this is not an exit

An Examination of the Author's Nymph(omania), or Big Time Sensuality, or again, On Why Thomas Aquinas College is a Fishbowl

‘. . . two charming nymphs fed me at their breasts, Drunkenness, daughter of Bacchus, and Ignorance, daughter of Pan.’ — Erasmus, The Praise of Folly

. . . . .

I

If one were to follow the development of my intellectual existence from infancy—that is, from the age of fifteen, when I was first introduced to the life of the mind through 'The Old Man and the Sea' and Calvin’s doctrine of predestination—up to and across the threshold of my current nihilism, then, he would necessarily take into account the eminently non-rational forces of Bacchus, Pan, and chiefly, their respective children. For the god of wine and the god of priapism have, from time to time in the past few years, felt it necessary to honor me with the company of their offspring. This is, and I readily confess it, a somewhat euphemistic way of saying that I myself have, from time to time, both invited and enjoyed the company of strong drink and of passion, but I indulge in mythologizing for precisely the same reason that mankind has always done so: I cannot help but think that, at least in some small and certain manner, my Drunkenness and my Ignorance are not entirely my own fault. You may deem it an experiment in Barthian ‘mythotherapy,’ where ‘the same life lends itself to any number of stories—parallel, concentric, mutually habitant, or what you will’ (The End of the Road), for my intellectual life—the life of responsibility and supposed free choice—and the life I feel as though I am not leading—my mythological, nay, my Greek life—are indeed the same life. I have, in other words, the unfortunate experience of both desiring and being desired—I am consumer and consumed; and though I ‘hang on [Drunkenness] as though increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on’ (Hamlet), I know that my ‘purple-stainéd mouth’ (Ode to a Nightingale) will never thirst for her as she thirsts for me.

It is she of whom I wish to write. I shall not disclose the more risqué and doubtlessly more interesting escapades of Pan. And his daughter, Ignorance, will interest me only in a broad and de-sexualized sense. For I was ignorant, hopelessly ignorant, when I entered as a freshman at Thomas Aquinas College. And it is within the intellectual and pastoral bounds of this supposed Arcadia that I seek the primal origins of my mythological Drunkenness, the zero-point in my slow loss of freedom.

II

It remains, then, to question if there were precursors. Were there within me certain habits or desires that could be reasonably understood as prefigurements of Drunkenness? Or, did I possess by nature a propensity toward serving her; was I born into necessary abuse—is wine as thick as blood, and are they one? As to the latter questions, there is, sadly, a history of alcoholism in my family. I am, after all, Irish. And for the former question, I believe it to be reasonable to compare my seemingly lifelong melancholia with my recent infatuation with strong drink. For despair and drunkenness are, for anyone who has experience of both, similar addictions. I conceive of them as not only symptoms, but also as the very substance, of an extreme and focused ‘interiority.’ That is, they cut one off from other men and leave one primarily to the company of oneself; and when jointly indulged, they always do so in equal measures. It is possible that I am falling into the nasty, Augustinian habit of projection, that because both despair and drunkenness have been for me, and without fail, solitary affairs, I feel it necessary to interpret such behavior by others as therefore ‘interior,’ isolating, and finally, subjective. Perhaps, however, if I were to again narrow my topic to an amalgamation of the two addictions, to ‘despairing drunkenness,’ to ‘the drinking of crisis,’ or, so to speak, to ‘critical drinking,’ then I may avoid such a mistake. And to anyone who has drank in my fashion—in the spirit and posture of inner suffering—I am sure my claim that isolation inevitably accompanies drunkenness will not appear misguided or unfair.

My account of ‘critical drinking,’ however, is only for the sake of demonstrating the manner in which Thomas Aquinas College is conducive to such a practice. I am thinking, of course, of the administration’s stance on the therapeutic effects of drinking. Specifically, I am thinking of when, upon the beginning of our sophomore year, both Dean Mclean and Dean Letteney explained to the entire male student body in the dorms of Saints Peter and Paul, the college’s newfound abstinence from serving alcohol to minors. They were quick to apologize and even quicker to concede the school’s ‘pressure cooker’ environment and to state their understanding that students would, more or less, often feel it imperative to relieve tension and stress by means of alcohol. As I listened, I found myself nodding silently in agreement, for what else could the school do? If the administration were to proceed in the hallowed tradition of beer and pizza after every all-school seminar, could it not then be subject to prosecution by state authorities? And what of the school’s characteristic intensity, its perpetual and near crack-addict level of tension? Was the administration to dumb-down the curriculum? Thankfully no, since the curriculum is perhaps the one thing Thomas Aquinas College has going for itself. But what about extending the curfew, or allowing the victims of work-study the understandable ownership of an automobile? No, again; for what would the institution be without all the trappings and the pleasures of a common military boarding school? I was subject, as I said, to my fair share of ignorance during my career at TAC. And it was only upon reflection, in the ‘garret’ existence of my voluntary exile that I realized what the Deans were in fact telling us: the school was to be our distant and neglectful parent; and Bacchus, I am sorry to say, was to be our nanny.

And of the stages of my supposed intellectual existence? And of the necessary consideration of Drunkenness as a contributing factor in its evolution? I have mentioned my eternal melancholia, my innate despair and isolation. I have mentioned my habit of drinking, my steadfast inebriation. I have not, however, mentioned the extent to which they have poisoned me. Again, those who have partaken as I, know the terrible insights and haunting conclusions capable of a man beneath the lucent fog of drunkenness. They, too, know the persistence of such revelations, and their power to affect and govern hours of sobriety. I have seen such things that I cannot forget, and that make all the promises of hope seem as mere straw. I have seen the nothing within my being, the void and the emptiness of man’s life and, even, of man’s suffering. It is to the college I owe my appreciation for establishing an environment which allows such visions for those of my temperament, for fostering its patented and asinine attitude toward the ends and enjoyments (my tip of the hat to Augustine) of alcohol. There is no solace in the idea that I am not the only one to have left the college a lesser man. On the contrary, there is only sadness, and, to a certain extent, anger. How many of us has this pristine institution, dedicated to the preservation of Aristotelianism and the philosophia perennis of St. Thomas, helped along the desolate and darkling path toward nihilism and the loss of hope?

III

If I have overstated my condemnation of the college’s attitude toward alcohol, it is only because I believe they have understated the dangers of this attitude. This is, for me, my final assignment of blame. It is not, therefore, an evasion of responsibility, but is, instead, a request that the college think more responsibly when it speaks, in its typical ex cathedra fashion, about alcohol.

The hidden fees Thomas Aquinas College has subtly attached to its tuition, fees for the purchase of your own personal mythology and Grecian fate-complex, I have paid with my suffering. And although the school would, I do not doubt, claim that such things contribute toward ‘the formation of liberally educated and genuinely freethinking men and women,’ I know from experience that this is hardly the case. I am reminded of something Ken Rice, a man known and respected by all on campus for his sage wisdom and penetrating intellect, once told me in a restroom of St. Peter’s Dormitory. He said that TAC girls are different from the ‘world’ per accidens and not per se. By this he meant that they ‘will do everything but give up the ass.’ They will drink in order to release their pent-up tension or merely to become flirtatious; they will sing along with Lil’ Jon, only they will not practice what he preaches. What folly and what despair have I known by witnessing such a spectacle! Yeats, albeit unknowingly, penned the school’s anthem many years ago:

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh. — (A Drinking Song)

All these things aside, however, I do, and do desperately, miss those with whom I once drank.

posted by derridada @ 9:12 AM