Now let’s say it’s just another day. No great obstacles are in view, no celebrations or anniversaries are noted on your calendar, no increased influx of spam trolls your computer, there isn’t a sufficient amount of laundry accumulated to warrant washing, and, as of this hour, the cat hasn’t ejected any hair balls … It’s just a day, another January day.
Now, imagine that on this ordinary day that you are in a line checking out at Big Y or at a basketball game or pitching a new project at work, maybe you are suspended in bored agitation in a doctor’s waiting room when you overhear someone refer to themselves as a “very stable genius.”
If, in that instant, your very ordinary day isn’t overwhelmed by a tsunami of fear and knee jerk terror then heaven help you. For anyone to tag themselves as a “very stable genius” is tantamount to shouting “fire” in a theater. No one lollygags in their seat contemplating if they smell smoke while deliberating if there truly is a fire. No one says: “Oh, I’ll just wait this one out.” Instead the fight, flight or freeze hardwired alarm is triggered. The internal pneumatic sirens blare.
On this most ordinary of ordinary days when you hear someone refer to themselves as a “very stable genius,” do you run for the hills, challenge the absurdity, or do you freeze as a deer in the headlights? The hills are alive, not with the sound of music, but rather with the reverberating shouts of “Fire!” The proclamation of being a “very stable genius” is different only in that it needs be spoken just once to effect a most plausible/possible threat to one’s life — even on this most ordinary day.
