The Truth Shall Make You Mad
“See things as they truly are without delusions or distortions
for all things change.” ~Buddhist teaching
I probably have no business writing a blog.
Our world is in dire need of healing at every level, and I have serious doubts that my words via electronic media will have a healing impact on the world.
We aren’t going to survive, the way we are going. If we don’t heal ourselves and fundamentally change the way we live, human beings won’t make it and we will continue taking out other species by the thousands along the way. I’m not sure that spending our time in front of screens writing and reading is helping things. It may even be hurting.
“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” ~Jesus of Nazareth
I am an economically, educationally, socially and politically privileged member of the species of homo sapiens. As a woman, I don’t profit from the privilege that white men have. Nonetheless, and even though I’m in recovery, I’m still a card-carrying member of the death-dealing, consumption-addicted, planet-wide, environment-eating, Empire. I drive cars. I use nuclear-generated electricity. I am typing on a totally unsustainably produced Mac. I feed the birds outside my window with sunflower seed that is part of monoculture food production.
It’s not my fault. I was born into this. And I see no easy or simple or cheap way to jump out of this mess and still make the contribution to change, to healing that I feel called to make.
“Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs.”
~ M.Scott Peck, The Road Less Travelled
What I can do, at the very least, is to acknowledge and talk about the fact that my very being has been seriously wounded by Empire. Along with the natural world that feeds and houses and clothes me, I too am in need of healing. We all are, as creatures of Empire.
Healing means to restore whole and balanced functioning to an organism. Gaping wounds are replaced by scar tissue. The rampant growth of a virus or a bacterium is halted and levels returned to a balanced, non-interfering state. The out of control growth of rogue cancer cells is contained and reduced to an imperceptible level. When we look at Empire and it’s impacts across the board we can see gaping wounds, infection, and rogue cells in abundance.
In our emotional lives, healing means the whole functioning and connection of mind, emotions and desire expressed in the lively and full expression of one’s uniqueness. At the level of the group, the family, or the community, healing means the return to cooperative interaction: individual actions support the full and balanced functioning of the group and the group’s actions in turn support the full and balanced functioning of each individual member. Again, Empire represents deep dysfunction. A few individuals grow out of control as the rest of the organism suffers.
Speaking ecologically, to be healed individuals, in a healed community, in a healed world would mean to become part of a climax ecosystem where individual members of a great variety of species are supported to thrive over countless lifetimes by the ecosystem’s vibrant and balanced functioning.
Can the sharing of my ideas via electronic media create and facilitate this?
I don’t know. And as I said, healing is at the forefront of my heart and mind right now. It seems like we either find ways to heal or we will die off, as a species, and tragically, as a biologically complex world.
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.” ~Winston Churchill
Yesterday I jam packed two liquor case boxes with my old journals, written over the past 15 years. Even though I read them only at those rare times when I move them from one place to another, I’m not ready to let go of them. Those journals record a huge amount of self-reflection, inner dialogue, dreams, visions, and, over the last few years, my own soul-searching through the nightmare of the culture of Empire and what that culture is destroying. My journal writing has been a means of great healing for me over the years and at times I see it has also helped others. On occasion I have shared journal entries with clients, friends and family and have seen that intimate sharing of my writing can help, can heal, and support others to heal.
But its a very different experience to read one’s personal journal to someone face to face than it is to publish words that appear on a screen miles, often thousands of miles away. This electronic medium of sharing does not allow us to impact one another with countless and subtle, often seemingly imperceptible bits of information that our limbic brains wordlessly exchange with one another when we are actually in each other’s physical presence.
“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.” ~Aldous Huxley
As you read these words on the screen your limbic brain will not register any changes from the quality of light in my eyes that would convey movement of emotion. You will hear no quiet sighs. We will exchange no glances of recognition and resonance. There will be no hugs. And no yelling. No visible or audible expressions of grief over the loss of 200 species a day. No screams of outrage at the fact that the extinction rate is a thousand times greater than the losses would be without current human impacts on the environment.
It’s just not the same as sitting in the room with someone, one on one, or sitting in a group, feeling, talking and listening with the rapt attention of both cerebral cortex and limbic brain.
Still, this is one medium that is available to reach out widely and, in whatever limited way, to make contact, to offer reflection on how I have learned to approach, thoughtfully, and with great feeling, our current world catastrophe.
Perhaps this can be an avenue to offer connection and support, albeit limited, to fellow travelers who are in grief, outrage, numbness or denial, about our current global predicament. At least the cerebral cortex, if not the limbic, feeling brain, of others will know:
“I am not alone. Others feel the enormity of this as well. Others grieve and feel outrage. Others are confused and frightened. Others get numb and complacent. I’m not crazy.”
My intention in writing this blog is to offer that, at the very least.
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