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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March 23rd, 2007 at 4:01 pm
My limbic system does resonate with your words, Sally. Even with all these miles between us. I am glad I’m not alone. I feel you with me when reading your words. Thank you! I’m so glad you and Tim are blogging. It is good. Very good.
March 23rd, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Oh Sally…Thank you for stretching yourself across the limitations of the technological “messenger” as a bridge from heart to heart.Thank you for speaking what is also in my heart. There are many of us speaking here on this page. Here we meet. This is the “gift” of this technology… to communicate through the myth of time and space in one instant, become one mind.
There is one paragraph here that I personally must counter. It is this…. I do see the quality of light, not in you eyes perhaps, but rather in your heart. And this IS the light we see when we are able to look into each other’s eyes! I do hear the quiet sigh, it is the same sigh coming out of my own body. I feel complete recogntion and resonance. And I know that we “hug” each other in this exchange, not in our arms, but yet again in the heart from which those arms grow.
It is the screaming and wailing of our grief and our outrage that we are missing, all of us, regardless of whether we embrace the truth of it or refuse to acknowledge it. This is our gaping wound, our infection, our cellular biology gone maniacal. Only as we name it, with unconditional honesty as you do here, is there any hope at all for the healing that’s needed. Whether we die or not, seems not to be the point really; we will die no matter what any of us do. The point is to live into the fullness of our potential for love and wisdom. You offer direction to those who are lost, companionship to those aching, in this sharing of what is in your understanding. This IS not the “least you can do”, but the best anyone has to offer.
You are right though, you have “no business writing a BLOG”… it is much to graceless a word to use for what is written here.
March 30th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Sally,
You are so wrong that the subtle nuances of expression and of communication are not present in this “blog.” I am not ‘atall a techie, and it took today when I finally broke down and asked my friend Daniel to please teach me how to access and communicate via “blog,” that I am here. I see tears in your eyes; a sad frown, a smile, a reaching out of hand. I almost smell your scent. It is meant to be that I just happened upon a relatively new young poet, Tara McHale, and her poem, titled,
” ! ! an isolated sort of communication” - here ’tis, hopefully helping you heal and know that we are feeling you in blog.
” ! ! an isolated sort of communication”
Remember, remember, the fifth of November,
a mere four and a half months ago
(I measure time, I enjoy and I redeploy
the assets
of a friend I have come now to know) .
No Guy Fawkes celebrations for me
but celebration of a more cerebral sort.
Experience had taught
that reading a certain blog made me ‘happy’.
How so? you may ask…
and what a tragic task,
I concede,
to be quasi-voyeur of another
when that other is ones real life lover.
The eyes to the soul, it would seem,
in a self-obsessed paragraph
that reads like an epitaph
written bare for all the world to see.
Intention and emotion
commitment and devotion.
Frustration with a hint of sorrow.
Another blog, I inwardly sigh, in the morrow.
Another glimpse of what is ‘really going on’
in the mind of the never-only one.
April 1st, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Great posting. I’ve come to the conclusion that if ignorance is bliss, that knowledge therefore must be discontent.
I’m excited to see the film; any chance of getting a local screening in New Hampshire?
-Jeremy
April 1st, 2007 at 5:43 pm
It’s the biggest soapbox you could find- even if it is a flawed and mediated medium. I have the frustrating urge to scream these same things so the world will hear, the same frustration that led Teddy K. to start blowing people up…
Sadly, the mass of humanity will refuse to take notice until it is too late, and in fact it may already be. Our species is as vulnerable to the future die-offs as any, and there is now no avoiding enormous loss of terrestrial life.
Good Luck.
April 1st, 2007 at 6:21 pm
I am in New Zealand.I have been trying to tell people the truth about the future of this world for 4 years now.I gave a public talk on Peak Oil and the future of this system.I was constantly interrupted during my talk by people wanting a solution or way out so that they could continue to engage in acts of tokenism, like recycling their household plastics and cardboard whilst still engaged in massive consumerism. They did not accept my view that by 2012 the lights will have gone out and without electricity the global economy with large mega cities as we now have all over the world will come to a crashing halt. Greenland is melting 10 times faster in 2006 than it was in 1996. When ice comes in contact with water it melts and the greater the area that comes in contact with water the faster the rate of melt. It increases melting by an order of magnitude that my simple little mind cannot even comprehend. My feeling is that by 2015 or thereabouts, Greenlands rate of melt will be affecting the ocean levels in our world. This may be our only hope. Total collapse of civilisation. I hope that my words are helpful in letting you know that there are many others in this world that feel your pain and anguish. People like you are the only hope for this world. Remain steadfast and true.
April 2nd, 2007 at 4:52 pm
I am always grateful to hear other people express what I’ve been feeling. We are not alone, and we are a growing number. As Paul Hawken says, we are the immune response of the planet, waking up. It is important that our voices be shared and heard, that we connect. People don’ t change until the pain of not changing becomes greater than perceived pain of changing. This is hopeful, because pain and pressure will be applied to humanity like never before, and people will be motivated to undertake real change. I’ve been suggesting that we need a “12 step program” for the addicts of unsustainable civilization. As least some of us have taken the first step, ackowledging our addiction. The next step is finding the others our there who, like us, have taken this step, gotten ride of the blinders. I believe the path will make itself known, but this connection is critical. And as of today, you and I are connected, along with others who have read your powerful words.
April 21st, 2007 at 4:34 am
Hey Sally
So nice to “hear” your thoughts here.
Like Stan, I’m in New Zealand as you know, and up against the same old, same old….either denial or give us a solution that will allow business as usual…..we are sooooo fucked, and life is good.
Been down to Oamaru last weekend for a Peak Oil & Climate change workshop. When I got there I was told I was “to blame” for it. I sent them copies of docos and books and articles about 4 years ago and they garbed it and ran with it. You never know where your attempts at activism will go. I was deeply honoured that they’d picked up the ball and were running with it….
Thank you Sally for all your work with Tim, and what you’re trying to do.
There are folks now all over the planet who want to honour you for what you’re doing, and we’re keen to share the doco when it comes out….
Kia Kaha! (stand strong!)
Regards
Ted
Nelson, NZ
ps Stan you may want to contact me
: kitesfun “at” ihug.co.nz
May 3rd, 2007 at 12:28 am
Sally
I agree with most everything . . . Our problem in the states, I believe comes from a culture of money worship, until we understand that there is a cause and effect for everything we do, things just aren’t going to change . . . Seriously, people just don’t give a damn. At some point we need to look at ourselve before we judge and then we just might find a reason to solve all our natural problems and all the others.
Dan Hanosh
Dreams are yours to share