Post No. 198: On The Topic Of "Mojo"

from Eleanor,
a novel by Geoff Schutt

*
Jay Spain, Eleanor's father, speaking:

"A man has to have his mojo, simple as that. A woman, she’s got her mojo or whatever the female equivalent is – she’s got it built in. It’s part of her genes, her aura, everything that is female – everything that is woman. With a man, though, it’s exterior before it’s interior. It’s like channeling the great spirits that have come before him, and then making it all personal, and compacting it into something tangible. He needs to be able to touch his mojo, and only then does his mojo become the intangible inside of him – his bravado and confidence, his sensitivity, generosity, how he loves another human being, how he has sex with a woman or makes something more passionate with her. How he is able to wake up in the morning and live his life with all of the baggage of men upon his shoulders: let me tell you, that is a weight to consider. But let a man who’s alert to such things the chance to get his mojo, to hold onto it, to make it a part of his living being, and you have completion. A woman, now, she can be stripped of all of her fancy clothes and makeup and anything else that would normally give her self-esteem, and she can be degraded and battered to the point of tears, and even then, even when she is at her most vulnerable, a woman will still have an inner strength that can beat away adversity, that can find faith in chaos, that can still love. A woman can be naked, clutching her knees to her chest in the corner of a room, and she will still have inherent within -- the equivalent of mojo. Doesn’t need to look for it, like a man does, and a man will look in all the wrong places, give him a head not screwed on right. But she will exist even in the darkest of despair, still a woman, with dignity and beauty. A man, he has to have his mojo, wherever he finds it, because mojo is such a personal thing. It becomes a quest. You can’t define it, and some men might never ever possess it. A woman, whether she realizes or not, will always possess mojo. But a man indeed has to find it, make it his own so he can evolve with it, or vice versa, because you become one and the same with your mojo. And this is power. Not power as in strength, as in who has the biggest balls, the mightiest sword, who can punch a fist through a wall with his bare hand and laugh about it afterward. Mojo is to power as power is to life. Mojo defines a person. Defines a man. You find a man with good mojo, and you have a man who can go places. Don’t need ambition for that because mojo gives him the power to walk through walls. It is the singular potent ingredient to being a man, and as it is so potent, it can also become singularly elusive."