I am nobody, relatively speaking, so nobody really gives a whit what I think about groups, but I shall nevertheless say something on the subject just in case I become somebody some day and my words become deemed worthy of consideration.

I'm afraid I don't belong to any groups at present. However, I have been a member of a few groups over the years. I do recognize their value as a power higher than people standing alone, I know there is safety in numbers, but I am not fond of being a member of anything.

I must say that, when the members of an organization begin to worship the concrete organization itself rather than its relationship to the highest principles; when they make their love of the organization a hate-based love, a self-identification based on the hatred of a hated and feared 'enemy' organization; when they start kissing the walls that separate them from other organizations; when they curse or cast out anyone who questions the organization with an eye to improvement; - I want no truck with them.

Sometimes I must put up with one of the above flaws, yet I continue to speak up at the risk of being tossed out on my ear. I was banned from a group for publicly calling its leader a liar whenever he lied in public; he often lied, and continuously flirted with fraud. I didn't use polite phrases, like "that is untrue ", or "you are mistaken", or “that is an inaccurate statement.” I simply said, "You are a liar, and I can prove it." He was supported by the usual seventy percent of the group who support authority no matter what it says or does – and ninety percent of that seventy percent do not really know what's going on and don't care to find out.

I was told that I should go elsewhere if I did not like the organization. But elsewhere nowadays is pretty much the same, so I considered it my duty to take my stand wherever I was at. If more of us do not do just that, I reasoned, everything is going to get worse everywhere. For example, if every citizen of the United States who had a complaint about his country left his country because some two-bit super-patriot said, "Love it or leave it," the United States would not be much of a country to live in. I was finally banned by that organization; I told myself that I would never join another group, but maybe I shall join another one if I find one that likes me, and I hope I do not call myself I liar if I do so.

Please mistake me not. I am not out to make trouble for groups – not at all, if they do not trouble me. I just stay away from them now. I am a member of the general society as it is constituted where I live, and I get along with society very well. Indeed, I love people in general if not in particular. Almost everybody smiles at me because I smile a lot. I lead a studious life, and I am happy with the life of the mind. Sometimes I am absent-minded enough to be mistaken for a village idiot – I intend no offense here to idiots at large or to the American Association of Village Idiots.

You see, I am addicted not to drugs but to the creative mental life, which is omnipotent in its own realm, especially if one is a complete narcissist – I would be one if it were not for the water nymphs. Sure, the mental life is an effective way to avoid reality if your reality is not ideal, and it's a natural high, much better than crack, I suppose for safety’s sake. I’m glad I never have writer’s block! Writing is like the smoking and drinking I used to do every day after 5:30 pm and until midnight, but the process is much less painful the next morning. In fact I like to get up at four in the morning and toss off anecdotes while having breakfast. It’s no wonder that the literature of the realist writers who wrote in saloons and existentialists who wrote in jazz cellars is such a headache at times.

By the way, I have quite a few amusing and serious thoughts in written form to offer to my fellows, but there is no economic demand for them at present, so I give of myself freely on the Internet, where I am known as a literary slut. Still I keep a huge inventory of work for sale in my archives because someday readers may support me in my beloved endeavor, a preoccupation that allows me to escape from the crowded world and therefore to say that I write for everybody’s freedom.

Returning to groups, the other day I was told that I must belong to groups in order to succeed as a person, no matter what my profession might be. Everyone should be with a family, I was told, and work for a company, be a member of a church or a club or some other group. Otherwise he will get depressed, wind up institutionalized, or even worse, snap and kill a number of people. I have noticed that disappointed day traders who run amok with assault rifles down South want to save people from the world, starting with their family and co-workers, then the general public, and last but not least, themselves – the captain is supposed to be the last to abandon ship after saving his group.

Fear me not. I do not have a weapon and I am rarely depressed, and when I am it is not due to the absence of people but rather because of their presence. As every existentialist who puts existence before being knows very well, one can be quite lonely in crowds even when knowing that oneself is a Category of One. Rest assured that I am of no great danger to the world although I might be of some help entertaining it. Since I am nobody people are hardly likely to revolt waving one my little books over their heads as they march on the capitol.  I wouldn't mind saving the world figuratively with a few phrases here and there, but I do not aspire to literally save the world. Therefore I suppose I am selfish although I am relatively harmless. I don't see why I should go out of my way to join a group right now.

As for the kind of institution that I might love instead of loath, that would not be a mental institution as they presently exist, for I cannot stand authorities who are not insightful authors, like the psychologist who claimed psychology is a myth, and the psychiatrist who claimed psychiatry is a form of political oppression. I would love to be welcome at writers’ retreats indefinitely so I can shoot the breeze with other literate sojourners at will and finish my books without worrying about becoming houseless by next Christmas unless god exists and a miracle occurs. Or I would be a natural font of unregulated wisdom for some non-profit, anarchic spiritual institution, with me taking up temporal abode in its penthouse in paradise.

I prefer to hang out in libraries and live in a quiet corner of the world. When I must work a regular job to save up money so I won’t have to work a regular job, I prefer the little office way in the back, close to the rest rooms and the kitchen. Instead of telling tales, I keep tallies and lose myself in the tax code from time to time. I find no shame in that inasmuch as the pharaoh’s scribes kept the books before writing revolutionary tracts. That way I can be for the group as well as against it. But again, I am of no danger to the corporation; although I am a liberal thinker, I am a conservative actor.

That is pretty much what I think about groups. Maybe it will be of some significance if I ever become somebody of note.

Honolulu 2003