Running With The Bullshit
in Pamplona
There’s nothing like a spiffy metaphor, a way of dressing up an idea to give it meaning beyond what’s already evident. “Life is like a box of chocolates”! This is a spiffy metaphor, but, only if you’re an idiot. It’s a simple way of attempting to say something meaningful by reducing it to something simple. But, if you’re already simple-minded, like Forrest Gump, or all of the people that really liked that movie, it can sound like it’s fraught with deeper significance—and being fraught with anything is obviously a good thing.
Over the years I have sought metaphorical meaning in lots of things, for instance, as a guitarist, a well-played solo could be a reflection of the unconscious mind expressing some deeper significance with every cool lick played. Grimacing with my eyes shut tight becomes a visual and auditory metaphor, no doubt, reflecting the power of my inner thoughts and feelings. Boxing could be seen as metaphorically facing my own mortality, only with headgear, a mouthpiece, and 10 oz. gloves for protection. Playing jazz and improvising with a band is like democracy or chaos depending on whether the band sucks or not.
What is clear is that if you’re philosophically oriented you can find deeper significance in anything. Life becomes a metaphor for life, which is redundant, of course. But, even that can mean that you’re just too smart and sensitive for the world—not sensitive in a gay way, mind you, but in the alienated, James Dean kind of way. James Dean was gay though, so you might want to rethink that one. On the other hand, maybe you’re comfortable with a gay metaphor, which is, in itself, an expression of enlightenment. It’s good to have so many metaphorical ways to achieve personal validation.
It could be that the best metaphor of all is; “Life is like yesterday’s dinner circling the toilet and being flushed out to wherever our personal refuse is flushed.” It lacks poetry, but, it’s probably about as truthful as it gets.
And, then, there is the running with the bulls in Pamplona. This one stands alone, straddling the mountaintop of metaphorical action and thought. After all, running through the middle of the street with a dozen or so, thousand-pound missiles of deadly muscle, stacked with horns, pissed and ready to gore, trample and kill is a dandy metaphor. For what you say? For senselessly risking a pretty nasty death for a thrill because you’re so bored that you need to risk your life and everyone else’s as an expression of ennui? And then you ask, “What the hell is ennui”? Just watch the video that accompanies this article and you’ll see exactly what ennui looks like—in this instance, a couple of white-Americans, probably college educated, with a somewhat higher than average income. There is one older guy who looks like he could have been a guitar player with Patty Smith’s seminal punk band back in the late seventies. His self-consciously scraggly, longish hair and formidably challenged dental work suggests a fondness for 60’s style British-garage rock. He quotes Hemmingway, the patron-saint of expatriate American artists who suffer from excessive ennui. It’s a pretty good quote too, “The best thing in the world is to be shot at and missed."
There are conversations about holding the middle, meaning running straight down the center of the street with the bulls following close behind you. It becomes a case of “mind over matter.” The one guy says, “Every instinct tells you to get to the sides where the bulls are less likely to run you over.” That’s apparently where all the losers are, running and screaming, trying not to be killed by other losers running and screaming, to say nothing of the bulls who are probably thinking, “Who are these assholes, and why are we running down the middle of the street”?--all the while joyously goring and trampling everything in their path. Why? 'Cause that’s what bulls do! The bulls clearly do not suffer from ennui, only the people who are being pulverized into the pavement have this problem.
Over the years I have sought metaphorical meaning in lots of things, for instance, as a guitarist, a well-played solo could be a reflection of the unconscious mind expressing some deeper significance with every cool lick played. Grimacing with my eyes shut tight becomes a visual and auditory metaphor, no doubt, reflecting the power of my inner thoughts and feelings. Boxing could be seen as metaphorically facing my own mortality, only with headgear, a mouthpiece, and 10 oz. gloves for protection. Playing jazz and improvising with a band is like democracy or chaos depending on whether the band sucks or not.
What is clear is that if you’re philosophically oriented you can find deeper significance in anything. Life becomes a metaphor for life, which is redundant, of course. But, even that can mean that you’re just too smart and sensitive for the world—not sensitive in a gay way, mind you, but in the alienated, James Dean kind of way. James Dean was gay though, so you might want to rethink that one. On the other hand, maybe you’re comfortable with a gay metaphor, which is, in itself, an expression of enlightenment. It’s good to have so many metaphorical ways to achieve personal validation.
It could be that the best metaphor of all is; “Life is like yesterday’s dinner circling the toilet and being flushed out to wherever our personal refuse is flushed.” It lacks poetry, but, it’s probably about as truthful as it gets.
And, then, there is the running with the bulls in Pamplona. This one stands alone, straddling the mountaintop of metaphorical action and thought. After all, running through the middle of the street with a dozen or so, thousand-pound missiles of deadly muscle, stacked with horns, pissed and ready to gore, trample and kill is a dandy metaphor. For what you say? For senselessly risking a pretty nasty death for a thrill because you’re so bored that you need to risk your life and everyone else’s as an expression of ennui? And then you ask, “What the hell is ennui”? Just watch the video that accompanies this article and you’ll see exactly what ennui looks like—in this instance, a couple of white-Americans, probably college educated, with a somewhat higher than average income. There is one older guy who looks like he could have been a guitar player with Patty Smith’s seminal punk band back in the late seventies. His self-consciously scraggly, longish hair and formidably challenged dental work suggests a fondness for 60’s style British-garage rock. He quotes Hemmingway, the patron-saint of expatriate American artists who suffer from excessive ennui. It’s a pretty good quote too, “The best thing in the world is to be shot at and missed."
There are conversations about holding the middle, meaning running straight down the center of the street with the bulls following close behind you. It becomes a case of “mind over matter.” The one guy says, “Every instinct tells you to get to the sides where the bulls are less likely to run you over.” That’s apparently where all the losers are, running and screaming, trying not to be killed by other losers running and screaming, to say nothing of the bulls who are probably thinking, “Who are these assholes, and why are we running down the middle of the street”?--all the while joyously goring and trampling everything in their path. Why? 'Cause that’s what bulls do! The bulls clearly do not suffer from ennui, only the people who are being pulverized into the pavement have this problem.
Within a few hours, five people are dead and things are apparently just beginning. They talk about how the Spanish government is probably going to outlaw the whole thing (those oppressive bastards) thereby taking away their right to potentially kill themselves in a public display of intense soul searching—while demanding publicly-funded healthcare, of course. Let's face it, if you’re going to consciously tempt bulls to eviscerate you, you want to make sure that someone is picking up the tab for your lengthy hospital stay. Ennui can be very costly, especially when it’s being subsidized by the government. In fact, you can be sure that as soon as the government gets involved in subsidizing ennui, the amount of ennui will radically increase and rapidly become a big business. Ennui counselors will spring up to meet the rapidly growing demand of this new and thriving market.
There could be more efficient ways of achieving the same effect without ever seeing a bull. You could get together with some friends and run in the middle of rush-hour traffic. A three-thousand-pound vehicle doing fifty miles an hour can be a very effective substitute. You could walk into your local dive-bar, usually situated on the rough side of town, where you and your friends never go because it lacks ambience and pick a fight. It doesn’t get more primal than that. But it does lack a large group of like-minded folk who provide safety in numbers—meaning that you’re a lot less likely to experience a well-deserved hammering by a thoroughly pissed-off drunk with all the moral qualms that a bad childhood and a hard life provide. You see, he doesn’t suffer from ennui—that’s’ your problem. He’s just angry, but even he finds a kind of poetry in the blistering ass-whooping he’s about to bestow upon you. He sees it as leveling the playing field. Whatever life didn’t provide for him in terms of love, security and opportunity will be compensated for, not in any real way, but its close enough. That’s his metaphor.
All of the above lacks romance, however, and a romantic vision of one’s self provides the all-important sub-text in the search for meaning. The artist is never motivated by a quirk of biology, only selflessness and genius. Van Gogh wasn’t just a gifted loony, he was mad for love. Love of art, love of a woman—madness was the price he paid for his genius—and immortality was the big payoff. Of course, he died, but metaphorically he lives on through his art, even though his rotting, fetid corpse begs to differ. For the rest of us left behind it’s as close as we’ll get to an assurance of eternal life outside of religion.
Athletes and adrenaline junkies are perhaps the most honest of people when talking about the need for a good rush, which is what’s really happening. I assume that many of the men participating in the running with the bulls understand this. The thrill of competition and physical exertion releases endorphins that flood the body and brain creating a sense of wellbeing. That and the notion of having brushed close to death and survived are accomplishment enough.
Running with bulls could be seen as a way of having your body give you a high better than any drug on the market. The bulls, in this instance, provide the necessary stimulus. The possibility of death intensifies the moment, and the release of endorphins is all the greater.
Maybe Hemmingway was right. He used his gift as a writer to tell essentially the same story over and over again, only the background and characters changed. The “Old Man and the Sea”, “The Sun Also Rises,” gave voice to that indescribable longing for well-being, to be okay—leaving behind the message that we passed by, but are not really gone.
With the bulls, we tempt fate to kill us if it can, a big middle finger jutting upward, our zipper open, leaving a trail of life as we go. In the end, it may be nothing more than our biology that drives us, but it’s our minds that sift our lives and actions in the search for significance. And I’m inclined to believe that, if it were really nothing more than an accident of biology, or the need for adrenaline rush, no metaphor would be necessary.
Mark Magula
There could be more efficient ways of achieving the same effect without ever seeing a bull. You could get together with some friends and run in the middle of rush-hour traffic. A three-thousand-pound vehicle doing fifty miles an hour can be a very effective substitute. You could walk into your local dive-bar, usually situated on the rough side of town, where you and your friends never go because it lacks ambience and pick a fight. It doesn’t get more primal than that. But it does lack a large group of like-minded folk who provide safety in numbers—meaning that you’re a lot less likely to experience a well-deserved hammering by a thoroughly pissed-off drunk with all the moral qualms that a bad childhood and a hard life provide. You see, he doesn’t suffer from ennui—that’s’ your problem. He’s just angry, but even he finds a kind of poetry in the blistering ass-whooping he’s about to bestow upon you. He sees it as leveling the playing field. Whatever life didn’t provide for him in terms of love, security and opportunity will be compensated for, not in any real way, but its close enough. That’s his metaphor.
All of the above lacks romance, however, and a romantic vision of one’s self provides the all-important sub-text in the search for meaning. The artist is never motivated by a quirk of biology, only selflessness and genius. Van Gogh wasn’t just a gifted loony, he was mad for love. Love of art, love of a woman—madness was the price he paid for his genius—and immortality was the big payoff. Of course, he died, but metaphorically he lives on through his art, even though his rotting, fetid corpse begs to differ. For the rest of us left behind it’s as close as we’ll get to an assurance of eternal life outside of religion.
Athletes and adrenaline junkies are perhaps the most honest of people when talking about the need for a good rush, which is what’s really happening. I assume that many of the men participating in the running with the bulls understand this. The thrill of competition and physical exertion releases endorphins that flood the body and brain creating a sense of wellbeing. That and the notion of having brushed close to death and survived are accomplishment enough.
Running with bulls could be seen as a way of having your body give you a high better than any drug on the market. The bulls, in this instance, provide the necessary stimulus. The possibility of death intensifies the moment, and the release of endorphins is all the greater.
Maybe Hemmingway was right. He used his gift as a writer to tell essentially the same story over and over again, only the background and characters changed. The “Old Man and the Sea”, “The Sun Also Rises,” gave voice to that indescribable longing for well-being, to be okay—leaving behind the message that we passed by, but are not really gone.
With the bulls, we tempt fate to kill us if it can, a big middle finger jutting upward, our zipper open, leaving a trail of life as we go. In the end, it may be nothing more than our biology that drives us, but it’s our minds that sift our lives and actions in the search for significance. And I’m inclined to believe that, if it were really nothing more than an accident of biology, or the need for adrenaline rush, no metaphor would be necessary.
Mark Magula
|
|
|