Greek to Me
TERRA COGNITA:
LANDSCAPE OF AN AVOIDANCE
BEHAVIORIST
by Michael Raysses
It is an amazing stroke of good fortune that I was born into a Greek-American family. Beyond enabling me to sit through countless viewings of the movie Zorba the Greek, it lent me an affinity for the ancient Greeks and their timeless aphorisms. “Know thyself” is one such adage, just beating out my second favorite ancient Greek saying, “Just Know Thyself.” This was actually my favorite until research revealed that it was the first slogan for what was the ancient Greek precursor to Nike. The expression was really nothing more than a marketing slogan for an emerging line of knee-high sandals. But I digress…
Beyond its applicability as a marketing device, the saying’s significance is of infinite value because it speaks to the acquisition of self-knowledge. But the phrase begs much deeper analysis—what constitutes self-knowledge? Is it the golden ideal of understanding human thought, behavior, and the morals that shape those things? Or does it refer to a less lofty perch, perhaps a baseline awareness of one’s innate inability to wear stripes without appearing to be a few pounds overweight.
For me, though, timeless warrior in a battle that has no end, I interpret it to mean that my responsibility is to know who I am on a day-to-day basis, how I am going to react in most any-given situation, and not only how I have done so in the past, but how I am likely to do so in the future, given who it is I have become up until that moment. This is what I have come up with.
Charitably speaking, I am what I call an Avoidance Behaviorist. But before you shower me with knee-jerk judgments about my status as such, allow me a little back story, if you will.
I’ve been writing this month’s column for the past two weeks now. I’ve hunkered down, fully prepared to confront the enemy blank page. No sooner did I set pen to paper, though, than I noticed the floor around my desk was really messy. Being an absolute stickler for a pristine work environment, I laid down my arms and called a truce while I corralled the dust bunnies that had mutated into what looked more like dust buffaloes. When cleanliness was restored, I returned to the task, only to realize it was time to go to work. Oh, the humanity…
I awakened the next day, fully intending to resume work on this piece. But then it hit me—I don’t write particularly well on even-numbered days ending in the letter “y.” In a fit of lunatic inspiration, I went to the Museum of Dental Hygiene for a little stimulation. Though I didn’t get what I bargained for, I left the building feeling more minty and fresh than a man has the right to feel.
The next morning I confronted the Great White Void yet again. This time, though, I set aside extra time, just in case a rogue band of feral dust-buffalos should invade my office. No such luck. As I fingered my lucky dental floss (a memento from my trip to the museum), I set my steely gaze on the horizon of the page and embarked on the opening sentence. That is, until I noticed the date—July 12th—the birthday of Curly Joe DeRita, the American actor/comedian who last played the role of Curly in The Three Stooges. Not having seen a Three Stooges film in years, I felt the need to pay homage to the bonds that time and space had strained. So I did the noble and just thing—I watched a chronological marathon of the Stooges’ short films. Unfortunately, though, it was hours before DeRita appeared on screen, and by the time he had, I was too exhausted to write. Besides, now it was time to go to work again—curse my need for food and rent!
For you hawk-eyed readers noticing a pattern while feeling a creeping sense of sanctimony lap at your feet, I know you’re thinking that I am some rank procrastinator, a laggard of the lowest order. No, I am chronicling inchoate genius for you, right before your very eyes. Because all great art—no, all of humankind, is dependent on the stalwart efforts of an elite class heretofore unacknowledged by the general population. We are not dawdlers and stragglers—we are Avoidance Behaviorists. History bears our inimitable imprint.
Michelangelo, famed 15th century artist who painted the Sistine Chapel, only did so to avoid installing shelves in his wife’s closet. Christopher Columbus was supposed to give sailing lessons to a bratty Spanish prince when he opted to find the New World instead. Mother Teresa? An inveterate avoidance behaviorist, she was en route to getting her MBA when she decided that dedicating her life to administering to the poor and sick was more appealing than completing her master’s thesis.
A world without avoidance behavior is incomprehensible to me. Without it, humanity has no future. Here is why: having children is quite possibly the apotheosis of avoidance behavior, and thank God for that fact. To change this system now would undermine the evolutionary imperative of propagating the species. What better, more ironic way is there to avoid confronting one’s own life than by creating the ultimate distraction—a miniature version of yourself? I rest my case.
As a demigod in the pantheon of avoidance behavior, I don’t ask for much by way of obeisance. As you venture out into the world, use the flinty dedication of responsibility-challenged deities like myself as a template. To those who think me a sham just because I actually completed this column, you should know I have an impending deadline on an unfinished book proposal that made all this possible. And if that’s Greek to you, just ask yourself this —isn’t there something else you should be doing right about now?