You are a Wolf.

And the insurance company was right.

I was on my way to work, on an early and dark Alaskan morning. Blurs of spruce trees were passing by my window and the cold fumes of distant boilers or stoves were rising into the air, all while “A Rambler/s Life” by The Dreadnoughts was being blasted out of my stereo. Music, especially of this kind always made my commute more enjoyable- some roaring punk to balance out the monotonous day I’d have at the hardware store, counting pipe fittings and little nuts and screws until it hurt to stand and the math blurred together in my head. I was day-dreaming, screaming the words inside my beater. -And then the brake lights appeared at the bottom of the hill (a hill where those at the top are not able to see the bottom) They were stationary. I braked, the ice skidded my car forward, it veered and wobbled and everything then happened in a blink. I should’ve put the thing in the ditch. The horrible sound of the metal bending, the radiator belt scratching, that dusty smell of the airbag, and that scene inside the cabin of my car washed in smoke – it is still a ghost in my memory. It’s a Rambler’s Life for me…

It was intriguing to me how the insurance company can openly discriminate on how it charges premiums. They made the assumption that I am more likely to get into a crash based on my age and sex and thus that I’d be most likely to use their services and have to pay more to compensate for that. I paid the rate rather begrudgingly, thinking how much of a scam it was- until I proved that they were right…

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Young men are simultaneously the most important and most dangerous asset that society possesses. We are the demographic with the strength to make up the defense forces and the sectors of blue-collar labor, and we are the ones with the unshaped potential to eventually grow up and become good family men and fierce leaders for the nation. Yet, as history has shown, we are also the most villainous demographic, the ones most easily persuaded by vices and Godheads, by wealth, honor, and pride to commit terror and atrocity. The ships under Menelaus as they sacked Troy were not made up of teenage girls, and the Berserkr warbands that raized Europe in the 800s were not decrepit elderly men; they were young warriors at the peak of their lives, who left home to pursue these wants.

For the basest desires of a young man lie at the fact that when he enters into the world and becomes a “man”, he does not have any accolades of his own- he has nothing. No experience. The faces of boys all look rather the same, of pudgy, infantile, scarless faces. It is only with the wrinkles of age, scars of war, and weather of time that a man becomes an individual. All the marks are unique to him and he has a story to tell. These marks are a prerequisite to participation in society, being acknowledged as one with wisdom and experience, and thus suitable for leadership and fatherhood. Without these marks, he is nothing but a boy. He can swear himself to the highest of offices and the finest of women but without distinguishing experience, he has nothing to provide to either and will only make a fool of himself. It is this formative time in every man’s life that decides who he will become- a time when he is the most potent he will ever be, many other greedy men will be attempting to steal his youth for themselves, and at the end of it all he must settle and grow up, and expel the wolf.

Adorning the Wolf Pelt

Engraving of the “Beast of Gevaudan”, a mysterious wolfish creature that terrified the province of Gevaudan in late 18th century France. This is you…

Let us imagine some strange Kafkan¹ reality, where, on your 18^th birthday, you wake up outside your family’s farmhouse on the cold ground:

Stretch and yawn you in morning rays.
Flies floss the teeth and through the haze
Your eyes catch that quaint porch door
through which you entered in childhood days.

Mother's flower bush sits above the scruff
A yay bit taller than just enough
To otherwise reach for a blossom

Your steps are at first silent as you frollick
But toes then ring 'gainst the cobble as they click.
A stranger comes up to the glass. 
A beast whose jaws you lick.

You are a wolf, and at first, it is a startling thought. You get used to it for that second. It must be a dream. With your wet nose, you knock on the door three times as you’d be accustomed to doing with your human fist. Heels clack hardwood. It is your mother who comes to crack the door, and she stops at the threshold. Without hesitation, she screams. She takes the shoe from her foot and pegs it at your eye. Your brothers and sisters come with a pail of rocks, and father gets the shotgun-

You do not understand at first, the aggravation of your family. You came with the nicest intentions of having tea, but too many of your kind have stopped by before and left a bad taste (your younger brother Alfred had been eaten out of his crib long ago, and just last week one made a horrible mess of feathers in the coup). And while disheartened, you get it.

This is how you’ll be treated wherever you show your face unless you lower yourself to receiving scraps. This is for a few reasons- not only are you now a dangerous animal of the wilderness who of all of God’s creatures is most likely to kill a man, get a girl pregnant, insult the regent, (and yes, cause a car accident)- but others are jealous of you. You are not only handsome, strong, and witty with only the attractive potential to grow in dominion, but you are in free fall. No strands of social attachment bound you, and you have all the space to stretch your gait, unlike the grown men you come across. They are sick and old and bound to oaths and honors, wives and children. You are a danger to all they have acquired, and a reminder of the powerful young rakes they used to be. That is why they raise their guns at you.

For though your family you've scorned
Little time is there to mourn.
Your head lowered, you skulk back to the woods
To roam and prowl where you should.

In Free Fall

I once woke up as a wolf. It doesn’t happen necessarily when you turn eighteen, but rather at any point in your adolescence. On that morning, all the comforts, customs, and love you grew up with, irrationally become the object of hate, as if it was all a conspiracy to keep you a kid. She was a frail and pretty thing, Beatrice², whom I had been dating for all of high school. There were times when I felt I lived exclusively for the rare occasions I’d get to see her. Yet, if she had it her way, I’d be a good little Baptist who would have gone to college and stayed in Southland to live and work in her father’s shadow on the family farm. For an animal that had suddenly grown fangs and fur, the only salvation lay in gnawing my foot out of the trap. The first thing I did after graduation, was go to the farthest corner of America, with the widest of timber and harshest of winters- to the great land of Alaska.

It is of greatest excitement to wake up and realize that one is in free fall. The sun shines differently almost. For the wolf, he is beholden to none, with nothing to hold him down. He can travel the world, pick and choose his masters, make and break bonds, indulge in his vices, and none then should be offended, for he is just a wolf on his way in the world. There will never be another time in his life like this and it should be cherished.

Mount Drum. Glennallen, Alaska.

You set off to find the most beautiful landscape there was rumored to exist. You slink across creeks, through the dark depths of Northern woods, and nearly climb a mountain before you are sitting on the highest bluff in the land. Beneath there glimmers a golden river, alive with the salmon fish that churn in it. The golden leaves of aspen shimmer down from the trees (it is a wide expanse of where all of this is happening) and on the horizon sits the mountain- a snowy-headed God on his throne with his hand on his chin, ready to hear council. He is clear to be seen, as he sits across from you all those miles away. You breathe in the air and take in the view.

You want to take a nap in the scenery’s shadow, but suddenly a thought rakes your mind- I am the loneliest I will ever be. No one sits here to take in the view with you. This landscape will only exist in your confidence alone once you leave. Having no other observers to watch and admire it, is equivalent to non-existence, and in the same way, your happiness is so passing and isolated, that it may as well not exist either. A man named Chris McCandless³ figured this out the hard way once.

Without the strands of social attachment, the nights are cold and the frostbite in your toes is very much real. If I die here, no one will come to find me. Your mind will wander to dreams of home and of- what if I hadn’t left. A verse or two from Robert Service, I’d like to share with you then:

Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;
With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,
A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;
While high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars? —
Then you've a hunch what the music meant. . . hunger and night and the stars.

And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans,
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;
For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;
But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman's love —
A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true —
(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, — the lady that's known as Lou.)

-From The Shooting of Dan McGrew

For all the greatness that lies in atomization- pure freedom from societal bonds- this should not be the goal. It is a transient period and a necessary one to explore one’s strengths, build one’s skill, and learn the woes of the world so that he may one day take on the mantle of leadership and husbandry. Otherwise, failing to throw off the wolf pelt is akin to never growing up. It would be of the greatest tragedy. For once he is old, the wits, handsome looks, and physical strength are long gone and if no one loves him by that time, he has no money accumulated, no title, he has failed the most. There is no longer a chance to acquire any of that and he will die alone an unspectacular rogue. This absolute freedom gives the wolf all the rope in the world to hang himself with.

Wolfpack

Wet reeds whack the wrists.
The prints paused back in the mist
Long prior when you had begun to miss
most, the warmth of a fire's kiss

slouch hat something something... 

There is an old man that greets you, imagine him in the figure of Odin if you’d like, it would be very fitting, and so two wolves accompany him⁴. You pause, decide whether or not to run as the silvery hairs on your back lift. He calls from afar though and begs you closer. “Wanderer, I saw you on your way in the world-” He makes you an offer and talks up a wild story ‘bout the war going on in the East: “You will not believe what is happening over there- men are earning glory out there every day by the spear and the horse; new kings are having their faces minted as we speak… The wealth runs in rivers like how the widows and daughters run to the blood-soaked heroes. You’d better consider going there at its peak- I can help you on your way... you’ll earn such glory and honor on par with Gods fighting along my legions… think of the stories you’ll bring back home… all in exchange for your service.”

It is in the blood of all wolves to run with a pack and it would be hard not to think that the kind of honor you’d win out there, would carry your name, your story, worlds over and give you an adventure that would be the envy of all your friends back home. But before you run off with that man, it must be realized- he knows something you don’t. What lies- what wickedness lies in the contract that he has already used to bind so many others like you? Behind the promises of earthly vice and honor, lie the truth that he intends on collecting those powers of yours- youth and all of its goods- and with your muscle and blood he shall write his own name into history and fill his treasuries, bringing misery to many in the process.

This relationship has founded empires. Every single government today can trace its roots back to some contract between wolves and a wiser man, who led the dogs to war, and let their bodies be the stairsteps upon which civilization rose for better or worse. Even today, the process of maintaining power, requires a similar contract, it simply does not manifest itself in the way you think. The masters are managers, and the wolves are kept busy with peacetime jobs purely so they don’t cause problems- so they don’t roam the woods as free radicals ready to be ensnared by the next warlord wishing to topple the state. If not that function, martial contracts still exist in very much the same format.

A friend of mine once described the Army to me, as nothing but a big gang. While the modern U.S. military and its installments over the last three hundred years seem so civilized, grand, and unquestionable, they are not much different than the warbands and retinues who went out in previous centuries, to torch cities and collect tribute. The only difference is that the U.S. military has monopolized violence and the output of young men towards violence, whereas in previous centuries, there were numerous gangs vying for power and influence, while now on this side of the globe there is only one, but still, at its guts, it is filled with hungry young wolves ready to be unleashed on some poor nation as in times prior.

This is not to say that all such contracts should be avoided. The greatest adventures that have ever been had in all of human history, stem from young men signing into the service of the entrepreneurial who took them to the other side of the world through hell and back. How else does one have the means to travel to the golden city of Constantinople other than to join Basil’s guard⁵, to sail across the sea and have the Aztecs quake at your feet, to be an Abe No Nakamoro⁶ looking up from his quarters in Chang’an and writing: “When I look up into the vast sky tonight, is it the same moon that I saw rising from behind Mt. Mikasa at Kasuga Shrine all those years ago?”, to be an Admiral Byrd freezing by his lonesome on the Antarctic Shelf, and to one day be one among the first humans to plant his foot on Mars.

You may very well regret not taking such a chance and/or it may be the only way to reach for higher status. I merely advise you to consider the costs. Such contracts, especially in the modern day as you join the workforce will often offer you a steady path to build a future for when you finally throw off the wolf cloak, but these are the best days of your life, and they shouldn’t be sold off frivolously. Old men know your powers because they too were once young, and resent you because of your potential. They will try to steal it from you.

Forever is too long.

You have traveled a long way. Your paws are sore from every rock on the path. Your stomach growls over the wind. As fun as it’s been, you think it is finally time to rest and so you seek out where you shall call home. You find a good gal whom you can call a best friend- maybe it is someone whose path you’ve crossed with at just the right time, or maybe it is someone you’ve had your eye on since you were a little boy. Nonetheless, you bend the knee- an act that when you were hot-blooded and full of pride would be unthinkable of doing to any living being- and take her as your wife. Hopefully, you’ve thought it all through, you’ve put your past and especially yourself beside you, and have gotten the “wolfishness” out of your system.

I say this, because even after joining the ranks of men, many may revert at points in their lives. The pride is still boiling hot- maybe he has never had a chance to live by his own wits and explore his full strengths because he turned in too early, or sold his youth entirely to a career. Even with the dearest of wives and children, highest of offices, noblest of titles, men will descend to the “back alley”⁷ and ruin it all for the sake of pride. This issue lies at the center of mid-life crises, extramarital affairs with handmaids, and the cinematic plot of “Legends of the Fall”. If you are not familiar with the movie, it is based on a short story by American author, Jim Harrison, and follows the sons of a Colonel Ludlow who settles his family in the frontier of Montana after his military career. The brother Tristan, unlike the other two, unusually embraces the wilderness and the mentorship of a Cree Indian named “One Stab”. After the death of his youngest brother, Samuel, in the Great War, he falls in love with and seduces his brother’s widowed fiance, Susannah, and by all means, has a happy life laid out for him on the family estate.

Yet, he has a certain intuition, the wild is not dead inside of him yet, or the “Bear”, as One Stab refers to it as, (in reference to an encounter the young Tristan had with a grizzly bear in which he cut off one of the bear’s claws in self-defense, and the two beings parted ways in mutual understanding). Tristan leaves comfort and home and his new lover and leaves for the distant reaches of the globe to fulfill his wanderlust. He sees wondrous things in Africa and Asia, kills the most exotic of beasts, and trades stories with great warriors in these distant lands but upon his return, unlike how the King of Ithaca was received after twenty years⁸, Susannah wasn’t able to wait any longer. “Forever turned out to be too long.” She says.

For every man, there must be a point when he finally grows up and at the same time, it shouldn’t be rushed. There will be a missing piece of you that your soul will only seek to regain at a most inopportune time, and by the time you come back to your senses, the damage may already be done.

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Know, that I’ve written a story here. It is not valuable in itself to view the world as a battle between wolves and men, and in fact it would be a terrible choice to embrace the identity of a feral animal and see that everyone is out to throw rocks at you. It is more entertaining than anything, and if you simply took the idea that youth is the high time of your life that should not be dallied away and that the decision to finally be a man is an important one which will require you to give up your independence and take on responsibility, then this essay did its purpose.

This is merely a story, much like an Ego, it is a lens through which to look at the world and get somewhere, but it is not the world in itself. I say that the essence of human life revolves around youth and story, and well, you and I have youth so why bother with the story now, you can come back to it later but the time is now to live. Go wreck your car and then you’ll find out, personally, why the insurance company was right.

Danke,

-Absurdismus.

And happy Solstice.

1. In reference to The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, in which a young man wakes up one day in his bedroom as a massive cockroach-like creature. I speak of wolves, but many young men I know are in fact closer to cockroaches.

2. Not her actual name; you’re just going to have to suck it up- or maybe you will find some Divine Comedy in my choice of this name over “Jane Doe”.

3. “happiness is only real if it’s shared…” Chris McCandless left home, donated or burned all of his money, and became a hitchhiker. He ended up in the wilderness of Alaska and attempted to survive out of an abandoned bus he found just outside the boundary of Denali National Park. Those were the words found on a note by the people who came across his body. Read Into the Wild by John Krakauer, if you can.

4. Geri and Freki if you will. Please don’t pet them.

5. The Varangian Guard. An elite fighting force formed by Basil II of the Byzantine Empire by recruiting warriors under contract from the Kievan Rus.

6. Abe no Nakamoro. 8th Century Japanese Poet and Diplomat to the Tang Dynasty of China. He never did return home.

7. Dmitri Fyodorvich in The Brothers Karamazov, confesses to Alexei that he has gone to the “back alley". Despite possessing the beautiful and noble Katerina Ivanovna as his fiance, he forsakes her for the prostitute, Grushenka.

8. Odysseus. His wife, Penelope, fought off suitors and remained loyal to Odysseus after twenty years of his absence. What a gal.