Gate-crashing the (under)world

"Happy he who has passed his whole life mid his own fields, he of whose birth and old age the same house is witness... For him the recurring seasons, not the consuls, mark the year; he knows autumn by his fruits and spring by her flowers."

Claudian, Carmina Minora (XX)*

Something mildly odd happened to me today.

I was supposed to meet a relative of mine in a small (very small) park we both know very well; in fact we had met there many times before. I told her exactly when I would be coming, and I did get there on time.

She wasn't there.
I wasn't surprised: she is usually late for our appointments - so much so that I don't consider her being late at all; if she happens to be on time, she's actually "early".
So I waited.
And waited. And waited.
(No, I did not have the cell phone with me; I don't believe relying on cell phones - or on anything, for that matter - is such a good idea.)

After half an hour I started to get alarmed: she is never that late. So I decided to give her a call from the one phone boot near the park.
As I was approaching the boot, I noticed it was, uncharacteristically, occupied.
It was her: she was calling me.

It turned out she had been waiting for me "more than half an hour !!" (in her parlance that would mean half an hour at most - apparently, this was one of those occasions when she had been "early", i.e. on time) in the very same area where I had been waiting for her.

"So she lied," you must be thinking.
Well... no.
First of all, she may be late for appointments, but a liar she is not.
Secondly, she mentioned a sight - another woman waiting at a very specific spot - that she could not have known of, unless she really was there at the same time as I. Now, that woman had left at least fifteen minutes before I decided to stop waiting and go make a phone call, so my relative would have had to be waiting for at least fifteen minutes in the same area where I was.

That park - actually, a children's playground with big trees - is very small; you can easily see from one side to the other, regardless of where you're standing; and around the time of our appointment it is usually completely deserted. Certainly I didn't notice anyone else while I was waiting there.

How is it possible, then, that we missed each other?

I cannot offer even a speculative answer. The whole thing just doesn't make sense.
But the really funny thing is that the same kind of "mis-missed" appointment happened to me once before, with another person, at a public fountain, where it is impossible to miss anyone standing nearby. And yet, we somehow managed to do just that. (I know for a fact she was there at the same time as I was, because she also happened to mention a specific - fleeting - sight that she could not have known about, unless she had been there... or unless she arranged a very elaborate scam, involving spies surreptitiously surveying the site of our appointment on her behalf and reporting to her, so that it would appear she had been there, when in fact she had not been... You decide which version makes more sense. ;)

The reason I am writing about this today is that the first "missed" appointment, five years ago, also happened on November 8th.

But the reason why I remember the date in the first place is as simple as it is difficult to explain.
Firstly, I am a date freak; I tend to remember dates, whether I want it or not.
Secondly, I always pay special attention to this date and the days surrounding it.

You see, in my experience, November 8th has always been somehow "shady" a date. I have no idea where this notion came from (possibly some early, insufficiently recorded memory), but what is interesting is that apparently the ancient Romans shared my opinion: November 8th, a dies religiosus, was (along with August 24th and October 5th) one of the three days of the year when the mundus (literally, the world), or "navel of the world", the gate that connects this world with the Underworld, was wide open - a day when the departed ones (some more dearly than others) were liable to come back and wreak havoc on the world they had left behind.**
In other words, a day with a potential for all hell to break loose.

But here's the really funny thing: remarkably often, "hell" did break loose on November 8th, give or take a day - at least on the level of visible history.

Many historians seem to agree that the qualification of any given day as religiosus or just plain unlucky (not the same thing) was probably due to some memorable disaster or other momentous event that had occurred on the same date in the past. (It would be more or less like marking September 11th as an "unlucky" day in remembrance of that date in 2001.)

I don't know what that ancient memorable event that marked November 8th and its "shadow" period (November 7th-9th) for posterity in the Roman culture would have been, but I can certainly think of a few momentous events in modern times that happened in the time frame between November 7th and November 9th:


* The "October" revolution of 1917, one of the most defining movements in modern history, started on November 7th, 1917. (October, according to the old Julian calendar used in Russia at the time.)

* The "Kristallnacht" took place on the night of November 9/10th, 1938.

* In a sudden development, the Berlin Wall was taken by storm and virtually annihilated on the night of November 9th, 1989.

(And you can find more if you care to google around.)


Now, all of this could be just a coincidence - of course. That goes without saying.

Do note, however, that they were all perceived as sudden irruptions of concerted force that rocked the very foundations of the established order - as if the energies that had been building in a specific time and place suddenly boiled over, bursting into the visible world as if streamlined through a shortcut channel from the underground to the surface of the World.

And if I add (only in my mind and memory, I am not going to write about it) a few other sudden disruptive - or just odd - events in my personal life that happened to happen on November 8/9th, I can't help but continue to wonder about the arcana of time-keeping - even at its most pedestrian...



* If you believe this quote has anything to do with the post itself, let me know.
I only included it because I like it.

:)


** "The twenty-fourth of August, the fifth of October and the eighth of November were termed dies religiosi. On these days the spirits of the dead (manes) were believed to issue forth into the upper world through the mundus--the name given to a trench or entrance to a vault in the city of Romulus which was believed to be the gate of hell. On these days, again, no public business might be undertaken, no battle fought, no army conscripted. This taboo is ascribable to the taboo on death and corpses." (E. E. Burris, Taboo, magic, spirits: a study of primitive elements in Roman religion, 1931.)
N. B. I am quoting this particular work - instead of many other available recent and classic studies - mainly because it's freely available on the web, so you could read it, in its entirety, right now, if you wish.

Bread and games - and he ****** your granddaughter, too!

There is a terrible scandal(et) rocking BBC-bound Britain (and merry onlookers worldwide).
Its highest paid star said - yelled - a jocular comment about another radio star doing ungodly things to a beloved elderly actor's kin.

He said it - very ***** explicitly - on the phone.
And he said it on the air, for all to hear.

Just to be clear (because one is inevitably and unjustly judged on the basis of one's personal feelings towards those involved, rather than one's thoughts, however coherent or valid they may be), I hereby state that I actually like the person who uttered the offending blurp - very much so.

His offending blurp(s), however, I dislike - very much so.

But what I dislike most of all is the hypocritical outcry of those who decry the "hypocrisy" of the BBC (and of those members of the public who wrote in to complain about the incident), because said institution decided to punish the offender by suspending him. (The other offender, the radio star, resigned himself.)

What surprisingly many people don't seem to realise is that, if you let the standard of what is acceptable and what not slip, one day we will, once again, think that gladiator games are FUN.

As a matter of fact, we DO think they are fun - only, today they are not called "gladiator games".
They are called "reality TV".

It just shows how fragile human beings – most especially their »morals«, whatever its level or definition of the moment may be - are.

We all know – or should know – how much the society has changed since, say, the Roman empire or the so-called »Middle ages«.

We all know – or should know – how »entertainment« looked in the times of Nero, to pick just one example. People found it entertaining to see people kill each other, or fight wild animals with their bare hands and, most often, being devoured by them. (And these are just some of the more sedate »numbers« that were on offer.)

In the 20th century – and long before that (although not as long as you might think) – such behaviour came to be seen as ghastly, the absolute low point of human behaviour.
(Of course this was the same world that forbade the use of "explicit" terms, such as "menstruation", "sex", even "pregnant" - oh yes! - to be uttered in public media, such as TV.)

So, what happened?
What caused the change?

Do you think the human psyche really changes through the ages?
And if not, what do you think drives »history«?

Nothing in the human psyche itself has changed.
It's just that the imitative streak (»monkey does as monkey sees«) is – was, until recently - no longer fed blood and gore.

It was fed different moral standards, much more restrained - constrained - in matters of public conduct, especially regarding sexuality.

But hypocritical and often ridiculously prudish as it may have been, at least the ban against public obscenity gave some air, some breathing space to those who do not want to revel in the blood (literally or figuratively) of others.
(Voyeurism is not confined to sex, as I am sure you know; it feeds on everything that offers a glimpse of the terrifying face of life - Death, the frightening prospect of obliteration, the fragility of life - and that includes sex.)

The ancient Roman "games" came to an end suddenly – on January 1, 404.
By imperial decree, they were to be shown no more.

I can imagine how angry, even revolted people were, when their favourite show was taken »off the air«.
(I can practically hear them: »By Jove, it's not bad enough that we go hungry, toiling day after day - well, our slaves do, at any rate... now we are left without entertainment, the one thing that made our hearts glad?! Oh, how I wish somebody invented a little box that we could keep at home and would show us every little nasty thing other people do!«
OK, OK - the latter was a flight of fancy too far... -;))

As a matter of fact, we do know more or less exactly how revolted they were.
When a man - a monk called Telemachus - descended into the arena to plead with people to stop it, and admonish them for their lust for blood, they stoned him to death.

But the »show« was shown no more.
(In fact, it was precisely this event what prompted the abrupt end of the games.)

And in time – the new philosophy of humanity coming from the East undoubtedly had more than its fair share of influence in sensitising the masses – people forgot how to be »entertained« by such spectacles. In time – through long centuries – they became to be seen as gruesome as we see them today.

It is ironic that those long centuries, the times that came before us, that brought us here, are now widely regarded as »uptight«, oppressive and, in general, not a nice era to live in. For its lack of »freedom«, you know.

Which is true in many aspects.
But see where the »freedom« has brought us.

Yes, after all the false - or partial - dawns of the centuries past, it looks like a bright day of civil liberties, education and freedom for all (?), and all that.

The problem is, man obviously simply cannot handle too much »freedom«. He lacks the basic knowledge – of his own existential status: the purpose, if there is any, of his being here – to be the master of himself.

And exxistential ignorance breeds existential fear – and existential fear breeds greed, cruelty, selfishness.

Would you really want to trust LIFE, and everything that works towards preserving it, into the hands of someone who doesn't know its purpose and is only driven by his fear that he might lose his own?

We are still the same masses that screamed for bread and games – that screamed even louder when those games were taken away from them.

Those tender souls who are bleeding over the injustice perpetrated against the merry foulmouthed pranksters in the name of fighting »hypocrisy« are only decrying the games being taken away from them.
And it is certainly no coincidence that it all comes at a time when »bread« is being taken from many, much too many.

Let it pass; let the ante slip, tiny millimeter by tiny millimeter at a time.
(And public outrage IS the most reliable indicator of where the ante is, and whether the slip has been swift, whether it is »too much«, or not.)

And then one day, very soon, we'll have sexual intercourse on public TV.
(Oh right: it already happened, I am told. In one - or two - of them "reality shows".)

Next stop, the gladiator games.
(You don't think so? Just drive by any accident scene and count the masses gathering to observe the blood and gore.)

Human psychology does NOT change through the ages. Only the common standards of acceptability change.

Which is why reading the deluge of comments by all those self-complacent "tolerant" souls, bashing the BBC for its (far too mild!) decision, terrifies me far, FAR more than anything unfortunate Jonathan Ross might have said.

***

BONUS: Here is a tangentially relevant piece of writing (about the games in ancient Romes) that you might find interesting: Blood, Sweat, and Cheers.