Panic Release

An upswelling of panic may occur from time to time. Symptoms may include an inordinate thudding of the heart, shortness of breath and panicked glances at any available exit. The only remedy is a rebooting of the nervous system, to be accomplished through brazen acts of release. Recommended acts of release include enlisting on a Viking longboat, wailing at walls (long favoured among Jews), writing furiously without edit and plunging head-first into the unknown. If panic does not subside, it can at least be sublimated into more productive uses. Rome may not have been built in a day, but that's because its builders lacked the nervous energy of the modern age. With the nervous energy of an ape trapped in a cubicle, modern man is capable of unparalleled feats of engineering before imploding into an ulcerous breakdown. Until that time: sublimation, sublimation, sublimation! Work at your chosen task with the intensity of a high-BPM industrial rock track. Shape those bricks till they turn to clay, then make yourself a clay idol to worship. Become that idol! Enshrine your nervousness in relative permanency as a monument and warning to the future. Having been justified through an act of creation, the upswelling of panic should then subside.

If it doesn't? Riot. Smash windows of expectation, tear down the golden arches of routine, claw at the eyes of narrow visionaries. Carry a banner of hysterical freedom up and down the streets. Kiss an enemy, challenge a friend, speak in tongues, tongue in words. Panic exists to be justified, so justify it. Repress the urge to repress your urges. Strike a blow for beauty, the kind of beauty that hurts. Beautiful like a canal of fire or a dog stopping traffic. Beautiful like the ruins of Babylon or its foundation. Remember that perfect moment lost and resurrect it in a new and grander form, a futurist Eden. Be that new and singular Adam or be that new and singular Eve, God's one and only. You won't be chosen till you choose yourself first. Point that finger inward before launching it outward. Then and only then will it be time to riot. What is a riot if not collective panic unleashed, an explosion of nuclear nervous energy, a civilizational orgasm? Someone's got to push that big red panic button and if not you, who? An exit suddenly appears and with it a queue. A queue is just the embryo of a riot. Of course birth is painful, but think of the rewards. Now stop thinking and grab them.

We are all responsible for our own justifications. If I am to live I must feel justified, and if I am to live I must sometimes feel panicked and dulled and improperly wired. If extreme measures must be taken to justify such extreme feelings, so extreme I must become. Accordingly the volume goes up and limbs move erratically and words are committed which may be regretted. Alas, such is living, and if you can't take the electricity there is no returning to the stone age. This is the era of too much information, and heads that can't absorb it are bound to roll. So I absorb it as a lightning rod and like almighty Zeus in exile, throw the bolts back at the sky. Some may lose course and and some may slip and burn my fingers, but a burn is just another blemish to justify. All goes toward the panic bank to be withdrawn and spent on works of life and art. If some are more expensive than others, so be it. It's no reason to panic, or at least to panic unjustifiably. What's taken to heart must be taken to the streets, and if panic strikes it's your cue to strike back. Untangled nerves make a formidable noose. Just don't hang yourself--that's the wrong kind of release.