Neanderpundit

No, not the omega man, but the omega dog, the lowest pecking order in the pack.

In the post, here, Cond talks about the Omega wolf, and boy, was I ever. Still, in some ways, am. And it’s not always a bad thing, if you are in control of it.

See, the Omega wolf is a wolf that is in the bottom of the pecking order. Sometimes this is through nothing other than the accident of being born late or being the youngest in a litter, many other reasons can put the Omega there.

The Omega is often “Picked on” by other wolves, who make sport of him and can keep him away from food, or other pack activities.

At some point, sometimes, Omegas can drift away and form their own packs.

There are analogies in human relationships. I’ll venture a guess that a lot of bloggers are Omegas. Outcasts. Misfits. We watched Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and wished our noses would glow so that everyone would accept us.

There were any number of times I thought I’d never fit in to anything, and in the end, I never did. In that end, however, I discovered fitting in isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.

When I left the pack, so to speak, entered the world on my own, I did so as a specious member of a pack to which I did not choose to belong. I acted the part, even better than most of the “Real” members, and did so predominantly not to be the omega wolf, a part I had already played and was unwilling to play again.

Oldf habits die hard, however, and the role of the Omega is not without its benefits. See, the Omega is often left behind to sit the pups while the pack is hunting, not an entirely unpleseant gig. As an adult, I have spent a good deal of my time as a hangashore, staying back while others went out and grabbed the glory for themselves, while I did the dirty work.

Someone, it seems, has to do the dirty work.

This is one of the reasons I like Mike Rowe’s show so much because he understands what it takes to do the dirty work, and he never shies away from a job, no matter how bad it is. He gets it. God bless him.

I have since formed my own pack, and am a welcome guest (I believe) of other’s packs, and life is pretty good- but there’s still an element of Omega in what I do. I have a job that requires I spend a lot of time avoiding the glory, and cleaning up the messes that others make, and i’m very good at it, and the powers that be understand and appreciate it, for I am compensated far better than my fellows.

Those of us who are or were Omega wolves are also, often, Sons of Martha. It’s a pity Kipling gets this wrong, the rest of the poem is just about spot on, but he misses a really vital point. Kipling writes:
“To these from birth is Belief forbidden; from these till death is Relief afar.”
This clearly indicates a lack of understanding of the gospels, which you certainly wouldn’t suspect of Kipling. See, Martha and Mary are the sisters of Lazarus, and Jesus himself makes it abundantly clear that Martha already posesses that which is needful; Martha demonstrates her depth of faith at the tomb of Lazarus, and Christ commends her. Jesus spends extra time with Mary, not because she is favored, or because she is more deserving, but because she is probably feebleminded. The good teacher doesn’t have to spend the extra time with the good student, she already gets it. The stupid one is the one who needs the extra tuition, and Martha obviously does not.

Kipling is right in this, and almost by accident; the Sons of Martha..

“..say to mountains “Be ye removèd.” They say to the lesser floods “Be dry.”
Under their rods are the rocks reprovèd—they are not afraid of that which is high.
Then do the hill-tops shake to the summit—then is the bed of the deep laid bare,
That the Sons of Mary may overcome it, pleasantly sleeping and unaware. ”

And they do these things not as punishment nor as a penance for their “Rudeness”, but are, actually, capable of doing those things because of their great faith. yes, even the atheists/agnostics among them, because that faith is beyond even their own awareness.

I’m-in many ways- an Omega dog, but I’m also pretty plainly a son of Martha, and I do not consider it a “punisment” to be so, but a privelege, and an honor. To be entrusted with the heavy lifting while the “Alphas” go and get all the glory is not, in fact, very glamorous. But those of us in the know, know.

The feddle gummint gonna sue Arizona for their immigration law. We should hang them all.

Something about old Briggs engines that makes them make very specific sounds. My lawnmower has an 18 hp single about 40 years old that makes it’s own symphony of noises.

The mower deck has a drive belt to the middle spindle and two to the outer spindles. They make their own whine as they run around the idlers. The engine is throttled and governed, and it has an old Nelson can muffler on it that doesn’t so much quiet the noise as it does tune it. it makes a whoo-whoof sound as it runs, which becomes amplified as the governor kicks in and cracks the throttle open. The size of the flywheel on it keeps it going pretty well, to say nothing of the weight of all the rest of the mass it is flinging around, so driving it back and forth across the lawn it goes whooof whooof whooof whooof whooof whooof whooof whooof whooof

SO for the last thirty five or so years I’ve been mowing the lawn humming my favorite neal Young song, “Heart of Gold’

I’ve been doing it automatically for all this time, and I never even realized it myself until today. The ogwife saw me going to start the mower and said “Gonna sing “heart of gold for an hour?” Apparently she noticed before I did.

Wonder what other damned pavlovian behavior I have jammed in my noggin.