To be more specific: I think humanity has gone crazy.
Maybe that’s not specific enough: I think those raised within western civilization are crazy (with “extra special” crazy status reserved for those who most benefit from its exploitations).
And I’m not trying to be humourous. I have come to believe that the vast bulk of us (and by “us” I’m referring to those of us who fit the last set of criteria above and, specifically, this piece will speak to those of primarily Celtic descent) are truly not well. We are sick.
By any measure you can point to, we’re doing insane things to ourselves and to the planet.
If any alien invader came and did what we are doing they would be fought, resisted and a war waged against them. If aliens came and: enslaved 27 million humans (creating more slaves than have ever existed before on Earth), rapidly deforested our planet to create fuel for its ships, worked to destroy our ozone layer, created and then deposited nuclear waste - which would last up to 500,000 years (in barrels that, being optimistic, might last 200 years) – near our water supplies, if they polluted our air, water and food supply and depleted our topsoil while intentionally creating the 5th great wave of extinction the planet has ever seen there’d be revolution in the streets over night.
If, in order to rule us, they worked to destroy our unique cultures and languages and make us conform to their own (one that was totally and literally alien to us) we’d resist (just as indigenous people’s around the world resisted the onslaught of civilization).
If, to weaken us, they intentionally addicted us to toxic substances that would result in the vast majority of the population dying of painful and debilitating diseases well before their natural time (in fact doing this to such an extent that “death by natural causes was no longer considered statistically significant) we’d never take it. Especially not, if as an instrument of torture, they ensured that we lived longer – so that we’d suffer more (prolonging not so much our living but our dementia and dying).
But, because it is Western Civilization doing these things, and worse, then OH! all the above are, of course, signs of great progress and a booming economy.
And it really is that bad. There's an old saying "if one person calls you a horse’s ass, punch them in the face. If two people call you a horse’s ass, think about it, three people call you a horse’s ass -- get a saddle." If one person were depressed that would be one thing. If it were only 100 or thousand people that's another -- but when it's so many that it's impossible to count because it's become normal, it's time to look at the system producing that.
I think we’ve gone crazy.
* * *
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."
"We must never cease our exploring. For perhaps the end of all our exploring will be to return to the place where we first began in to truly know that place for the first time."
-- T.S. Eliot
How can one understand one's place in the world without understanding the world? And what good is it find one's place in a world gone mad? And, what if the world we are normally shown is not, indeed, the real and natural world? Just as fictional characters like Superman have no place in this world, nor do real people ever truly have a place in the fictional world. And, what if we live in a culture of make-believe?
And what if its synthetic soil sustains us only at the barest levels? What if, like any plant, we only grow in proportion to the soil in which we find ourselves? What if the depleted soil of civilization is growing depleted people? What if civilization is not the beginning of our story is humanity but merely the latest [and hopefully not last] chapter? And what if we're so miserable because we have only read this last chapter [it's not a very happy chapter -- it's full of slavery, rate, depression, oppression and abuse of all kinds]?
Is it possible that civilization itself – the very thing that was supposed to make us all happier, healthier and wealthier - is making us miserable, sickly and impoverished (in all the ways that matter most)?
And here’s a question that will keep you up at night: How have we collectively created a world none of us wants individually? No one wants polluted air, water, land or energy sources. That’s not anyone’s end goal for their life. Is it possible that we don't want the ends but were addicted to the means? We don't want air pollution but we are addicted to cars?
Is it possible that we misunderstand our place in the world and what it is to be human because we understand too little of our history? And what, I wonder would happen if we knew?
I am beginning to suspect that we are not who we were. Perhaps, who we think we are is not even really who we are. And if that’s true then what has become of us? How did it get to this? How did we become such domesticated sleepwalkers?
I am beginning to suspect that what we consider normal is far from what is natural. And I’m beginning to suspect that the problem goes deep to the very heart of what call civilization - to the heart of the Western Mind.
* * *
I don’t think we understand where we fit anymore. I think we’ve lost any real sense of the greater story of which we are a part. I think most of us sense the craziness in the world (and have experienced it in our own ways) and are actually living in trauma.
But we don’t know where the pain is coming from. In our darker moments, and perhaps our sanest ones, just before we fall asleep, many of us secretly hold a variation of the last sentiment of Tolstoy’s Ivan Illich, “Is it possible that our whole world has been wrong?”
* * *
Caitlin Matthews, Celtic scholar and author, poses the question like this:
"How can the soul or the world be re-enchanted once it is lost the enchantment? Only by returning to the story of the soul and retelling it up to the point of fracture; only by placing our story within the context of the greater song.
She tells that when Merlin is exposed to the terrible carnage of the battle of Arfderwydd "he becomes mad and runs into the depths of the forest. Within the forest's embrace, he becomes one with the trees and seasons and puts aside the terrible sights he has seen to focus upon the gifts of the wild world, becoming rusticated and "uncivilized."
Ever pertinent and prophetic, he sees through the pretexts and pretensions of those who come to lure him back to civilization with the sure instinct of an animal,”
He does not respond to anyone except his friend, the Welsh poet, Taliesin who comes to sit with him. Only then “does Merlin respond, asking the odd question, "why do we have weather?" This seemingly trivial query is all that Taliesin needs to help his friend. He begins to recite the creation of the world. At the end of Taliesin's recital, Merlin is restored as the sacred context of his story is given back to them." - The Celtic Spirit, Caitlin Matthews, page 70 and page 225
Except for most of us - there has been no Taliesin. There has been no grandmother. No one has rewoven us into the fabric of creation. So, what the hell are we supposed to do? Can the sick heal themselves? Can the traumatized un-traumatize themselves? Can the sleeping wake themselves? Can the dead resurrect themselves?
Who saves us when we’re all in trouble?
“Child go off from the herd
go beyond the lowlands
leave the valley of shed antlers
the elders are sick
it is your time now.”
- “Listen to the Wind”,
Barnie McCormack, Bard of Craigencalt
