Squatting and Hungry

I once met a rather tall, balding, ragged English man semi-squatting in a derelict, dilapidated flophouse in a bustling Central European party city. A bit wretched, a bit dispossessed, he seemed to sulk about with a nary a shred of spirit left to him. And to be fair, I was semi-squatting there too, at least until I could find more suitable, dignified, inhabitable quarters. This is not to say I was in a much better way. After all, how else is one to meet someone in a flophouse? To give you an idea of what this place looked and smelled and felt like, I'll relate a short anecdote to you. One night, I'd met an eager woman at a famouse Jewish bar in the Jewish Quarter of the city. She wanted to take me home with her, but she had company there, and thus it was off limits. I offered to take her to mine. But I forewarned her in the taxi: "The place is a bit strange. Don't be scared when we arrive." "Don't worry, I've seen everything", she said. I doubted that. And my doubts were correct. Upon entering the abode she stopped and froze. Silence. Horror. Disgust. Terror.

Surveying the place, the filth, the carnage, the rot, the empty bottles and cigarette ends strewn about the floor, the lingering scent of rotting pigeon carcasses, the balding English man snoring a drunk mans sleep on one of the many mouldy mattresses littering the ground, she snaps: You're a drug addict, aren't you? Me: No. It's just a temporary–

Her: Don't you have any respect for yourself?

Me: No. But that's besides–

Her: I'm leaving. Goodbye. And out walks the door the sultry Jewish blonde who only moments ago was so eager to fornicate.

Now. Do you have any idea of how bad this place was?

****

Those were fun times and those were rough times. But this is not about any of that. This is about the sleeping English man.

Who was he? Well, as he presented himself to me the first time I met him. He was an entrepreneur. A digital nomad. A man building an empire. A man with secrets, secrets that can be had for a price.

He was a PUA–Pick Up Artist.

Which was then the preferred vernacular for a Relationship Coach.

I suppose his empire, his business was not doing very well. After all, why would he be living in this squat indefinitely?

But as time went on, his business picked up a bit. Little by little he began procuring students who would pay him to learn his "secrets of seduction". I imagine he was a good salesman when it come to convincing men to purchase his services. Because he did start receiving students, and these students were indeed paying a hefty sum. But what they did not know was something I did: He had no secrets. And he was a terrible salesmen with women. Behind closed doors, away from his students, I'd study this man in action. He never "picked up". And on several occasions I'd see him being shouted at, scorned, publicly humiliated and verbally shat upon by female marks he'd try his secret formula on.

It was all a ruse, a facade. But by a stroke of clever marketing, a glib flapping of the tongue, he was indeed able to induce naive, simple, desperate and hungry men into purchasing the sacred secrets protected from the light of day by his priesthood.

Eventually our paths separated. I'd found my own living quarters, as did he and we rarely met occasion but on a few occasions we we'd bump into one another at a bar, I out by myself and he with a student doing "field training". Once he asked me to occupy his student to relieve of him of duties to blather. There was nothing wrong with this student. He was a tall, well-built, well off Brazilian man. And here's the kicker: he was married.

By all measures, he was the Platonic ideal of a man. I could find no fault in him other than a slight uncertainty, perhaps some self-doubt mixed in with confusion. Yet this physically and financially perfect man, this married man, had sought out the services of the unkempt, overweight, moldy, broke, chain smoking, alcoholic English man, having been duped by his marketing abilities.

I asked him what did he hope to gain.

He said he did not know what he wanted to gain, but he felt there was something he did need if this man had it, as he claimed to do, and it was up for sale.

****

Some years later I bumped into our crusty English friend again. How's the pick up stuff going? I asked him.

-Mate, I'm done with that shtick.

Well, that's good to hear. What are you doing now?

-Coaching.

You play sport?

-No, no. Life coaching.

Bear mind here this was around 2015. I wasn't too familiar with life coaching, maybe having heard the term only once or twice in passing. It simply wasn't an ubiquitous "profession" yet.

So, I asked him, what the fuck is life coaching?

-I help people discover their true selves, to find peace and confidence. To build organic, natural relationships and attract the types of women they want to attract. To become the best versions of themselves. To be successful.

So where are you living now?

-In an AirBnb.

And how's this going? -Better than ever! The clients are really starting to pour in. I have a client flying in from Slovenia tomorrow. Can you believe it? He's paying £1000 for 2 days of training.

What's training like?

-We talk about life. Teaching him some breathing exercises. I give a few speeches, basically Alan Watts and The Secret-type stuff. Get a few pints in him and take him to a bar. It's easy enough to meet a willing girl without any help, but he doesn't need to know that.

**** Of course I saw it for what is was–a clever redressing of his old enterprise in new, spiritual, pseudo-psychological garb. The same tricks but with a broader appeal and a "deeper" purpose. No wonder then his "empire" was finally starting to take hold.

He'd tapped into something innate and primal in man: a desire to be mentored by an elevated class of men possessing esoteric secrets, life-changing knowledge. A desire for something "deeper", something "more profound".

Hell, Paolo Coelho, the literary fraudster, figured that out ages ago.

Our English friend simply figured out how make Coelho's books flesh and blood and walk amongst us. A transfiguration of sorts. And this gimmick really worked.

****

In our modern, secular, post-God world, these "prophets" are all amongst us. Every telephone pole is plastered with adverts for self-help gurus. Life coaches. Natural healers. They stand on every street corner promoting their seminars. Our social media news feeds are rammed with them. Daytime TV exalts them, bringing them on to dispense otherworldly advice to audiences hungering for something. Anything. Anything at all.

They are our secular priesthood in a world where our priests of the old order whither and stutter and falter. They write the sacred texts of the day. They guard the secrets. They lead the way. We are broken and they can fix us. They can transfigure us, performing alchemy on our cold hardened souls, turning emaciated men into world-class warrior. Think of Tom Cruz's character in Magnolia. Think of Tony Robbins. Are not his seminars reminiscent of a Pentecostal Sunday service, his devotees shouting and trembling as they're possessed with the incantations and exhortations issued from his pulpit? Are there not snakes slithering through his halls?

****

And if this makes you uneasy, it is because it should make you uneasy. Think of our English friend. Would you say he possessed something sacred and profound? Or a Chinese knock-off of something sacred and profound. A degraded, clownish, worldly, empty version of the sacred and profound. A fast-food incarnation of the sacred and profound.

I'll leave the answer to you.

****

And though these men might offer mere empty spiritual calories, provide us with fleeting, ephemeral sustenance, we still hunger.

And by the day that hunger grows more fierce.

Yes, we hunger for something. And I'm not sure this world has the feast necessary to sate our famished souls.

****

I recently came across our English friend's new website. It seems he's at it, taking it to an even more "transcendent" level, now offering "Mindful Life Coaching". Where the slow food movement is a contemporary reaction to years of fast junk food, "mindful living" seems to be its counterpart in the "spiritual" department. But consider this: There's little about "slow food" that differentiates it from fast food other than its presentation. (I'd even go a step further and argue its a clever ploy to allow for a margin of laziness in the kitchen while increasing prices. But that's the cynic in me.) Whatever the case, marketers truly are the geniuses of our time. High and mighty. And we have to ask if that's something we're comfortable with.

Our English friend, his main marketing materials now include a picture of him sitting in the lotus position, eyes closed, head bowed–an overall air of quiet contemplation. And I think of the souls who turn to him for redemption. I wonder if they're still hungry.