Know Your Master

Interview with Adolph Nobody

By John Taylor; 2007 October 31, 16 Ilm, 164 BE

I am happy to share the news that a major celebrity has consented to an interview exclusively here on the Badi' list. That VIP is none other than Adolph Nobody, the de facto king of the world and the inspiration for, well, pretty much you name it, globalization, democracy, capitalism, nationalism, the list goes on. So without further ado, here is the first installment of our recent exchange of wit and soul.

JET: First off, it is "Nobody" isn't it? I have heard you called "No Man" a few times. Do you prefer that name?

Adolph: They both work. Just don't call me late for dinner, heh, heh.

JET: So if it does not matter what they call you what I would like to know -- to get out of these interviews -- is an insight into the person behind the name, the face behind the mask. I hope you can help me out with that. Who are you, really?

Adolph: Well, you know how Jesus said, "Ask and ye shall receive?" Well, I am the guy who stands by you and whispers in your hear and says, `Don't ask. It is a lot simpler not to. Why bother?' What is so bad about that? Just do not rock the boat, is all I say.

JET: Now a lot of people have been painting you as a bad guy, the ultimate bad guy, as Satan's alter ego. Are you as bad as they say?

Adolph: Of course not. People do not realize this but I am really a nice guy deep down. I go to parties, I exchange gifts with my friends at Christmas, I even went out trick or treating for Halloween. And don't forget, poets write about me. I do not mean grisly street poets, either, but nice ones, lady poets. My favorite is Emily Dickenson. She wrote,

"I'm nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?

Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!

They'd banish us, you know."

You know, when she wrote that I liked the sentiment so much I memorized her little verse. I like the idea that I am frail and delicate because, well, I am. I am a sensitive thing, an airy nothing, an ephemerality. I have needs, deep down, like anybody else. All it takes to get rid of me is a little organization, a little planning and I am out of there. Banished, as she says. If there is no breathable anarchy to fill my lungs I am out of there.

JET: Now I know you made your first appearance on the Badi' list last year but of course you have been around a lot longer than that. When did you first make it into the English language?

Adolph: I am glad you asked that. Not very many people know it but I started out as a property owner. My estate on the outside of London edged into English back in the 1300's. English back then hardly existed, it was a motley hodgepodge of Anglo, Saxon and French words at the time but my property worked its way in there regardless.

JET: You owned land? How can nobody own land?

Adolph: Well, it started out as a dump, but then things started getting out of hand when somebody got the bright idea of executing criminals there. Leave the bodies there to rot, they said, that way people will look on this wasteland and think twice about doing wrong. Being tough on crime was as popular then as it is today. Soon enough the whole area was empty. People were afraid to go near the place. It had been a long time since I could breathe as easy as I when I first visited there.

JET: >From what I have read such "unsanitary dumps" were quite common in antiquity. The one outside of Jerusalem they called Gahanna and it became proverbial for hell.

Adolph: Yeah, the difference was that this time they called a spade a spade. They named it after me. They called it "no-man's-land." I was quite touched when they did that. I felt so welcome that I moved right in and I must say that I have never regretted that decision. The English speaking peoples and I have been like this ever since.

JET: Next you are going to say that you knew William Shakespeare.

Adolph: No. Well, it would be more accurate to say that he knew me. He had his villain Iago invoke me when he working Othello into a jealous rage. "If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her patent to offend; for, if it touch not you, it comes near nobody." Then in Henry VI you hear a version of the old saying, "Ill blows the wind that profits nobody." I was a little upset when the version of the saying that manages not to mention me became current in English, "Tis an ill wind that blows no good." On the other hand, the second version implies that somebody always profits no matter how ill the wind, but Shakespeare's proverb warns directly against me, personally.

JET: You are not going to tell me that you were a stranger to literature before English came along.

Adolph: Oh my, no! I go as far back as Homer.

JET: Pray tell.

Adolph: I was the first slippery stone that Odysseus fell over when he turned his ship homewards. You remember the story, how he cleverly told the cyclops that his name was Noman, and when he was hurt and complained to his people, they responded:

"'What ails you, Polyphemus,' said they, 'that you make such a noise, breaking the stillness of the night, and preventing us from being able to sleep? Surely no man is carrying off your sheep? Surely no man is trying to kill you either by fraud or by force?' But Polyphemus shouted to them from inside the cave, 'Noman is killing me by fraud; no man is killing me by force.'

Odysseus took my name in vain and gained a technical knockout. But then as he was getting away he could not resist shouting out his real name to Polyphemus. Naturally, the cyclops tore off the mountain top, heaved it into the sea and when that did not sink the ship, he complained to his protector, Poseidon. The sea god was angry and made it a lot worse for Odysseus after that. That little act of hubris drew out his time away to almost 19 years.

JET: So it was an ill wind that profits nobody!

Adolph: Hey, I got nothing out of that. All I am saying is that he could have made it a good wind if only he had used my name and left it at that. But no, people are always giving me other names, like democracy, nationalism, globalization. Why don't they just use my name and have an end of it? And besides, 19 is the number of unity for you Baha'is, isn't it? So his being banished for 19 years must have been a good thing in the end.

JET: Baha'u'llah was banished for forty years, twice that time, and His banishment was redemptive. He was exiled so that we could all come home, home to one planet, one people, thank you very much.

Adolph: But you people cannot even suffer if I am not right there with you. Do you remember the spiritual, "Nobody know de trouble I seen, Nobody know de sorrow..."? Well, it means what it says, if you do not suffer alone with me you are not really suffering. You think I was not with the Holy Ones? I went with them into the wilderness. They all met me and know me better than any one of you. You all need me at one point in life’s journey. I am there with you all your lives, ready to be used as Odysseus used me. It is no coincidence that Tennyson’s poem about Odysseus says at one point, “…all experience is an arch wherethrough gleams that untravel'd world whose margin fades forever and forever when I move.” What better description of no-man’s-land could you ask for?