My middle son Trevor is a thirty-five year old software engineer with a business degree from Fordham and a responsible job in Silicon Valley.
He's also an idiot.
I mean this in the most loving way. He is pretty intelligent, he's fairly even-tempered, has a very nice wife and a cute though slightly obnoxious 6 year-old. I wish for him only the best but it's tough to warm up to him these days because he's such a idiot.
What's buggin' me?
He's joined a cult!
I have to confess, I'm getting a real education. I always thought of cults as groups of lunatics with finger cymbals and patchouli oil swapping partners and eating bark. But no! Like most of my preconceptions this one too is fixed with my Jefferson Airplane LPs in the 1960's.
While I was napping with my Wall Street Journal tucked beneath my chin the Age of Aquarius gave way to the Century of Self-Indulgence! Forget the Branch Davidians and the Reverend Sun Myung Moon - at least with those guys you always knew what you were dealing with. Now we have these "life-style' enhancers and "transformational training" seminars where seemingly rational and well-educated people get sucked into a Ponzi racket of guaranteed well-being.
Trevor is hooked on The Possibility Promise, a group that insists that it's okay to want things and getting them is just a matter of arranging a few details.
Cults.
For centuries the Chinese referred to anyone from the outside world as a barbarian. To the Catholics, theirs is the one true faith. ISIS wants to turn the world into a caliphate, the Jews insist they're chosen, the Germans, as we know, are the master race and the Evangelicals are on a first-name basis with Yaweh.
I get it. In order to maintain cohesion, groups enforce a conformity myth based on inherent superiority. Through ritual storytelling and a common vernacular they reinforce a collective identity that gives meaning to its members lives and lets them think they are part of something larger than themselves.
Fine.
But I thought that the money I was spending on Trevor's university education was in order to inoculate him against this kind of malarkey. Wasn't he supposed to come away from all these fancy schools with a solid sense of critical thinking? Have our affluent, sophisticated professionals been cast so far adrift by their naked ambitions that they've developed a longing to adhere and belong? Are these secular religions with their codified narcissism the modern replacements for spirituality? Is "unleashing the extraordinary" and "actualizing your bliss" our new Ave Maria and Amen?
Trevor is an idiot but I have to say that since he started with this Possibility shite, though his wife barely talks to him and his siblings have completely cut him off, he's nearly doubled his salary, lost about 35 pounds and cleans the inside of his car almost every single day!
