March 23, 2023 | Read Online

A trip to Abilene

Intergalactic hitchhikers, false confidence, uncertainty, Pope Francis and combating mud demons.

Cole Schafer
March 23, 2023

As of right now, I don't really know what the hell this newsletter is going to be about. So, I'm just going to start writing, rambling and shooting the shit until I wind up where I'm supposed to.

Not unlike your life, the next couple thousand words are very likely going to be long, meandering, disastrous, beautiful, ugly, funny, wildly confusing and, in places, abundantly clear. So, buckle the fuck up.

Douglas Adams, the British gent who wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, spit out a nice line once about getting lost, "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."

I fancy that little piece of wisdom.

Since reading it a few weeks back, I catch myself speaking it under my breath––the tip of my tongue writing it on the backs of my teeth––when I'm feeling overwhelmed with what I'm supposed to be or do or have been or done.

I'm not for certain that this feeling of overwhelm ever truly goes away.

I don't think any of us––not matter how filthy rich and successful we get––ever wake up one morning and know exactly what we're supposed to be doing with our lives and our work. Those who say otherwise, are probably either hocking self-help books or holding public office or both.

I don't want to speak for Pope Francis––I don't know the guy––but I'd wager at least once a month he wakes up in the morning and thinks, "God, this Pope gig is great and all but some days I wish I would have pursued my teenage dreams of dancing the tango..."

As I've gotten older––I'm twenty-nine as of the writing of this piece but I found my first grey hair in my beard the other day––I'm realizing that nobody knows what the hell they're doing. All of us just think we're the only ones that don't know what the hell we're doing because society tends to reward folks for pretending they know what the hell they're doing.

This is a perfectly satisfactory place to discuss something called "The Abilene Paradox", a phenomenon where everybody mindlessly follows the most outspoken individual in a group down a terrible decision because each person falsely assumes they're the only ones that disagree with said terrible decision.

The Abilene Paradox kind of happens like this..

"

Four friends are hanging in Coleman, Texas doing lines of cocaine and tossing horseshoes when Huckleberry says they should take an hour drive into Abilene, Texas to have dinner at Logan's Roadhouse.

None of the other three friends want to make the trip into Abilene. They'd much rather do more coke and toss horseshoes. But, they each assume they're overruled and they all quickly agree to go to Abilene.

As expected, the trip to Abilene is horrible. It's long, hot and dusty and the wait time at Logan's is longer than the line into hell after the fall of the Nazi regime.

On the ride back, the first anti-Abilene friend speaks up, "I knew we shouldn't have gone to Abilene." Then, the second anti-Abilene friend speaks up, "I never wanted to go to Abilene." Finally, the third anti-Abilene friend hammers the nail in the coffin, "I hate Abilene."

Huckleberry, the dunce of an asshat who suggested the ride into Abilene––because he loves Logan's more than Logan's loves peanuts––white knuckles the steering wheel in defeat.

The four friends sit in silence wondering why the hell they took a trip to Abilene when they would have rather just stayed at home to snort nose candy and toss horseshoes.

"

The Abilene Paradox happens all the time in our day-to-day lives. It's been the culprit of some of the worst tragedies known to man.

Trips to Abilene are also the very reason that those of us who don't know what the hell we're doing feel like we're the only ones who don't know what the hell we're doing because everyone body else who doesn't know what the hell they're doing is following the leader who is pretending to know what the hell he or she is doing.

(Take your time on that last sentence, I know it's a mouthful and I do apologize...)

And so the moral of the story is to not just avoid making the trip to Abilene but to recognize that nobody knows what the hell they're doing, especially those who are quickest to speak up.

It's okay to say "I don't know". It's also okay to politely call people out when they don't know what they're talking about or, at the very least, not blindly follow them.

But, let's shift gears.

I've been reading up on Shel Silverstein a lot lately in hopes that some of the magic of his work will rub off on me. Over the course of his career, he wrote 1 screen play, 4 movie scores, 14 albums, 20 books and over one hundred one-act plays.

While he was still trying to make it as a writer and cartoonist, he'd leave his parent's home early in the morning––he was crashing their at the time––and wander around Chicago until late at night. He thought that if he just kept moving, something good would happen.

He wasn't wrong.

This turns my attention to you.

If you don't know what you're supposed to be doing with your life––and I'd be careful listening to me because, as I mentioned earlier, I really don't know what I'm supposed to be doing with mine––I would just keep moving until something happens.

And, when you need a break, turn on a flick.

Last night, I was up late watching the latest Riddick where the anti-hero played by Vin Diesel kept finding himself pitted up against these despicable fuckers called "Mud Demons"; a venomous aquatic reptilian race with a barbed whip-tail.

These predators would submerge themselves in murky water, wait for some poor soul to walk by and then––whip-craaaaaack––they'd joust their prey right in the gut, crawl out of the water, bite them, squirt their venom in them and then devour them on the spot.

(I know this this sounds bat-shit crazy but keep in mind we live on a planet that has 20 foot long carnivorous lizards paddling around in Australia, India and parts of Asia...)

So Riddick decided to catch a baby Mud Demon, squeeze the poison out of him and then, each day, inject himself with the gunk to build immunity.

A few scenes later he went to war with the mother of all Mud Demons where he intentionally let her bite his leg. She then took her foot off the gas, thinking "this dumbass screwed up bad and now he's a goner", only to have her head chopped off by a katana Riddick fashioned out of what looked to be a mammoth femur bone.

That's a bit of a tangent but the reason I bring it up is because when you find yourself discouraged, not knowing what you're doing or what you're supposed to be doing––or maybe feeling like life has smacked you with a Louisville Slugger or a mammoth femur bone––recognize that you're more or less building immunity for the Mack Truck.

But, I have to board a flight to Florida here soon so I better stitch this ting up.

I suppose I'll close all of this out with a quote from Bob Dylan––who I've got to say I think is mildly overrated but, remember, I don't know anything––that goes something like this...

"A man (or woman) is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do."

When don't know what you're doing, recognize that nobody knows what they're doing (even Pope Francis).

When you're especially confused, try not to take that trip to Abilene and instead just keep moving like Uncle Shelby.

When this movement inevitably leads to you taking a tumble––and it will––just view the tumble as you building immunity for a bigger tumble (stubbing your toe at twenty-nine doesn't hurt as bad as stubbing your toe at eleven).

And, lastly, just recognize that success is really just about having the gift of waking up each morning, going to bed each night and living a life you enjoy and are proud of until it's time to knock on heaven's door.

Unless, of course, you took the trip to Abilene and joined the Nazi Regime.

But, seriously, I don't know what the hell I'm doing here.

By Cole Schafer.

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