by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmith@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com
To transmogrify means to transform in an often strange, surprising, scary or grotesque way.
I think when a small town person grows up and goes to the big gnarly city to ‘make it’, they tend to transmogify.
It cannot not happen.
After all, a giant gnarley city is usually strange, surprising scary and grotesque.
Of course I am not saying small towns are heaven.
You get cornered into selling yourself to the big gnarly city.
It’s about Jobs, the need to make enough money…and usually a side of debauchery.
When I was young I was quite miserable.
I didn’t learn how to know how to be happy until perhaps 37.
When the big gnarly city has spit me out like a annoying chicken bone.
This is all not abnormal – that is to be miserable by default & to be spat out like city trash.
Of course a big gnarly city will spit out many a small town kid all grown up.
Again – this is not anything new.
Children have no power and cannot usually choose to escape.
The kid who grows up with high trauma will internalize the misery that surrounds.
Deep into their nervous systems and psyhe’s.
And by default all kids like this -we all soon transmogrify into degrees of ‘broken adults’.
I’ve talked about my trauma before so I will not rehash other than three epitets:
Poor, Neurodivergent, Child of Divorce, my father a magician (i.e. disappeared).
Now I am for many an ‘older man’ – but by now I’ve learnt like others do – to to ‘steal happiness’.
It’s not really happiness per se,
It’s really a rolling feeling of semi-wellbeing,
Because I’ve learnt to curb the most destructive habits:
Being too drunk too often,
Being around too many assholes in big cities & offices and bars.
And I’ve learnt about a few easy cheats:
Eating home cooked meals,
Having creative hobbies that could sprout into something bigger – e.g. writing.
Learning that it’s ok to say no to something.
Getting some regular hard physical labor under your belt.
And also remembering about ’embracing the inner child’.
And post apocalypse – I think the writing & the hard labor may have saved me entirely.
I’m purely speculating here, but you never know –
If I’d never started the hard labor and the writing –
And was spat out into the gutters of the big gnarly city
Perhaps I wouldn’t even be here now.
If your life’s over in a big city – it’s never wise to stay.
You will likely become a zombie of the city.
Yes in my younger, darker, big city days I have known deep despair.
If I had not died and been essentially reborn and exiled at 38 – who knows where I’d be.
But I doubt I would have ever died by my own hand.
Maybe I would have suddenly became just another a big ego driven depressed ‘success story’ in the bright lights –
MAYBE.
But I think I was one of those people that had to be essentially destroyed in order to ‘get better’.
The weird thing about my ‘Big City era, was I was within a couple of steps to some ‘city success’.
But something inside me warned me off opening that door.
It’s just as well as I was taken out before that happened.
For I probably would have been just another semi-wealthy miserable bastard wearing a mask.
Transmogrified by the big gnarly city.
Now after the war has been over for well over a decade,
I get to sit quietly and reflect.
On how good it is to have a soul, quiet times and the occasional smile.
That’s where the wealth’s at my friend.
You know it, I know it, your cat knows it but your big city office crank boss doesn’t.
Of course I don’t want to sugarcoat – I’m probably still a old curmudgeon.
And Big Gnarley cities have their good people and places – yes.
It would be remiss of me to pretend that was not the case.
Today I do love a few cans of beer at night in the country quietness.
As I sit in solitude.
And why not? haven’t I earnt it?
That war is long over and the peace settlements have been signed.
I’m entitled to a beer with my thoughts as the country stars twinkle.
Yes – I have remnants of big gnarly city bastardry – and that’s ok.
A remnant and defeated psychological ghost army can’t do much harm anyway.
I really can recommend blowing up your horrid big city office life for the country air.
Of course if your lucky the city will push the controlled demolition button for you.
And they’ll save you well ahead of ‘natural time’.
And I realise all this as I sit with a beer breathing clear air.
Writing away happily.
Yes loneliness is real but I like to think of it as being ‘functionally lonely’.
I have memories of the War – but it is so long ago,
It’s edges are rounded off and some fuzzyness has emerged .
The Big Gnarley cities are expert propagandists and tricksters.
The old Roman Bread and Circuses till abound.
The Big Gnarly daily wars do allow its footsoldiers to get laid regularly.
Amongst all the other vices.
The Corporate-denizen-slave need something to forget their cubicle-screen-work-dystopias.
And I was no different to everyone.
It’s actually what the psychologists call mass psychosis.
This is why it’s far better to visit the madhouses than live in them.
Anyway this was my tale of how the ‘concrete jungles’ are well named.
For that’s exactly what they are.
I’m merely reminding people of the facts.
I’m a mere reporter just ‘tellin’ it how it is’.
Personally I’m happy I was spat out versus consumed and transmogrified into the abyss.
In writing and in life – you gotta call a spade a spade.
Your best audience will love you for it.
Who doesn’t love a good trauma-based, haphazard-but-believable, de-transmogrification tale?
Bonus Material: There is a related Essay on my sister site – see the link below.
https://martinantonsmith.wordpress.com/2026/07/05/article-are-mega-cities-inherently-bad/
Anton Martin Smith Writer 