Raw material

“I Wanna Go to Marz” by John Grant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3jQ1_OXBLg

Images from the movie ‘Weekend’. A story where two gay men meet and develop a love affair over the course of a single weekend.

A raw material, also known as a feedstock or most correctly unprocessed material, is a basic material that is used to produce goods, finished products, energy, or intermediate materials which are feedstock for future finished products.

The nature of the rank and file (and I include myself in that commonality) is more brute and indelicate than we prefer to believe.  This is so in spite of repeated social training and ingrained behavioural adjustment. The opinion – which I acknowledge must to some people amount to a platitude – does however reinforce the spontaneity and vigour of what might otherwise be dismissed as practised and hackneyed conduct.  No matter how refined or sophisticated we may fashion ourselves our patterns of behaviour are invariably characterized by a good deal of raw emotion and elemental response, hardly the material of robotic and text-book etiquette.

What intrigues me in particular about this observation is that it de-escalates the customary rational retort to the visceral level.  In a word, it makes it easier to fathom where someone is coming from.  If we permit ourselves to be or become confounded by little more than hysterical psychoanalysis, our understanding of others is thereby severely limited.  How much less clinical and more palpable it is to construe the passion of others in terms of appetites and desires, the underlying forces of nature, the building blocks we all share.

The raw material of life is pretty basic – food and protection.  In these two global  categories reside all other mortal concerns.  “Protection” for example includes housing (furnishings, art work, status), financial security and even sex (perpetuation of the species).  “Food” embraces health, socializing and travel (relaxation from hunting and gathering).  Life in its simplest terms reduces to those quintessentials, a slight improvement on the bare-bone necessities of water and air.  If one appreciates this reduction it is far easier to comprehend the thoughts and maneuvers of others.  You can be assured that somehow the gambit is directed to food or protection (in their widest terms of course).  It is not necessary to identify the detail of the scheme; what is however worthwhile is to accept that the motive is fundamental, not complicated or tortuous.  Then begins the real insight into what makes people tick.

Too often when seeking to explain the conduct of others we’re inclined to manufacture incredibly devious ploys for what are nothing more than direct thrusts.  Indeed the more disturbed one is by the events of life, the more blunt is the reaction to them.  When responding to life we haven’t the time or inclination to fabricate intricate channels of expression.  The expression may be love or hate, admiration or disdain, anger or pacification, happiness or jealousy, pleasure or remorse.  Whatever it is, when you brush aside the gloss, the motive will be high-profile in critical relief.  You can’t miss it!  It’s raw material!

“I Wanna go to Marz” by John Grant

Bittersweet strawberry, marshmallow, butterscotch
Polar bear, cashew, dixieland, phosphate, chocolate
Lime, tutti frutti, special raspberry, leave it to me
Three grace, scotch lassie, cherry smash, lemon freeze

I wanna go to Marz
Where green rivers flow
And your sweet sixteen is waiting for you after the show
I wanna go to Marz
You’ll meet the Gold Dust Twins tonight
You’ll get your heart’s desire, I will meet you under the lights

Golden champagne, juicy grapefruit, lucky Monday
High-school football, hot fudge, buffalo, tulip sundae
Almond caramel frappé, pineapple, root beer
Black and white, Big apple, Henry Ford, sweet heart, maple tear

I wanna go to Marz
Where green rivers flow
And your sweet sixteen is waiting for you after the show
I wanna go to Marz
You’ll meet the Gold Dust Twins tonight
You’ll get your heart’s desire, I will meet you under the lights…