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Life is as tedious as a twice told tale

I don’t sulk very often; I live alone so there’s no one to sulk to, if you must know. It requires a target for it to work; it’s no fun to sulk alone, trust me. A truly effective sulk is a silent manipulation of someone who didn’t pay enough attention to you and alerts them to reconsider. A solo sulk is a depression; an effective sulk is a maneuver.

Still, I regard that as a challenge; after all, there is a still small voice that occasionally chides me when I’ve done something silly: one who actually knows my name and uses it to accuse me. We all have one of those (I hope). My mother used to say it was my conscience, but my inner voice isn’t such a goodie-goodie; it’s more like a goad, a pebble in my shoe that makes me stop and listen to it fall when I shake it out. It’s the voice that lives somewhere inside my head and sends me memories quite out of the blue that stop me in my tracks. Of course, it also tells me jokes that make me laugh, so it must be a real entity otherwise I wouldn’t laugh, right? I mean you can’t tickle yourself…

I’m simply trying to rationalize the fact that I’m probably not alone in here; I’m pretty sure I know which one is the real me, though… so I’m not bonkers. Anyway, it’s not a directive voice, but more of an awareness thing; it’s a me all right, but it’s usually more of a neighbourly me, a built-in loco parentis.

So, back to the challenge: can you actually sulk against yourself -against one of yourselves, at any rate- and not have a bystander accuse you of depression, or worse, as unregarded Age in corners thrown? The idea of sulking is to punish someone who wronged you, who doesn’t appear to understand you, and from whom you can withdraw to show them the consequences of their actions. In my case, though, given that the two of us share a room, any effective withdrawal would obviously present some difficulties.

And yet, the forced accommodation allows me, if not to withdraw, then at least to communicate my dissatisfaction with… uhmm, well with it I suppose… Perhaps a name would aid in the distinction though; it would at least help me to know to whom I am talking -validate it, as it were. I will therefore call it me2. The problem with that, of course, is one of infinite regression isn’t it? I mean if I accept that me2 is actually some sort of a verbal homunculus living in there advising me, does me2 in turn have one who advises it as well, and so on down the line? Sort of like that no doubt apocryphal woman at a scientific meeting who proposed that the world couldn’t fall down in space because it was supported on the back of a turtle. When the laughter had died down, she was asked what, then, supported the turtle. ‘It’s turtles all the way down,’ she replied.

But, I digress. I’d like to think that the more imaginative of us all have an inner voice that deserves a separate name; whether or not it actually assumes a persona unto itself, however, is neither here nor there. The question, rather, is whether I can feel that it is sometimes not meeting my needs and requires a time-out in the corner until it acquits itself -or at least is sufficiently sorry.

The rules that differentiate a sulk from a mere withdrawal of presence, though, are that you have to let the other party know you are aggrieved without revealing just why that is, in case you are then challenged as to whether or not your position is justified, let alone childish. It might also let them think you are willing to discuss it further. Resolution, after all, requires communication and, often, compromise. And that’s not allowed in sulk.

So, since it’s just with myself (as it were) that I am aggrieved, and yet am not willing to talk about it -okay, maybe just think about it, so nobody points at me on a bus and dials 911- how do I come out of this challenge still smelling like a rose (to myself, at any rate)? Can I sulk at myself, or can I not? And, if I can, then what is it I can’t agree with myself about? Is it about the very existence of a me2 (a competitor for the coveted seat behind my eyes), or the thought that maybe one or two of my favourite neurons are already plaqued?

Sometimes, though, I wonder if I’ve already succeeded in pouting with myself. I mean, what am I doing right now? I am forced to accept that my mind is indentured to my body. It was born into chattel slavery, and like marriage (not my own clumsy attempts, I must hasten to add) it is a for-better-or-worse contract binding the rest of my organs in a Dumasian Three Musketeers’ ‘One-for-all-and-all-for-one’ commitment designed to last. I am stuck with a me2 whether I like it or not. There are moments when the weight of this realization becomes untenable, though, and then what was previously deniable gradually rises to the surface like permafrost melting: a sulk.

Of course, usually I save self-sulking for really inscrutable existential moments -otherwise it would lose much of its panache. Sartre, a kind of exo-voice I sometimes also hear, insists that ‘Existence precedes essence’; existence is what allows me to pout; essence permits me to understand why. I am, therefore I can sulk. But why should I? Because I’ve finally realized that, like that extra button sewn on the inside of an expensive shirt, it is only helpful if it is actually used. So if I do decide to sulk, it is usually directed at me2 because, well, I can.

And after all these years, that seems reason enough.

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