Down the block from me there's a guy named Fripp. That's not his real name but I never heard anyone call him anything else.
He's about 50 or so - it's hard to tell with fat guys who spent most of their lives smoking and doing crossword puzzles.
He lost his job about a year and a half ago - I think he serviced valves or something like that - and he's been struggling ever since. His wife is a nurse and his kids are grown so I suppose he's luckier than most.
There are a lot of Fripps in my neck of the woods, proud, simple guys who found dignity in work and who needed no consolation in a life of low expectation.
I saw him the other day at Doris', the diner downtown that just started serving four-dollar lattes to go with their short-stack and bacon. When he saw me pass he looked up from his puzzle having pegged me with my horn rims as being the town's resident wise-ass.
"What in fuck's name is qi"?
There was real pain in his face as if his whole world was collapsing around the sudden realization that not every Q need be followed by a U. How do you explain to an out-of-work pipe fitter that "life's energy" can be corralled by positive thinking. That money and good fortune are within everyone's reach by the simple act of entering into the flow.
Visiting my daughter in Manhattan I've actually been witness to young, affluent professionals using the ancient Chinese concept of qi to justify the purchase of hundred-dollar bottles 1985 Canon-La Gaffelière.
I have no quarrel with consumption, I'm a lifelong Libertarian with nary a whit of compassion for slackers and near-do-wells. If some ambulance-chasing corporate lawyer wants to blow his wad on a pricey grape, God bless him.
But please spare me the New Age milquetoast, bleeding-heart justifications. Sometimes qi is just chance and the flow of life is upstream and always against the current.
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