Introducing JL Wilson: The Man for His Time and Place
“No social study that does not come back to the problems of biography, of history and of their intersections within a society has completed its intellectual journey.”
- C. Wright Mills
Let’s talk about Jarrett Wilson. He wants to know about “the problems of biography, of history”, like, so bad! That is what he aims to show in his writing — that history is in man’s DNA and the biography of every human is but a single cell in a vast organism. In other words, it is to show that there are no accidents. Even the accidents can be shown to follow a causal chain.
He often thinks of a quote from “the stranger” in The Big Lebowski — “Sometimes there’s a man. Well, he’s the man, for his time and place”. I paraphrased a little, but the core of the message is still there.
Everyone is “the man” (or woman) for his/her “time and place”. Otherwise, s/he wouldn’t be there, the person who’s supposed to be there would and we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Is Jarrett saying there’s no free will? Not exactly…
Jarrett digresses, the point is that he wants to tell stories that highlight the notion that we can’t understand a person without understanding his/her environment. In turn, we come to understand an environment after learning about its inhabitants.
Writing is that “social study” where he can explore the collision of the individual and society, of biography and history.
Let’s use Jarrett as an example. He moves slowly due to a brain hemorrhage in 2009. This causes him to be in a hurry all the time.
Why is he in such a hurry? Go to an employment website and take note of how many employers call for the ability to function and thrive in a “fast-paced environment”. Now, contemplate how long it should take to get your order at McDonald's.
He is gainfully employed now. About a year ago, he was not. One afternoon, he was browsing the openings on Indeed.com and discovered that, of the first 20 job postings tagged for “research” near his North Texas locale, seven either boast of a fast-paced work environment or asked that the applicant be able to handle such a thing. This is only 35% but his search was limited to the search query — “fast-paced” (while browsing, he recalls the term “high octane” listed as a descriptor of one applicant seeking organization). What’s more, the search was limited to 40 miles of a town that is ~50 miles from a major city…
As is so often the case, Jarrett is digressing. One more example of the influence of history and it’ll all tie together. Huffington Post reported that, in 2016, it took McDonald's a whopping 208.2 seconds, on average, to get those gilded spears of starchy grease, that leaden patty of cholesterol and/or those nuggets of chicken fresh from their swim in a vat of oily fat, from the drive-thru window to your now carb starved hand. Meanwhile, over at Wendy’s, who only took 169.1 seconds to produce a classic biggie with fries is using that extra 39.1 seconds to conjure up an ad campaign to convince customers that all the food is grilled fresh (in just under three minutes?). The article goes on to declare that “Burger King, Dunkin’ Donuts and KFC all beat McDonald’s too.”
He isn't trying to point out the inadequacies of the McDonalds drive-thru. Rather, he’s emphasizing the point that, as a culture, we’re in a big damn hurry.
As an individual with a brain injury, it’s difficult for him to keep up. He has made some noteworthy adaptations and coping mechanisms, but still, it demonstrates the collision of biography and history.
Indeed, his writing journey began in earnest due to the hemorrhage. Shortly after checking into acute physical therapy rehab, he started a blog. Those words can be found at braininjourney.com. Along the way, it morphed into a chronicle of his journey through life with a brain injury, or brain “injourney”, if you will. He waxes eloquently about getting injections in the bottom of his foot, left versus right, an anesthesiologist named Dr. Pillow, and so on.
Thing is, dear readers, Jarrett has so many more dimensions.
So he come over to Medium.com to spin yarns about brains,
the shitstorm that is the English language,
and due diligence
