I used to think everyone grew up like I did.
Everyone had parents who were so filled with emotion once or twice a week that they’d pretend they could speak another language, one they invented, and would whisper RaShaShaShaNahs or shriek AGASHANAHS! as the mood struck and as their peers cheered them on.
Everyone’s high school teachers probably bragged about curing cancer that one time and healing their dead brother in law, like mine did. One time, my sister spent 2 years outside of the presence of any human male she wasn’t related to, so that she’d avoid causing them to lust after her.
As I grew older it became apparent that in fact, most people do not know about that stuff. Most people think it’s weird, actually.
It is a bit strange to carry around this context in my head and have drinks with people after work. But there’s a singular event that reminds me I’m not alone. A place where people like me would gather together in the tens of thousands.
One Thing (trademark), some place in Kansas.
One Thing is where everyone with parents and backgrounds like mine come together to search for meaning, to have emotional experiences, and to know stuff without drugs (or maybe with them, no judge). It’s the world’s worst music festival, where literally every song has the chords to Pachelbel’s Cannon in D, except in G for originality.
Attendees heal each other of made-up illnesses, and they change the world without the world even knowing it. It’s hard to be them. They literally spend 24 hours a day in shifts praying for stuff. Imagine thinking that a cosmic being would give you what you wanted if only you wanted it enough, and you wanted the right thing. You’d probably spend 24 hours a day doing it too.
I was thinking about it tonight, 15 years after my last trip. I’m a One Thing flunky. Maybe there are more of me. Some of those folks, like me, went to college and moved in with a committed partner. Learned about compromise. Discovered the warm embrace of liberalism, and discovered that liberals too can be evangelical as fuck.
I want to have a summit for apostates. We’ll call it Another Thing.