Success
[Spoken Word Art]
An O-D-E to the O-T-D.
This piece was written for a recent Footsteps event, at which there was a doctor, several lawyers, an amateur statistician, a few seasoned rhetoricians, and lots of wannabe academics.
An old friend sent me an email last week:
Can you give me / an O-T-D / who as far as I can see / isn’t / depressed?
Can you give me / an O-T-D / who has found / Success?
What is success? / I asked.
Success / my friend said / is a doctor / a lawyer / a scientist / an academic.
Well… Do we have a doctor in the house? (In fact we do.)
But what we don’t have are those / doctors of souls. Those / men of wisdom / who will / heal your mind. Blind / faith, they’ll say, will cure your / heart, but apart / from retaining the wisdom of fools, staining / your brain’s temporal lobes, your / cerebral cortexes sucked into vortexes that will / drown your thoughts in a morass of muck, fuck / with your mental equilibrium, render your / logic distorted, contorted in / mental gymnastics neither flexible nor balanced, you’ll / still remain ill with disgust / your mind in dogmatic delirium / your sickly conscience / disturbed, perpetually perturbed for fear of failing to curb / heavenly vengeance.
Thank goodness, we / don’t have one of those / physicians.
Any lawyers in the house?
Oh, we have lawyers, master rhetoricians / who will cross examine your ass so fast at the slightest hint of / superstition, petition your / mind for caution, demand / suspicion of any claim that / won’t hold water, they / won’t falter when you shout, they’ll / knock you out with more than / reasonable doubt. / Advocates of reason, freezing the / poisonous voices of those who / accuse us of treason, those who / excuse the abuses of persons with toxic perversions. / Our advocates won’t / please your populist notions of / adhering to age old devotions only to / satisfy infantile emotions.
Scientists?
Our statisticians will prove the fraud of your Bible Codes / equidistant lettering purportedly / fettering the heretical sanity by / deluding ignorant masses with an illusion that passes for / scientific reality. We have no / Aryeh Kaplans, no / Gerhard Schroders / pandering apologists / tenaciously arguing mendacious suggestion such as / what…? Perhaps we should / mate with apes…?! Our young fertile minds decline to resign to / the blind assertions of / intelligent design.
Academics, he says. Do we have academics.
Well, one thing about this very loud crowd is that / we put academics to shame, our / polemics are so inflamed we make sophists look lame. / We’re badass nerds / roaring dorks / geeks kicking hard bookish butt turning an actuary exam into a cakewalk.
Yes, we teach too. We’ll teach you to / philosophize, theorize on / how good your butt and thighs / look in those jeans / or, the means by which to / pick up a girl during advanced calculus / lock eyes with that cute guy in the lab / rock out at / a religion debate / how to party hard and sneak a drink into / (whisper) Footsteps.
We’ll also teach you to / stand strong, to take the pain the world throws your way / take it to a lab, and return a / positive result. We’ll teach you the / best part of a shoulder to cry on / we’ll teach you that / family isn’t only defined by blood, and that / now that we’re family, we can / pull your hair / steal your book / write nasty comments on your Facebook wall, but / we’ll still love you / and when you need us we’ll be here and / help you stand tall.
Success, he asks. Success, my friend, is / escape from repression. / Successful is she / whose abuses are only / a distant memory. / A successful O-T-D / according to me / is one who left / and kept his sanity.
Printable Version
The ex Hasid’s HOWL!
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I’m not good with the compliments, Sean, but I hope to leave a good word here anyway; this piece was truly superb! Thank you! I only wish I were (was?) able to see you perform it.
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What’s with all the slashes? Lol
This piece is hilarious!
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Your problem Senor, is;
You started out with no management, just a flood of posts. Our sage Yaacov thought us, you need to give space. You didn’t.
So we all got exhausted of commenting and the excitement disappeared quickly from having to much sweets.
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Great piece Sholem! Funny, smart and very well wrriten. Unfortunatly far from the truth, but nevertheless it cracked me up…
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Yes, I agree with everything Abe said. This puts some jams to shame.
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abe, far from the truth? How so?
Revealed religion cannot be reconciled with science. No way. No how. It’s impossible right down to the foundations. Science and scientists are more likely to be heretics, atheists, or otherwise religiously unorthodox.
Doctors? There are plenty of religious doctors, but the irreligious are over-represented compared to the population. It comes with increased education, even religiously based education in something other than religious doctrine.
Academics? Ditto.
Lawyers? I don’t know that many lawyers.
The creative professions? In spades. With candy sprinkles on top.
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A succesful OTD? How about me? Just kidding…
This question was never asked about the Marrano OTD’s, because the response would be overwhelming. Yes. They are indeed succesful (in the popular sense – I.e. Stable family and finances). Or else they would be Marranos no more. Which will open them to the taunts of how depressed OTD’s are.
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success is escape from repression, wow what a great line…..what a great way to be… in the “rooms” they say depression comes from repression…so lets keep on doing the “work” of self expression… a writer writes, Shulem Ari, good, bad, none of your business, just write
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This is spectacular.
Your strident rhythm, your slick flipping and weaving of words, and the raw angry pride that permeates this piece, moved me to tears.
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I have been non-chassidic (non-anything) for many, many years. Last year, I tried Chabad a little, but choked on it. Now I’ve just stumbled on you guys, and it feels like a comfortable fit – just one bite at a time.
The poem was absolutely great. And thank you, brachaleh, for your encouragement to write. It was wind in my sails.
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Amazing info. Going to want a good amout of time to toy with your points=D
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I was looking for something else, but one way or another ended up on your page, dont you just love the Internet. Thought I’d post you a quick hello & reply that although I was not looking for this it was still rather attention-grabbing. Good fresh appearance to the site.
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