The Self-Help Hostage Situation

The Self-Help Hostage Situation

I stopped into Barnes & Noble after the outlet mall nearly chewed through the last thread of my sanity. The place was a zoo — literal herds of shoppers migrating from rack to rack with all the urgency of tranquilized buffalo. By the time I escaped, I needed quiet. I needed stillness. And I needed caffeine more than oxygen.

So I headed straight for the café and took my usual spot: one of the small two-top tables along the railing overlooking the store. My latte steamed beside me. Peace was possible — or so I thought.

Then I heard it. A voice. Not a normal voice. A projected, booming, over-enunciated voice belonging to the kind of man who believes he's delivering a keynote speech every time he opens his mouth.

I glanced into the Self-Help and Metaphysical section.

That's where I saw him.

A man in a bold, vividly patterned dashiki stood at a diagonal angle in front of a yoga-pants woman who looked like she had wandered in for a scented candle and some affirmation cards. His hair was long and unbrushed, his beard determined to unionize, and the patchouli radiating off him was so strong it nearly developed sentience.

He was talking. She was enduring.

“...the whole PROBLEM,” he boomed, “is that people think buying a book is the same as pursuing truth. But Jung would laugh — LAUGH — at the reductionism people accept these days!”

She clutched her book to her chest like a flotation device. Her eyes were wide in a helpless, doe-eyed panic — the universal look of “Why is this happening to me?”

She tried to step around him — a hesitant, hopeful inch — but he shifted without missing a syllable, accidentally blocking her escape like a rogue pinball machine bumper, redirecting her right back into metaphysical captivity.

“And crystals,” he continued, “are COMPLETELY misunderstood by the wellness-industrial complex! People buy them without ANY awareness of their symbolic historical weight!”

She hadn’t spoken once. Not a single word. Every micro-attempt at a sentence was steamrolled by his ongoing dissertation.

From my table at the café rail, I watched the whole thing unfold. Every gesture. Every unsolicited declaration. Every blocked escape route.

Some people study human behavior by choice. I study it because the universe will not stop handing me material.

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Diagnosis

• Unsolicited Metaphysical Mansplaining
• Intellectual Monologue Disorder
• Patchouli-Induced Hostage Situation

Treatment

• Ask before lecturing strangers
• Maintain one aisle of distance in Self-Help zones
• Avoid blocking escape routes while discussing Jung

Moral

• If enlightenment requires trapping someone between a bookshelf and your opinions, it's not enlightenment — it's bad manners.

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