From the Council-of-Concerned-Conservationists Handbook

Principle #22: Emergency Measures & Preventive Exhalations

Filed by: J.St.E., Editor-in-Existential-Residence

Editor’s Preface:

In these increasingly ungovernable times, the Council reminds its members that sometimes the best conservation method—is a controlled detonation of one’s own composure.

Principle #22: JUST SCREAM.

Commentary provided by an anonymous member of the editorial staff.

(Oh hell, it’s really me, the Editor.)

At the Council, we pride ourselves on restraint, contemplation. But every so often, Principle #22 kicks in. And here it is: JUST SCREAM.

Screaming has worked for me for years. It’s free, mostly legal, and doesn’t involve any additional paperwork. Might as well fess up and share this positively unhinged—but effective—piece of advice:

“Bring your vehicle up to cruising speed as you enter the highway. Roll up the windows. Make sure there are no passengers in the back seat—human, canine, or metaphorical. Take a deep breath, hold it for a second, and scream from the bottom of your lungs.

Not too hard, though. No need to pop another hernia, rupture a vessel, or rasp your throat into post-verbal territory. This is meant to help, not harm.

The positive effects will be immediate. That nagging, cassette-loop inner dialogue will cut out. Your confidence will return. You’ll face the day’s absurdities with restored composure.

Think of it as an inoculation—administered in a controlled environment—against a full psychological meltdown.

Screaming is just another way of exhaling.”

—J.St.E.

Bonus Track: From the Personal Cassette of the Psyche

JUST SCREAM: A Lament to a Newborn

(adapted and performed in the key of postmodern sorrow and Metamodern realization from a song by Faith Hill)

Recorded Live at the Gist & Tangent Pub Open Mic Night

Backing band: The Existentials

🎶I can feel the tragic floating in the air

Being today gets me that way

I feel the grimace dance across my face and I’ve

Never been this sad, I’d say.

All my thoughts just seem to settle on the sleaze

With the wailing of the car alarms.

The whole world just seems to graze away

The only thing I hear…

Is the bleating at Walmart.

’Cause I just want to scream

It’s washing over me

Suddenly I’m boiling in the stew

There’s nothing left to prove

Baby all we need is just to be,

Free from all the rush

The slow and steady crush.

Baby, this is not the way that life’s supposed to be.

I just want to scream,

So scream.

In a way I know the world is breaking up,

As all the walls come tumbling down.

I’m lower than I’ve ever felt before.

And I know,

And you know,

There’s a need to scream right now.

’Cause I just want to scream.

It’s burning into me.

Like Munch, I’m melting into goo.

There’s nothing left to prove.

Baby all we need is just to scream.

We all have lost so much.

This mad and frantic rush,

Baby, this is not the way that life’s supposed to be.

I just want to scream,

Go on and scream.

We all have lost so much,

This slow and steady mush.

Baby, this is not the way that life’s supposed to be.

I just want to scream,

Just scream.

I can feel the tragic floating in the air…

Being today gets me that way…

(With apologies to CHARLES AZNAVOUR, RICHARD BEMBERY, SEAN PAUL HENRIQUES, ALVIN JOYNER, MARSHALL B III MATHERS, and IVAN MATIAS, and anyone else within hearing distance.)

Interpretive Note from the Editorial Archive

Via the BBC’s commentary on The Scream:

“It presents man cut loose from all the certainties that had comforted him… there is no God now, no tradition, no habits or customs—just poor man in a moment of existential crisis, facing a universe he doesn’t understand and can only relate to in a feeling of panic.”

This is not a denial of modernity, dear reader.

It is a response to it.

Council Reminder:

If you must fall apart, do it like a gentleman.

Inside your car.

With the windows up.

And the radio tuned to something honest.