A storm is actually coming. No, my elbow isn't acting up.
Then how do I know?
They say you can smell ozone before a storm.
Burning ozone from thousands of lightning strikes in the sky.
I can smell the ozone burning.
It whispers of immanence; a violence that curls my nostrils in terrified pleasure.
I can see the dark clouds swirling. I smile at their magnificent ferocity.
They are so quiet from here: my perch in the path of the storm.
I can feel the temperature drop. Small bumps on my skin fill the air where heat used to be.
The air is wet with the sobering cold sheets of rain. Waiting, waiting for me.
I can hear the rumble. It's in the clouds and in my stomach.
We hunger; me and the vaporous cinnamon swirls. They crave to devour and I to be devoured.
I can taste the electricity. It vibrates the air around me
with the intensity of a new father waiting for the screams of his first child to echo from the other room.
The moment is pregnant with the untold tale that will be told in due time. A brief story about my
death. And
birth.
A new birth from a violent death. A flash of lightning told in slow prose.
So slow it takes a year to tell the tale. A labor of months always hinting at a promise.
But never tells. A secret promise:
Petrichor.
A promise of new life so abundant that its obnoxious odor infects everything.
I will smell petrichor.
My nostrils will curl with delight.
I will see petrichor.
I will gaze on swirling mists around my ankles.
I will feel petrichor.
The warm humidity will refresh my rain-battered skin.
I will hear petrichor.
The hymns of satiation from the living all around me.
I will taste petrichor.
An airborne tonic inhaled by the tongue.
People call petrichor an ending; a climax; an aftermath.
I will know otherwise:
Petrichor is not a resolution, but a commencement.
Friday, August 8, 2014
winterize my life
When I was young we had a pool. In the late autumn, after all the leaves had changed from glorious paint strokes to interactive carpet fibers, we had to winterize the pool. The pool had to be drained below the filter. The lines had to be flushed out. The surface of the pool was skimmed and the bottom of the pool was vacuumed. Finally, we put special chemicals in the water to protect from algae and covered the pool with enormous, unruly plastic blanket. It was long, arduous work that took several days, which is like an eternity of freedom lost for a 10-year-old.
I remember that my dad had a checklist, and we had to do every single item on the list. Most of it involved running around to fetch him tools or pulling the hose over. Unfolding the pool cover always involved a lot of yelling and flipping and swearing. The whole time, a sense of urgency and the necessity of accuracy was hanging in the air like an oppressive odor. If we did something wrong, the pool would break. And if our error didn't break the pool, it would always surprise us with some job in the spring that was long and horrible and even worse than the task of winterizing.
Like the one year that we didn't clean up all the BBs from the bottom of the pool before putting the cover on. When we pulled the cover off in the spring, the bottom was covered in little rust spots. We had to dive down for 10 seconds at a time (in the cold spring water) with toothbrushes and slowly scrape the rust off the liner. It was horrible.
In a couple days, I will do something really crazy and radical. I'm going to extract myself from everything that is familiar, and will plant myself in a world where even the rules are foreign to me.
And this is actually very hard to do.
The world has gotten used to having me as a link in a chain, and there will be times in the coming year where that chain will pull, expecting me to be there. So I have had to start anticipating all the times that the chain will pull, in order to let the links around me know to link up in my absence.
I need to unsubscribe from all the different sites that send me email. I have to let people know. I have to figure out my insurance and loans. I have to find out ways to contact people ahead of time. I have to turn off my cell phone. And I have to put away my books, fold up my clothes, and pack a very small bag to sustain me for the year. The process has involved a lot of running around and mostly a lot of yelling about things not being set up properly.
And if I do these things incorrectly there will be consequences. It could harm my experience next year by drawing me out of it. Or if I make it through without breaking, there could be things that need attention when I return that could have been avoided if I had just finished the job now.
It occurred to me last week that, in a very real way, I am attempting to winterize my life.
I remember that my dad had a checklist, and we had to do every single item on the list. Most of it involved running around to fetch him tools or pulling the hose over. Unfolding the pool cover always involved a lot of yelling and flipping and swearing. The whole time, a sense of urgency and the necessity of accuracy was hanging in the air like an oppressive odor. If we did something wrong, the pool would break. And if our error didn't break the pool, it would always surprise us with some job in the spring that was long and horrible and even worse than the task of winterizing.
Like the one year that we didn't clean up all the BBs from the bottom of the pool before putting the cover on. When we pulled the cover off in the spring, the bottom was covered in little rust spots. We had to dive down for 10 seconds at a time (in the cold spring water) with toothbrushes and slowly scrape the rust off the liner. It was horrible.
In a couple days, I will do something really crazy and radical. I'm going to extract myself from everything that is familiar, and will plant myself in a world where even the rules are foreign to me.
And this is actually very hard to do.
The world has gotten used to having me as a link in a chain, and there will be times in the coming year where that chain will pull, expecting me to be there. So I have had to start anticipating all the times that the chain will pull, in order to let the links around me know to link up in my absence.
I need to unsubscribe from all the different sites that send me email. I have to let people know. I have to figure out my insurance and loans. I have to find out ways to contact people ahead of time. I have to turn off my cell phone. And I have to put away my books, fold up my clothes, and pack a very small bag to sustain me for the year. The process has involved a lot of running around and mostly a lot of yelling about things not being set up properly.
And if I do these things incorrectly there will be consequences. It could harm my experience next year by drawing me out of it. Or if I make it through without breaking, there could be things that need attention when I return that could have been avoided if I had just finished the job now.
It occurred to me last week that, in a very real way, I am attempting to winterize my life.
Monday, August 4, 2014
24 hour Champagne diet
What would you give a young man about to embrace a life of poverty so extreme that he's closed his bank account and forsaken all forms of monetary wealth?
A prayer card? A rosary? Some stationary? Maybe deodorant? Certainly something useful that he'll have more than 6 days to use. Like pretty much anything else besides money.
Well, several people disagree with you, and saw fit to generously bestow their wealth upon my wallet. A week before I enter the monastic setting of the novitiate and I am living with an unprecedented amount of highly disposable income. I didn't even know that money came in increments of $50! But apparently it does, and we even saw fit to put one of our nation's worst presidents on the bill.
So tonight, for one night only, I decided that I would be rich. I picked up my friend Alex, and we went downtown for a fancy dinner and an evening on the town.
We walked into the first restaurant and moments later walked out. Greenville, I know I said fancy, but that was too fancy. We settled on a nice place on a terrace over Falls Park, drank luxurious cocktails, and had meals with French names that I couldn't pronounce.
Thankfully, the riches couldn't invade our conversation, and we enjoyed one anothers' company like old times. The conversation danced from future plans to mind palaces to poly-amorous relationships. Our dialogue yielded delicious new phrases like "the Justin Bieber Revolt of 2014" and insightful anecdotes like "college was the shortest eternity that I have ever lived through."
But the best part of my day with Money to Burn wasn't the out-of-the-ordinary situation of sitting on a terrace nursing a well-made drink, but was instead the end of the night when we sat on a rocky ledge above the falls and joked about embarrassing stories and mused on future ones.
I'm just not cut out for the Rich Lyfe.
the Pretensions of a Poet
I open my eyes to the warm touch of the suns rays, crepuscular through the blinds of my room.
"OHMYGAWD SHUT UP" I think softly; my humble greeting to the celestial lord.
Turning over to face the dead white wall, I remark to the inside of my head that the sun is like an annoying younger sibling who just can't wait any longer and needs you to get out of bed so the playday can begin. A long grumble and an angry throwing back of the sheets is my consent.
The sun: nefarious foil to the sacrosanct Progress of sleep.
What happens next I most certainly brought upon myself.
A shower would do me some good, I thought. So I grabbed the towel and dragged it through the hall.
A Wild Sister appears.
And she's ornery. Standing in the bathroom next to the mirror drawing on her face with a pencil. So I got my face as close to hers as possible and generously shared my halitosis with her and the now fogging mirror.
But she's the smart one, so I was in for real trouble. Without skipping a beat she began retelling a story from a few months ago that we had decided was better left between the two of us. It involved a car and some lights and a responsible interaction with a man of the law. She began at a very hushed pace, slowly embracing a crescendo that would soon bring the story to the ears of those who would be better off ignorant.
I had one discourse, and I seized it. I began playing some smooth jazz on the Stomach Drum, and yelled a haunting hymn like Yoko Ono at an art show.
Oh, the eye roll was glorious.
The story ceased and the pencil went back in the bag. She stormed to the door (me still playing my Ono tribute), turned around, and shouted "that's not how adults handle their problems!"
I ran to the door and yelled down the stairs, "HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?!" and slammed the door.
Family is the seedbed of all life.
"Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world."
"Prayer is the inner bath of love into which the soul purges itself."
Percy Blysshe Shelley and John Marie Vianney. Two men I admire greatly. One was a Poet, and the other was a Poet. One lived a Romantic life, while the other lived a Romantic life. However, one understood things as they are, and the other struggled against them. Though both lived and breathed Poetry, only one of them understood what it actually was.
Today we remember them both. One of them was born today, and the other died today. To be honest, I'd rather be the kind of person that is remembered on the day of his death rather than the day of his birth.
"Poetry is a mirror that makes beautiful that which was distorted."
"Prayer is to our soul what rain is to the soil. Fertilize the soil ever so richly, it will remain barren unless fed by frequent rains."
"OHMYGAWD SHUT UP" I think softly; my humble greeting to the celestial lord.
Turning over to face the dead white wall, I remark to the inside of my head that the sun is like an annoying younger sibling who just can't wait any longer and needs you to get out of bed so the playday can begin. A long grumble and an angry throwing back of the sheets is my consent.
The sun: nefarious foil to the sacrosanct Progress of sleep.
What happens next I most certainly brought upon myself.
A shower would do me some good, I thought. So I grabbed the towel and dragged it through the hall.
A Wild Sister appears.
And she's ornery. Standing in the bathroom next to the mirror drawing on her face with a pencil. So I got my face as close to hers as possible and generously shared my halitosis with her and the now fogging mirror.
But she's the smart one, so I was in for real trouble. Without skipping a beat she began retelling a story from a few months ago that we had decided was better left between the two of us. It involved a car and some lights and a responsible interaction with a man of the law. She began at a very hushed pace, slowly embracing a crescendo that would soon bring the story to the ears of those who would be better off ignorant.
I had one discourse, and I seized it. I began playing some smooth jazz on the Stomach Drum, and yelled a haunting hymn like Yoko Ono at an art show.
Oh, the eye roll was glorious.
The story ceased and the pencil went back in the bag. She stormed to the door (me still playing my Ono tribute), turned around, and shouted "that's not how adults handle their problems!"
I ran to the door and yelled down the stairs, "HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?!" and slammed the door.
Family is the seedbed of all life.
"Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world."
"Prayer is the inner bath of love into which the soul purges itself."
Percy Blysshe Shelley and John Marie Vianney. Two men I admire greatly. One was a Poet, and the other was a Poet. One lived a Romantic life, while the other lived a Romantic life. However, one understood things as they are, and the other struggled against them. Though both lived and breathed Poetry, only one of them understood what it actually was.
Today we remember them both. One of them was born today, and the other died today. To be honest, I'd rather be the kind of person that is remembered on the day of his death rather than the day of his birth.
"Poetry is a mirror that makes beautiful that which was distorted."
"Prayer is to our soul what rain is to the soil. Fertilize the soil ever so richly, it will remain barren unless fed by frequent rains."
Sunday, August 3, 2014
Snapshots
Two passengers jostled left and right as leaves whipped their fingers. The Gator bumped up and down through the trees. The path twisted towards the sound of rushing water. Soon, the trail touched the river, and the Gator slowed down so the passengers could enjoy the sights and sounds of the rapids. A great deal of water rushed around rocks only to crash into other rocks with terrifying force.
Years before, some fine individual realized the aesthetic beauty of the spot and placed a small wooden chair next to the flowing water. The shoots from the bushes and weeds had twisted up around the legs, making the chair look as if it grew from the earth.
Satisfied, the vehicle turned and plunged into the trees. The skilled driver navigated a well-known course that had little room for error; one wrong move could throw us from the narrow path into the dense brush.
We reached the crest of a hill and shot out of the trees into an open clearing. The Gator slid to an abrupt stop. The faces of some 30 deer looked out at us from all across the field. Neither they nor we could move. We all just froze in stunned silence at the unexpected company. They looked at us with enormous round eyes while their wet noses pulsated in the effort to understand us. Every ear was turned in our direction.
One white tail went up, and then the rest followed. A stampede! 30 deer scrambling at once, crashing around one another as each hastily picked their own line into the trees.
Within moments they were all gone, and we sat alone in the field. It was a sunflower field. The sun was going down beyond the distant hill, painting different parts of the lazy clouds in different lazy shades of pink and purple. The sky burned orange behind it, the color of a ripe grapefruit. The sunflowers had already begun turning their heads downward for the evening, seeming to hum a song of sorrow at the departure of their namesake. Crickets already claimed the stage and sang a chorus from the trees. The air was positively electric.
The Gator sprang to life again, and this time the gas pedal was pressed to the floor. The vehicle raced around the perimeter of the clearing and the top speed was reached. We could barely keep our eyes open because the wind was so tremendously violent. I couldn't smile (despite my impulse to grin and even scream out in approval) because the groups of tiny flies and mosquitoes collided with our faces at an alarming rate.
The freedom of the moment was unreal. We decided to head home, darting back into the forest having changed a little. For some reason we were suddenly more ourselves than when we began our joyride.
Why it is that we thought to recreate this trip several hours later will never make sense to me. Such is the nature of alcohol.
For some reason, three of us found ourselves running through the dense blackness to our off-road craft. We buckled in, turned on the headlights, and pulled into the trees once more.
On our way to the clearing, we stopped by the rapids and got out for a moment. Inebriated playfulness took command, and I darted off into the blackness. I crashed through the brush, and stopped behind a large trunk. I listened for my companions.
Victoria discovered my absence first. Then they began calling out for me. I put my hand to my mouth to keep the laughter from becoming too audible. My intention was to wait for their search to pass my tree so I could jump out and scare them.
But they didn't come. They wandered around the Gator with their cellphone flashlights wildly dashing about them. Suddenly, the Gator started and they sped off into the forest. I watched as the headlights disappeared into the trees. I was swallowed in total blackness.
Shit.
Why did they leave? Surely they'll come back! Right? RIGHT?! My mind tried to race for answers, but everything was working slower with the buzz of Belgian Beer about my mind.
After a few minutes, it occurred to me that I didn't even know where the path was. But, remembering that the path meets the river, I decided to walk in the direction of the roaring water. It was slow progress with my hands out to protect me from smashing my face into a tree, but eventually I arrived at the water. Through the darkness out could barely make out the white, frothy foam of the rapids beneath me.
In this moment, I had two separate and vivid thoughts: #1 am I going to die here? and #2 yes, the wolves will get me. I don't even know if wolves prowl that stretch of South Carolina wilderness. It didn't really matter; at that moment I was suddenly sure that they did and that they would be here immanently.
At that moment, I heard the sounds of the Gator. Off in the distance, I could barely make out the headlights through the trees. They were on some other path looking for me. I yelled in their direction, despite my certainty that doing so would definitely attract the wolves, but the rapids ate my words instead of letting them roam free amongst the leaves and bark and South Carolina red clay.
I began pacing back and forth to weigh my options. I didn't have my cell phone so I couldn't call for help. I couldn't walk back because I couldn't find the path without light. All I could do was wait to be found, or wait for the morning to find my way back. At that moment, I stumbled into the chair I saw earlier. Relieved, I remembered that the chair was on the path, so if anyone came by they would definitely see me. I plopped down into the soft and wet wooden throne, and laid my head against the back of the chair.
At this moment I saw the stars for the first time. Thousands of them peaking through every little hole in the canopy of the forest. And each one told me to be quiet and rest. This moment, a just climax to my own colossal stupidity, was a gift. The forest whispered in my ear and told me it loved me, and it wanted me to sit there and bask in its beauty.
So I sat in the chair and listened to the water beat at the rocks for 25 minutes. I decided that if they didn't find me I'd simply sleep in this wooden throne. And I almost dozed off, before the Gator twisted around a curve and happened upon me.
I sighed, got up from my chair, thanked the forest for the intimate time we shared, and climbed into the Gator. "No more shenanigans tonight," I said to myself quietly as we pulled away into the trees and back toward the house.
Friday, August 1, 2014
the East Wind is coming
Sherlock Holmes identifies himself as a High Functioning Sociopath.
Preston McAfee, a brilliant mathematician and economist, took the liberty of profiling a HFS for me:
-a HFS exhudes superficial charm.
-a HFS has a grandiose sense of self.
-a HFS lies pathologically.
-a HFS feigns emotion to meet the need of the present circumstance.
-a HFS has an incapacity for love.
-a HFS is impulsive and has a deep need for stimulation.
-a HFS is unreliable.
-a HFS readily changes their life story as is needed.
Challenge: prove why it is that you identify yourself closely with Sherlock Holmes.
Challenge accepted, my good friend.
This list is daunting. Imagine yourself identifying with it, for a moment.
(I imagine you can't)
Don't worry, it's completely normal if you fail to identify with this profile. Personally, I have never paused to consider myself completely normal. Never (I believe not even once) have I thought to project my own experience on the general public, assuming that my experience is "universal" in any way.
However, I have done my best to identify what is normal. In conversation, I have attempted to make my own thoughts appear similar to others, in an attempt to have ease of communication.
Don't think for a second that I've assumed my thoughts actually parallel to the "normal human experience".
Which is partially why, for some reason, this list hits uncomfortably close to home.
Uncomfortably.
Sherlock Holmes is a HFS. But here's the problem: according to Preston McAfee, he doesn't fit. How so? Don't trouble yourself; I've already pointed it out to you. Sherlock obviously has a capacity for love.
Back up. The proper place to start? "Josh, how would you define Sherlock?"
Now we're asking the right questions.
Sherlock is a HFS that is a bit more human than he anticipated. He matches the profile of a HFS in all ways but the important one: Sherlock can love.
This should be a shock to no one. WEREN'T YOU PAYING ATTENTION?! Sherlock obviously loves. His life is not a coolly calculated game. It is a confusing game of love. A game so complex that only rarely is he forced to reveal his entire hand. And that shocking, revealing card? Always an admission of love.
Sherlock loves. It's painfully obvious, isn't it? Sherlock loves. Mycroft belittles him for it. Moriarty realizes that the only way to beat Sherlock is to threaten the people he loves. Of all the possible things that Magnussen locks onto as a pressure point, it's the people that Sherlock loves that causes any real concern for the consulting detective.
Sherlock's weakness is people. Consistently. Predictably. But not just people; it's the people he loves.
So my definition of Sherlock? A HFS that has the capacity for love, and whose intellect is properly utilized via a Memory Palace.
Ah, the memory palace. Thus far, inaccessible to me. Originally attributed to a Roman Poet (of course), it is known as the Method of Loci. In other words, you store memories in specific mental locations so they are more readily accessible.
(Sounds an awful lot like the Interior Castle, don't you think?)
Not for lack of trying, the "mind palace" has thus far proved inaccessible. I have tried and tried (for literally more than a decade) and have been incapable of producing such a rich mental field of memory.
No bother. It will come.
But imagine, for a second, a HFS without a mind palace. Thoughts occur rapidly: constant reactions to constant stimuli. Without a mind palace to store them, imagine how a high functioning sociopath would react.
A situation begins. Thoughts immediately and continually occur in the mind. They swim around anxiously, but without a proper place to go (like, perhaps into a mind palace), they simply fester in density and chaos.
Suddenly, a question is asked. The situation calls for a response. Without a mind palace to quickly and concisely search for the most proper (read: most genuine) response, the swirling cloud spits back the things that most resemble the prompt.
This is, in the clearest manner, how I would describe my brain in a social situation. Swirling thoughts cloud the present consciousness, and rather than choosing a calculated response, most often a response is returned that simply resembles the tone, the identified hoped-for response, and/or the original purpose of the question asked.
It is not an exchange of character, but rather a reactionary response of likeness.
And it tends to work (superficial charm).
But Sherlock loves, and there's my hope. This whole meaningless system of knowledge has an axis: the love he experiences towards those closest to him. Thus, his HFSness is, first and foremost, human. Human in a basic and beautiful way. He doesn't lack love; instead, love is the very thing that he rotates around. Love is his weakness (read: his strength).
It is for me as well. Now, I lack a mind palace. The method of loci is lost on me. However, love is still the most obvious and identifiable catalyst I can identify for most of my actions. So much so that the whole concept of love terrifies me.
I am afraid to use love in normal conversation, because it seems much too big to simply parallel a prompt. In fact, the ONLY place that I will (reasonably) apply the word "love" is in my prayers. In those times when I know that the word simply cannot be too big, I'll use it to express genuine feeling. It is the card closely guarded, just as it is with Sherlock.
So, even though the Method of Loci has been fruitless in my own life, the Method of Foci has been largely successful.
And the Foci is, undeniably, love.
So yes, profile the high functioning sociopath. It will bear a striking, shocking, and downright unsettling resemblance to my inner life.
But, like Sherlock, I am set apart by love. And so are many great saints. Living saints. The kind that are currently moving this world a little closer to its telos. The kind of people that will bring about the Kingdom Proclaimed.
"Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared."
-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, His Last Bow (the last appearance [chornologically] of Sherlock Holmes), set in September 1914.
Preston McAfee, a brilliant mathematician and economist, took the liberty of profiling a HFS for me:
-a HFS exhudes superficial charm.
-a HFS has a grandiose sense of self.
-a HFS lies pathologically.
-a HFS feigns emotion to meet the need of the present circumstance.
-a HFS has an incapacity for love.
-a HFS is impulsive and has a deep need for stimulation.
-a HFS is unreliable.
-a HFS readily changes their life story as is needed.
Challenge: prove why it is that you identify yourself closely with Sherlock Holmes.
Challenge accepted, my good friend.
This list is daunting. Imagine yourself identifying with it, for a moment.
(I imagine you can't)
Don't worry, it's completely normal if you fail to identify with this profile. Personally, I have never paused to consider myself completely normal. Never (I believe not even once) have I thought to project my own experience on the general public, assuming that my experience is "universal" in any way.
However, I have done my best to identify what is normal. In conversation, I have attempted to make my own thoughts appear similar to others, in an attempt to have ease of communication.
Don't think for a second that I've assumed my thoughts actually parallel to the "normal human experience".
Which is partially why, for some reason, this list hits uncomfortably close to home.
Uncomfortably.
Sherlock Holmes is a HFS. But here's the problem: according to Preston McAfee, he doesn't fit. How so? Don't trouble yourself; I've already pointed it out to you. Sherlock obviously has a capacity for love.
Back up. The proper place to start? "Josh, how would you define Sherlock?"
Now we're asking the right questions.
Sherlock is a HFS that is a bit more human than he anticipated. He matches the profile of a HFS in all ways but the important one: Sherlock can love.
This should be a shock to no one. WEREN'T YOU PAYING ATTENTION?! Sherlock obviously loves. His life is not a coolly calculated game. It is a confusing game of love. A game so complex that only rarely is he forced to reveal his entire hand. And that shocking, revealing card? Always an admission of love.
Sherlock loves. It's painfully obvious, isn't it? Sherlock loves. Mycroft belittles him for it. Moriarty realizes that the only way to beat Sherlock is to threaten the people he loves. Of all the possible things that Magnussen locks onto as a pressure point, it's the people that Sherlock loves that causes any real concern for the consulting detective.
Sherlock's weakness is people. Consistently. Predictably. But not just people; it's the people he loves.
So my definition of Sherlock? A HFS that has the capacity for love, and whose intellect is properly utilized via a Memory Palace.
Ah, the memory palace. Thus far, inaccessible to me. Originally attributed to a Roman Poet (of course), it is known as the Method of Loci. In other words, you store memories in specific mental locations so they are more readily accessible.
(Sounds an awful lot like the Interior Castle, don't you think?)
Not for lack of trying, the "mind palace" has thus far proved inaccessible. I have tried and tried (for literally more than a decade) and have been incapable of producing such a rich mental field of memory.
No bother. It will come.
But imagine, for a second, a HFS without a mind palace. Thoughts occur rapidly: constant reactions to constant stimuli. Without a mind palace to store them, imagine how a high functioning sociopath would react.
A situation begins. Thoughts immediately and continually occur in the mind. They swim around anxiously, but without a proper place to go (like, perhaps into a mind palace), they simply fester in density and chaos.
Suddenly, a question is asked. The situation calls for a response. Without a mind palace to quickly and concisely search for the most proper (read: most genuine) response, the swirling cloud spits back the things that most resemble the prompt.
This is, in the clearest manner, how I would describe my brain in a social situation. Swirling thoughts cloud the present consciousness, and rather than choosing a calculated response, most often a response is returned that simply resembles the tone, the identified hoped-for response, and/or the original purpose of the question asked.
It is not an exchange of character, but rather a reactionary response of likeness.
And it tends to work (superficial charm).
But Sherlock loves, and there's my hope. This whole meaningless system of knowledge has an axis: the love he experiences towards those closest to him. Thus, his HFSness is, first and foremost, human. Human in a basic and beautiful way. He doesn't lack love; instead, love is the very thing that he rotates around. Love is his weakness (read: his strength).
It is for me as well. Now, I lack a mind palace. The method of loci is lost on me. However, love is still the most obvious and identifiable catalyst I can identify for most of my actions. So much so that the whole concept of love terrifies me.
I am afraid to use love in normal conversation, because it seems much too big to simply parallel a prompt. In fact, the ONLY place that I will (reasonably) apply the word "love" is in my prayers. In those times when I know that the word simply cannot be too big, I'll use it to express genuine feeling. It is the card closely guarded, just as it is with Sherlock.
So, even though the Method of Loci has been fruitless in my own life, the Method of Foci has been largely successful.
And the Foci is, undeniably, love.
So yes, profile the high functioning sociopath. It will bear a striking, shocking, and downright unsettling resemblance to my inner life.
But, like Sherlock, I am set apart by love. And so are many great saints. Living saints. The kind that are currently moving this world a little closer to its telos. The kind of people that will bring about the Kingdom Proclaimed.
"Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared."
-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, His Last Bow (the last appearance [chornologically] of Sherlock Holmes), set in September 1914.
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