Why regulation after stress can feel intensified – Following a rapid sympathetic surge, the subjective experience of safety is often heightened due to the release of endorphins, dopamine, and oxytocin. This is accompanied by a parasympathetic rebound. In effect, the nervous system “over-rewards” safety, amplifying states that signal survival.

“The Western paradise is constituted from the hell (of the global South).” Heiner Müller

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“If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will.” Steve Jobs

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“There is no dualism of mind and brain, but only a functional difference between conscious and non-conscious brain states.” Gerhard Roth

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“The length of the mane is a social signal to male conspecifics and can be interpreted as an indication of fighting strength among rivals. Therefore, this signal of physical fitness reduces the likelihood of risky fights.” Avishag and Amotz Zahavi, Wikipedia

The General Store of Life

Predestination is one thing; fitness is another. In this story, nobody smokes—not even a single cigarette—nor drinks seriously. If a cocktail complements the dress, Nana merely sips from the matching glass, treating it as an accessory. She is no longer an escapist. Women in her world survive socially by concealing their passions. Casual or occasional lovers notice nothing amiss. Aberrations remain hidden, almost magically. Even the secondary stimulus—provoking the ejaculation of a writer who has just appeared in a seminar—goes unnoticed amidst the turmoil.

We were in Prague at the beginning of February 2020. The city was crowded with Asians, almost all wearing face masks. At first, we dismissed it as phobia. Yet the virus was already making its presence felt. It was none of our concern. The pandemic had long since reached Europe, but my instincts registered no alarm. No atavistic warning sounded. Normally, I can hear the grass grow.

Like many others, the virus took me by surprise. I thought of this while reading Stephen Greenblatt’s Death in Rome. He, like me, underestimated it. News of the virus seemed as threatening as a squirrel on a ledge. Greenblatt was enjoying a research semester in Rome, confident that distance from the crisis was sufficient. A Chinese friend informed him of dystopian changes in her homeland. From afar, we watched quarantined households in China. The virus seemed unnervingly close, yet stationary. The first reports of emergencies in northern Italy seeped through our wall of ignorance, dismissed as lightly as water damage.

The initial lockdowns flickered across broadcasts like scenes from a horror film. Then Milan Fashion Week was canceled. An aircraft carrier of the Italian economy would not sail. That was a signal everyone understood. Suddenly, abstract information became concrete; even without prior experience, one recognized it. The virus had arrived in Europe. It had entered the viral aesthetic. It was now coming home. The first closed-door match—the social cruciate ligament tear—was Juventus Turin versus Inter Milan. In this Catholic country, that spoke more than the closure of a cathedral.

Back in Ederthal, Goya had invited the American writer Tecumseh Thunderbolt, who had gained fame with the life stories of his male ancestors, Lance and Hercules T.—see Egg Money, Penguin. Inspired by Ralph W. Emerson’s observations of nature, Thomas “Ike” Thunderbolt, the Pittsburgh-born son of a printer, abandoned everything behind him. Seeking a primal connection with the natural world, Ike reached a frontier outpost in Missouri, a remnant of the bloody-white civilization. Bull’s Crossing had begun as a bison hunter’s camp. By 1880, only a brothel, boarding house, livery stable, and saloon remained. The frontier genre was already tinged with nostalgia. The days when massive herds darkened the prairie, shaking the ground and quickening hearts, were gone—even if briefly. Veterans associated their most vivid memories with atavistic, phantasmagoric stampedes of living fossils. Night drives through bone fields and apocalyptic carcass colonies were etched in memory. Their incantations revolved around steppe slaughter festivals.

Ike entered the Wild West stage with the romantic’s expectations. A runaway joined the stragglers. He ignored warnings when financing a hunting expedition, equipping men who would otherwise never have had legal saddles. Sam, the hunting guide, carried out his duties with pride, knowing everything about buffalo—including how to kill them in succession without panicking the herd. His factotum, a Bible-reading drunkard, remained loyal to the great hunter, who could just as easily appear in a Hemingway or Cormac McCarthy novel. Gary appeared as a mangy skinner and seasoned outsider, viewing his companions with deep skepticism. He knew Murphy’s Law: whatever could go wrong, would.

At the end of a senseless ordeal, Ike found the woman with whom he would start a family. They moved to her hometown, where their son Lance was born in 1887. The child of poor parents bought his first suit with his mother’s egg money. The unfamiliar clothing symbolized the reluctant rise the hero undertook. Lance was the product of a peasant precariat enduring generational hardship. Rigid expectations shaped his life; a university degree seemed absurd. Yet his father encouraged him to attend an agricultural college, subtly offering a chance at a better life. The generosity was cloaked in awkward phrasing: in their situation, one expected nothing and gave nothing—and yet he offered his son a path out of misery.

Lance attended the University of Missouri in Columbia, founded in 1839 and open to women from 1868. By 1870, the School of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts had expanded its curriculum.

The story drives Nana to the brink of sexual madness, the sensation that every organ has become an activated clitoris. Does CC incarnate into Tecumseh to offer Nana a grandiose prospect? In any case, the guest shows no surprise when she leads him past everyone into the dead wing during a lecture break. Space for maneuver is abundant, yet Nana craves the confinement of a toilet cubicle. She wears a silver, semi-transparent, shoulder- and backless dress.

It unfolds as if compelled to repeat, yet the scene retains its polished edges: the prompt erection, the joy of solid mediocrity, and simple functionality. The technical derivation of the pressure is essentially Chi Sao.

Nana controls the unfolding. She experiences exactly what she wants. She stimulates Tecumseh and herself. Suddenly, Tecumseh disrupts the arrangement. With a force that seems to signal CC’s direct intervention, she is repositioned as desired. Tecumseh ejaculates on Nana ’s bottom. In her perception, CC has replaced him. Nana wishes to be, for CC, at least partially what he is for her: guarantor of endless pleasure, a simple everyday life, money and power, and the prospect of permanently expanded perceptual boundaries. With CC, Nana feels she could exist in space—not entirely unaided, but still comfortably, in a unique position, among the stars.

After the break: After graduating, Lance joins an agricultural machinery company in Wichita Falls. Defeats accumulate. He suffers personally and professionally. Attempts to assert himself fail miserably. At the company, he is ignored, sidelined, and ultimately pushed out. Lance’s honest, bony character locks him out while malicious rivals thrive. Defeat is total. His great-grandson, the narrator, leaves no room for consolation. Desolation prevails.

The bristly monster falls in love with Adriane Barbara James. Their honeymoon in an Austin hotel proves a debacle. Their marriage coincides with the still timidly enforced Prohibition of 1920. Innkeepers overcharge for spirits. After consummation, Edith vomits, blaming the unfamiliar alcohol. Their marriage offers no joyful moments. Their son, Lance, born in 1925, experiences affection only from his father.

By 1944, Wichita Falls was no longer merely a terminus and loading station for cattle drives in North Texas. The construction of Texas’s first skyscraper ended in farce. At least tycoon John G. Hardin owed the university. Academia opened its doors to pioneers’ grandchildren, far from the traditional East Coast universities. Tecumseh’s grandfather, Hercules T., brought fashionable stubbornness to the down-to-earth cowboy style. Lance’s son wandered down the main street of Wichita Falls.