Walker Percy Profundity Accompanied by Silliness

Southerners have trouble ruling out the possible. What happens to a man to whom all things seem possible and every course of action open? Nothing of course. Except war. If a man lives in the sphere of the possible and waits for something to happen, what he is waiting for is war – or the end of the world. That is why Southerners like to fight and make good soldiers. In war the possible becomes actual through no doing of our own. – From The Last Gentleman by Walker Percy

I feel I owe something to the late Dr. Percy. Prior to this, I have read only Second Coming, one of his last novels, dealing with the same protagonist, Will Barrett, at a time later in life. That novel had a profound influence on me, very much the final boot out the back door of frozen fundamentalism. I always felt like a gate crasher there anyway. It was only a matter of time.

Like Barrett I am, in many ways, a reactionary. Some people want to make things happen. I’m more likely to want to keep things from happening. Others create. I fix things. I solve problems – usually problems created by others, but occasionally ones created by myself in an attempt to solve someone else’s problem.

As others have observed, this can be a difference between men and women. Not so much that women cause all the problems, but that they like to talk about situations as if something needed to be fixed. My wife seems to think that talking – endlessly – about anything is somehow beneficial. Not only is it beneficial to her, it is beneficial to our relationship. Ever notice it is the little old men who are most likely to be deaf?

Someone needs to explain this to me. If my wife and I are in the car, and I’m driving, are we not doing something together? Why doesn’t being in the car together listening to music count? Why doesn’t sitting on the sofa or the bed together watching a movie count? Why does it only count if we talk? I cannot enjoy music if someone is talking over it. I cannot follow a movie if someone is talking the whole time.

And this one really gets me: we’re watching a TV show, my wife keeps chattering, paying no attention to what is going on, and then she suddenly realizes something is happening on screen. “What’s he doing? Why is he doing that?” Do you know why I will never give up my DVR? Because I can hit the pause button and not miss the entire rest of the show while I explain what has happened up to that point. Of course, it also means that I now watch television in about five minute increments, but it’s better than nothing.

After all, I'm a problem-solver.