Sometimes, more times than some might think, I find myself in the midst of a histrionic cavemen impersonation with no clear idea how I arrived at such a point or how now to regain my standard solemn composure. Whether in freshman calculus, while walking down a crowded drunken street, or within the intimacy of nighttime snuggle, a barbaric snort or threatening growl can prove surprisingly satisfying. Just try it—furl your brow, push out your chin, widen your lips, flare your nostrils, and, well, meet yourself version 1.0.
These caveman expressions are only natural I tell myself. Furthermore, people even seem to enjoy them, laughing with me, or at me, or whatever. The point being everyone gets “caveman”: loud, obnoxious, uncivilized, dirty, disgusting, dumb—no ego, no superego, all id. Just plain, wholesome id sprawled over the great untamable earth, like a beautiful caveman dance being choreographed as it pans out across the plains of time, maybe a little like Capoeta.
And what represents the opposite extreme, the ultimate manifestation of the unnatural and artificial, of these caveman noises and gestures, these brutish manifestations of our, humankind’s origins, our roots and essence? I’ll tell you what: blogs. Try imitating a blog. It’s no fun. What do you even do? Write self-absorbingly about mundane things? Flesh out your day-to-day life by recording it on this digital screen-thing that doesn’t really exist anywhere. Cavemen may only exist in the past, but they also exist within us, and is there a blog inside each and every one of us?... The scary thing is there just might be.
I must admit that making caveman noises for an hour is not always as satisfying, although physically yes it is, as writing a pointless blog entry for the equivalent duration. With this under consideration, I propose we drop the contrasts and instead focus on the similarities: people are watching and judging you all the time, whether you are howling like a rabid hyena or blogging about your sister’s boyfriend’s sister (what a babe!), and this is important to remember.
If I apply for a job, can I make caveman noises in the interview? Unless I’m auditioning for that Gecko ad campaign, probably not. Can I blog about how I sometimes make caveman noises in similar real-life situations? Probably still not a good idea, but, apparently, one that can’t be ruled out.
So be careful in which contexts you open the vents through which your primitive energies may release themselves in grunts and growls. Make sure you consider, if only for a fleeting moment, the words you post in your public journal and the meaning, once strung together, which they form. Because your girlfriend, or your mother, your boss, or that person you got a picture of while they were scratching themselves—they could all be reading, carefully, between the lines, forming their opinions of you and judging your every character, judging your very character!
Which means, of course, make sure to read their blogs also—because if we can’t resolve our issues like cavemen (and we can’t, I’ve tried…), at least we can read about our issues and maybe think about how much better as a society we really are than cavemen, how advanced we are, how literate we are. Because, no, we can’t hit people with wooden mallets or drag people by their hair anymore, but we can pound keyboards.
