JUST SCREAM

From the COUNCIL-of-CONCERNED-CONSERVATIONISTS Handbook

Principle #22: JUST SCREAM

Providing commentary on Principle #22 is an anonymous member of the editorial staff. Oh hell—it’s really me, the Editor.

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It has been observed—though rarely by those in a position to do anything about it—that modern man has been quietly relieved of nearly every assurance that once held him in place. The old anchors—God, habit, custom, the expectation that things would more or less remain themselves—have been mislaid, or perhaps repossessed.

What remains is a curious condition: a man fully informed, thoroughly connected, and yet suspended—adrift in a universe he cannot quite interpret, reacting less with understanding than with a kind of low, sustained alarm.

Under such conditions, one must develop techniques.

This is one of them.

Screaming has worked for me for many years. Might as well fess up and share this positive piece of advice:

Bring your vehicle up to cruising speed as you enter the highway. Roll up the windows and make sure there are no passengers in the back seat. Now, take a deep breath, hold it for a second, and scream from the bottom of your lungs. Not too hard so that you don’t rasp your throat or pop another hernia or break a blood vessel in your brain. This is supposed to help, not cause further problems.

The positive effects will be immediate. That nagging doubt, the problem that constantly loops on the cassette track that is your inner dialogue will stop. Your confidence will be renewed and you will be prepared to face the current challenge to your composure. Think of it as an inoculation in a controlled environment against a full meltdown.

Screaming, when properly applied, is simply exhalation under honest conditions.

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It has been suggested—by traditions far older and, debatably, considerably calmer than our own—that breath itself is the organizing principle of the mind; that to govern the breath is, in some measure, to govern the self.

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One need not adopt our full program to observe the result. Even in our example—for instance—in a vehicle or on a mountain top, under less ceremonial conditions, the effect appears to hold.

That a procedure like just screaming—one so apparently irrational should produce such clarity may seem, at first glance, discouraging.

On further reflection, it may simply indicate that the conditions themselves are not entirely reasonable.

—John St. Evola, Editor

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Source code for this entry:

“Faith Hill, like Saraswati—the Hindu goddess of music and serene presence—embodies the same white stillness, now translated into country; a full circle, perhaps, as the Proto-Indo-Europeans themselves were herdsmen of the steppe—in other words, cowboys.” (Eugene Bodeswell, Council Ethnographer)

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Bonus Track

From the Personal Cassette of the Psyche, Prepared for Principle #22

JUST SCREAM

—A Lament to a Newborn

(adapted from “Breathe” as sung by Faith Hill)

Verse 1:

I can feel the tragic floating in the air,

Just 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 settle on the sleaze,

With the wailing of the car alarms.

The whole world seems to graze away,

And the only thing I hear

Is the bleating at Walmart.

Chorus:

’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,

Just scream.

Verse 2:

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—

Yeah, you know—

There’s a need to scream right now.

Chorus (repeat):

’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,

Just scream.

Outro:

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. . .

—Adapted by Black Cloud, (With apologies to songwriters, CHARLES AZNAVOUR, RICHARD BEMBERY, SEAN PAUL HENRIQUES, ALVIN JOYNER, MARSHALL B III MATHERS, and IVAN MATIAS)

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Filed Supplementary Note:

A parallel observation has been made regarding the modern condition—namely, that man, having been cut loose from his former certainties, finds himself in a state of interpretive and emotional freefall. A representative cultural analysis may be consulted here at the BBC:

What is the meaning of THE SCREAM

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