Page 58 - Psychoceramics and the Test of Fire

Homeostatopia

from what was publicly presented—unlike a couple of the
psychoceramics I had already assisted. He was quite gregarious,
depending, he knew, upon gaining widespread support for his
proposals. His early professional life had been in public relations,
after a lackluster academic career in the social sciences. He was
happiest as a facilitator, an idea man brought in to consult by local
and regional governments looking for large-scale reform of
organizations and institutions. He had to be a bit of a salesman
himself to navigate those tricky waters; I was a comparative amateur,
I realized after reading his biography, and would need to avoid any
confrontation in which both parties suddenly realized they were
being conned by the other and broke off negotiations. But he
expected uncritical enthusiasm from his followers: I had to walk a
narrow line between the due diligence of an investor and the abject
admiration of a sycophant. Distasteful work? Not for what I was
being paid!
I stopped to crack open an electrolyte beverage—it didn’t matter
where, in the shadeless wasteland I was traversing. I kept the engine
on and the air conditioner running while I rehydrated. Certainly
Peña’s followers had to be dedicated to put up with this inhospitable
environment: I wondered how many I’d find in Nodal Village. And
not for the first time marveled at the evolution of hubris in the clients
chosen by Al Magnus for their appointment with destiny. Was prior
success or failure more likely to breed irrational belief in the rightness
of one’s cause to the point of social isolation? I was beginning to
look for the common thread in these crackpots: aberrance or useful
mutation within the human gene pool? Nature or nurture? Yet I
knew enough also to question my own role as a participant-observer
in Al Magnus’s vast experiment in expiation and vindication. The
money was as good for me as those I rewarded—in proportion to
our ambitions—and I had no axe to grind, no pet theory to prove, so
I had no difficulty suspending judgment.
Back on track I reflected on Peña’s last big notion before he
headed for the desert. A large Midwestern city, squeezed by
constricting budgets and expanding populations of entitlement, let it
be known among the elite cadre of social planners that desperate
times called for innovative solutions. Peña, whose proposal was
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