It feels like I’ve aged a hundred years, something I wouldn’t have expected at 26, over the course of one short weekend. Things I thought I knew, assurances I had pegged as good as slab, were rent apart by the realization that human nature wends to darker corners than I believed possible. And I will leave it at that, vague as it is, because this will never be a journal in the traditional sense. The medium simply doesn’t encourage it, where full disclosure can easily be skimmed by total strangers. We discuss everything and, let’s be honest, nothing here, in a way that’s processed for everybody and nobody.
I’ve never fired a gun before, making today a bona fide experience. The shooting range was, strangely enough, probably the safest place in town, with cameras everywhere and sharp, sardonic employees holstering heat in plain sight. It was all necessary as well, I imagine, because although few people would be stupid enough to rob a gun shop, some of the customers–whose names probably rhymed with Cletus–clearly weren’t shooting with a full clip, if I may employ some new vocabulary here. Gun control may not thwart the criminal element, but there certainly seems to be a need to filter out the local Cleti.
I went to the range suspecting gunplay on the silver screen and TV is very likely a crock of shit, and I was surprised by the extent to which this was true. There was the mundanity of loading bullets into the clip, each one tenser than the last, which had a kind of symmetry with other activities. Like to cook? You’ve still got to do the dishes. Like to garden? You need to deal with pest control. Similarly, fully loaded clips don’t simply fall from the sky or appear in your pocket.
Once the chores are done, though, there’s a fascinating rhythm to the process. Push up the catch. Retract the slide. Put in a clip. Push down the catch. Click. Two hands. Three dots. The sight. Finger lightly on the trigger. Quiet. Commit. Squeeze. What the movies never seem to emphasize, with action heroes popping off a dozen rounds in a second, is the weight, the gravity of each squeeze of the trigger. There is a powerful, terrible finality in each shot. Will I sign up for a membership, become a card-carrying member of the NRA? Unlikely. Would I return to the range? Definitely. Now it’s on to the next skill.
The thing with plans, especially ones made as you go along, is they can emerge from the kiln shaped entirely differently. You can add to them, take away from them, redefine them, and their contours change to match the way circumstance flows. The Social Plan of ’08, I’m beginning to realize, isn’t really a social plan at all, but rather a riff on the Self-Improvement Plan of ’07.
The goal is to become a modern Renaissance Man, and I stress modern here because a Renaissance Man during the actual Renaissance probably played the lute or built basilicas or shit like that. I’m also going for a more skill-based slant, because to me a skill is the ultimate souvenir–you walk away from an experience with a talent that might come in handy down the road, instead of a fistful of photos or a shiny novelty trinket.
It’s a weird bias, I know, but that’s where I’m at right now. I can’t name the 50 states–doubt I could hit 30, in fact–but the ability to figure out the main roads of a new area quickly, along with their general compass directions, appeals to me. I don’t know who the first nine presidents were, but it’s neat to know how to use a penny, specifically Lincoln’s hairline, to determine when your tires need changing. So, a modern Renaissance Man. Tennis starts soon. Cooking classes begin in April. And next week, it’s off to the shooting range.
Church is a large part of southern culture, something I’m trying to experience more fully, but when you have a chronic aversion to regular church attendance, well, then you may be at an impasse. I went this Sunday, marked it a great victory on the cosmic scale, and during the service I reflected on post-collegiate life, a kind of spiritual state of the union for the past five years.
You may not believe it, but there was a time when I could go on a retreat–do the whole rustic thing, complete with gross-smelling drinking water and communal showers and waking up at thoroughly unchristian hours–to learn the secrets of leading inductive Bible study. I guess there’s falling off the wagon, and then there’s leaping off the wagon, with cement shoes firmly attached, right into a no-wagon zone.
These days, Sunday mornings tend to feature stringent criteria for churchgoing. It can’t be too rainy or too sunny, too muggy or too chilly, and traffic must be just so, but only if I got enough sleep and have ample time for breakfast and a shower, despite the fact that I set my alarm clock 20 minutes before the start of service.
Invariably the morning will fail to meet one of these requirements, so I will vow to catch the sermon online, possibly early afternoon. A matinee screening of Cloverfield later, though, followed by some Mexican takeout, and it’s time for bed. I’ll just save that online sermon for next week, you know? It’ll be a double feature.
Pastors will sometimes hold forth on the theme of passionate, active participation. Don’t just mindlessly go to church each week, they’ll exhort, and simply go through the motions. But what if you’re not even there? What if you’re trying to get back to zero and attend enough to qualify for going through the motions?