested hazard pay for emotional exposure.