Thank you, Kathy. I hear you. It's a discouraging and dramatic situation. Of course, one way that I look at it is that on the global scale, the U.S. and western Europe have been more or less totalitarian states for centuries. Hyper-racist nationalism and militarism are nothing new. That doesn't make me feel better, but it does help put things in a larger context and explain why deep organizing is more important than ever.
Thoughtful and provocative well written essay. I'm a retired physician/psychiatrist/addictionist/stress researcher/recovered alcoholic-addict/and Buddhist, and the author of the free online e-book PDF, "Stress R Us". "Anxiety" is the word we use to describe the feeling associated with the activation of our "stress response", the "fight-flight response" coined by Walter Bradford Cannon in his 1929 book, "Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage". Cannon was born in Prarie du Chein, WI, in the late 1800's, schooled (at the top of his class) in Superior,WI, and went on to get a degree at Harvard where he remained to found the physiology Dept., if I remember correctly. In 1927, he participated in an international seminar on the emotions at my alma mater, Wittenberg University, in Springfield, Ohio, much in the news of late. I won't try to summarize my 623 page book here, but to repeat its subtitle: "An Essay on What's Killing Us, Why, and What We Can Do About It".
You and I share similar lifeways, I admire and respect you sincerity and passion, but, at 79 yo, I have moved well beyond violent resistance actions and after a brief stint as a medical student in SDS, I completed my medical and psychiatric training. I am a childhood sexual abuse and emotional abandonment survivor and found my true calling in my 42 yr. psychiatric practice, treating over 25,000 patients, writing 1,000,000 Rx and giving supportive psychotherapy to each of those wonderful, suffering souls. So, my resistance work was one person/family at a time, but all the while haunted by my own CPTSD and depending on alcohol-marijuana for escape. 12-step meetings and the AA recovery program have been foundational to my ultimate recent total recovery from the re-living nightmares, chronic anxiety, and other symptoms of CPTSD.
I wish you the very best, but do not share your willingness to take direct violent action against the monolithic power of the corporate overlords or your youthful exuberance in a world clearly in a state of irreversible climate collapse. Gregg Miklashek, MD
Bingo Gregg. Another cPTSD here, albeit one who avoided substances because I saw what it did to people early in my life. Interesting topic and many more have it than people think. And interesting different roads to recovery. I got rid of the flashback nightmares by essentially going down a Pensieve into the past and talking to the young kid I was at various stages when I didn't have but sorely needed a safe kind adult to talk to and get mentored by. I had to reparent myself. The moment I began that, the nightmares became daytime flashbacks that immediately resulted in my consciously showing up for the little girl in the past/at my core to listen and support. 6 months later those flasbacks had mostly gone. It's a long road to be sure and many are on it.
Hey, Sue! Fascinating reply! I've never seen it laid out like that before. And, I believe that you're correct in saying that "many more people have it than people think". Let's be honest, America is, much like Australia and Hispanic nations of South and Central America, a dumping ground for Europe's massive overpopulation, as well as Africa's and Asia's. In our Hunter-Gatherer/pastoralist ancestry, when they were living in migratory Hunter-Gatherer clans/bands, population numbers were controlled by the availability of that area's sustaining natural resources and a woman's ability to care for one child at a time. Suckling prevented further pregnancy for 4 yrs., predators were plentiful, and unwanted pregnancies/births were relatively rare, as well as the limiting inter-clan boundaries. Our more recent ancestors have developed energy sources such as grain crops and fossil fuels that have allowed a massive overpopulation, which is throwing an ever greater number of us into the wind and leaving us unparented, vulnerable to human predators.
Your recovery story is amazing and your great courage and insight is truly amazing! I hope you write about it, perhaps a book: "My Personal Journey of Reparenting", or something like that. Thanks for sharing and best wishes, Gregg
Dear Gregg, I did write about it but not in a book - little people like me don't get published on topics like this, especially if not expressing views fashionable in the mainstream. So I wrote about it in an online music journal a few years ago, primarily because when I went through the worst of the PTSD nightmares and fallout, the thing that helped me above any other was reading stories from other people who had been in these same dark places. So when I became bold enough to speak up, I thought it would be good to give back by also writing about such things. I stuck it on an alternative music forum because obscure blogs don't have traction and I did want a handful of people to be able to find it.
I've written separately about the addiction aspects and other aspects of mental health but the above link should provide enough to chew on for a while. The main story is all on the first (forum) page of 14 posts. There is music between the large tracts of recount to keep people awake. 😜
It's interesting comparing American and Australian colonial history. We're not that far behind the insanities of the US here, with the political class leading the rapid descent into hell. But you guys got more of the puritans/religious nutcases on your colonial boats, while we got many convicts early on, so I postulate that your starting colonial population already had more sociopathy genes than ours (since I don't believe the sociopathic tendencies of the kind of convicts sent to Australia held a candle to those of their alleged superiors who were running the show, or to those of fundamentalist religious folk).
Overshoot is certainly the mother of all elephants in the room. I wish fervently that Australia had never been "discovered" by Industrial culture but had remained safely behind an impenetrable invisible barrier. The Indigenous people on this continent did not create an unholy mess and many tribes also kept their numbers voluntarily a bit under carrying capacity (to allow for bad years).
Best wishes to you too. And a piece of music I love from an Indigenous band. The didgeridoo in this piece is referencing all sorts of animals and I heard the key to that explained somewhere else (I'll find the link if you would like it).
OMG! I would tell you how much I enjoyed your writing and musical review, but I'm afraid your head might explode! I had night terrors my entire life and only recently, at 75, (4 yrs. ago), realized were reliving nightmares of near death experiences. The little girl you were and have reparented since must have been scared to death on numerous occasions. It may help to realize, as I have anyway, that people who traumatize children were most likely traumatized as children themselves. I certainly needed this perspective in order to understand and forgive my emotionally abandoned and seemingly hateful father, and my mother, who just didn't have clue about what living with him in an "Oedipal triangle" was doing to me. I was caught between my fear of his potentially fatal reprisal for existing, and his obvious jealousy of my loving relationship with my mother/his wife, and her honest love which I was forced to reject in order to stay alive.
When I went off to college, I did not return to that home for 2 yrs., and I was only 50 miles away. I had made my escape and I wasn't looking back. My mother continued to pay for my education but stripped my family bedroom of any and all of my childhood belongings and sold the little Metropolitan auto she had purchased for me, believing that its diminutive size would be safer (American Motors made that model to appeal to women drivers). She was over protective, except when it came to the monster she was married to. When I entered into my first disastrous marriage (one of four!), they called me in my marital apt., my father drunk, and demanding that I tell my mother she couldn't leave him, which she did. A great freedom swept over me as I explained that I would no longer be caught in the middle of their marital problems.
You have written a marvelous book of self-discovery and it is liberating to all who have had similar traumatic childhoods. I only wish you'd publish it, even as a print on demand PB on Amazon, as I have published "Stress R Us", although I also give it away as a free PDF online. 623 pages. large print, 120,000 words, 51 chapters. But not anything like the artistic and musical presentation that you have done. It will take me weeks to go through all the material you have published on the music site. I am relishing every line and the amazing musical/video inserts. Clearly, you have experience and skills that I lack, and, at 79, have no intention of learning.
OK, I said I wouldn't, but here it is: you are a treasure to any and all who know you, although I suspect your husband, the source of the "protection and care" that allowed the Great Wall of China to come tumbling down, has said this to you many times. From this retired physician/psychiatrist/addictionist/stress researcher, perhaps it may have an additional impact, and bring a huge smile (even if through tears of joy) to your face. Continued best wishes and prayers for your continued journey of self-discovery, Gregg
I'm very grateful to you both for sharing this. I've been on my own journey of recovery, as alluded to in the piece above. Although of course, everyone has their own path. But deconstructing family trauma and inter-generational trauma has been a key part of that for me.
My thoughts on violence are really quite complex. I see it as being unjustified in almost all situations where it is used. There's so much violence of aggression and abuse. And there's also so much violence that is invisibilized, such as the inherent violence in an economy that provides us with products which are built on the backs of slave labor, stolen indigenous land, exploited workers, and destroyed ecosystems. So I'm often thinking of strategic and moral questions like, "under what specific circumstances might the defensive use of force be justified?"
Greeley, I'll have to check out your book! Can you share a link? Sue, now your thread is on my reading list, too.
You're very kind, and yes, my parents were traumatized children too, but didn't deal with the backwash and so repeated the cycle. They did have the means to but you have to admit there is a problem and many people do not, whether in how they are relating to their children or whether it is the huge environmental and social issues many are in active denial about. Microcosm, macrocosm etc.
I think the emotional incest you're relating is pretty common in families where parents don't get on, lack emotional maturity and subconsciously will use opposite -sex children to make partners jealous, try to get emotional needs inappropriately met by the children instead, set up a toddler as "the other woman" to punish instead of recognize it as a child that needs love and nurture from the parents even if the parental relationship isn't working (as happened to me, one of a number of difficult problems including family violence, neglect and scapegoating).
In my case, as in many, there never was resolution of these issues, let alone an honest acknowledgement, and so contact was minimized from my side after a series of attempts to address these things in writing after my cPTSD diagnosis in my early 40s was no match for the continued denial.
I smile wryly when considering the environmental and social issues that our society is equally inept at admitting, and at dealing with.
Thank you Max. I really appreciate your connection between activism and self-care. It doesn't even seem like a connection to me at all, but more like a necessary integration that has been stunted and maimed by our cultural norms.
Not to get super philosophical, but it brings to mind Nietzsche's "tragic man," who is a healthy integration between the Apollonian and Dionysian man. The former lives in the world of illusion and dreaming and art, participating in a way that denies the inevitable endings and the many limitations of Earth and humans. The latter sees through the illusion of endless growth but is psychically taken down by both the facade and its lack of sincerity and the limitations to the point he cannot engage. Play doesn't enter the Dionysian experience at all. The so-called "tragic man" integrates the two. I see great activists aware of the illusion of industrial civilization, yet if they can playfully (at times) engage in activism infusing curiosity and imaginative/relational spirit with wild nature, then this seems like a healing counterpart to the work.
"a necessary integration that has been stunted and maimed by our cultural norms." That definitely resonates with me, Erica. The capitalist culture of individualism is quite dangerous. I like your comparison, and there is certainly tragedy in facing what is happening rather than turning away, and taking action even when hope is slim. But as I tried to communicate in this post, I believe it's possible and important to find beauty and joy even amidst the worst of these times, not as a distraction, but to be fully engaged with what we are doing and why.
This post covers a lot! and reminds that there are "self-help" books but i've yet to see the label "help others", tho some books encourage that. Also, "self" and "other" tend to be divisive categories as a "self" is simply one of the "others" and "others" are simply reflections of the One Self, so both self-care and care for others have their same different places. Then again, some "others" are outright dangerous and much of civilization is as John Trudell said in "Look At Us"..."Trying to isolate us in a dimension called loneliness leading us into the trap believe in their power but not in ourselves piling us with guilt always taking the blame". When i feel "alone" i remind myself of "allone" and suddenly that cloud or bird or breeze or stranger becomes a new friend.
I like that, Mankh. A friend of mine wrote a book recently called "Activism is Medicine," also seeking to bridge this imaginary divide. I haven't read it yet, but it's sitting in my stack of to-read books. I'm planning to interview him about it for the Green Flame podcast when I get through it.
Intriguing title. Max, and a good guideline in general. Another "imaginary divide" is inside/indoors & outside/outdoors, as if there's going 'out' to be with nature, then back 'in' away from nature... though being inside during a storm is not an imaginary welcome : )
Listened to the audio... i like the emphasis with the inter-active and inter-related. Interesting how the Tao Te Ching (Thou Dei Jinn) also mentions pairs, "The myriad creatures arise paired together..." I have Yunkaporta's book, have read some of it. His mention of yarn is a bit like my approach with writing, "the aim of the yarn is to build a loose consensus out of many different points of view, so you've got an accurate picture of the reality from as many different points of view as possible because that is more approximating the truth".
And that is the way I approach thinking (tied for me personally to writing), and why I think that we really need healthy community to think properly, with a network of brains.
Thanks, Sue! i'll have a listen. i know in general Indigenous languages are verb-based, as they reflect the living-energies and how 'things' are ever in motion, unlike noun-based English which object-ifies. And i don't remember which but one has a good amount of adjectives. You might find interesting, my article from last year "Upside Down Ox Houses and Indigenous Place-Based Languages" https://dgrnewsservice.org/civilization/colonialism/indigenous-place-based-languages/
Yes, Max, i remember that! The love of the daily discipline of whatever one does is often overlooked, along with how a little bit at a time adds up. Sometimes i tell people who want to write but say it seems daunting: If you wrote just one page a day, in a year... Even though some books require years to happen. And though i read it a long time ago, this line from the Bhagavad Gita stood out: "Those who see action in inaction and inaction in action are truly wise amongst humans." Reminds me to aim to stay calm and centered when very busy, and sometimes sitting around doing nothing/contemplating i figure out stuff and make plans.
Haha, you have a stack like that too? The Japanese have a great word for those. Tsundoku. The stacks of books you have piled up but not gotten around to reading yet!😀
Heather K - I check my messenger or email me a signel or phone number. In between your seeking paying work , I can do a green paper exchange for helping me in the garden by the lake
Hi Heather, it's great to hear from you! Thank you so much for the offer! I'd love to see you sometime. I live down in the Willamette Valley these days, so I'm quite a ways away. But I miss Bellingham a lot and visit occasionally, and often daydream about living back up there — especially on a day like this when it's 100 degrees down here. Hope you're well.
Great article, Max. While my posts are much more 'off the cuff,' it would seem they come from many of the same schools of thought, if not specific people. It would be great to communicate with each other, including sharing our posts. Actually, I plan to share, with permission of course, stuff I think would be of interest to people who read my Substack. Let me know, if you are open to my doing so. Peace.
Hey John, thanks for the comment and for reading this essay! Of course, it would be an honor to have you share my work. I'll check out your Substack too. Thanks and hope everything is well with you.
I love this… and with much honor and gratitude and support for your work “This is psychologically, physically, and spiritually stressful, and can result in trauma and burnout.”
What if- this isn’t *inherently* true outside of the physical tiredness, resolved by sleep? What if there’s another orientation towards the danger we run toward that enables us, hones our, sharpens or clarifies our ability- capacity for- “healing presence” which is always inherently mutual?
I’m afraid the western paradigm of “cost” has invaded our most intimate moments: what if being with someone at the moment of death, or suffering, is as equally an honor and a fullness of presence that is a gift to both us and those we tend as is- or more than- any “self care?”
I’m concerned that the paradigm of “give” and “take” (eg: caregiver and caretaker) have settled into our belief- bones as a society in ways that simply do not serve. There are ways of knowing in our physical bodies that don’t add the psychological paradigm of “cost” and “stress” to the realness of “being with each other” (and the land, etc.).
There is plenty of physical need for the use of our adrenals towards other ends.
I hope I’m making sense here- I am committed (and am a veteran healing professional working with both first responders and addicts on the side of the spectrum closest to death, amongst others- as well as an org systems worker) to the same things you are pointing to here, so if further conversation makes sense I’m here for it.
Hi Jade, thanks for the interesting additions. I think I would agree in some circumstances that this is absolutely the case. I know it has been true for me that "give and take" is too simple a paradigm when it comes to family members and loved ones dealing with illness and death, but I'm not so sure that it's the case when it comes to front line activist work. I think it's because of the potential for violence and conflict, which is a profoundly different experience for the nervous system.
But it's also pointing out something that is lacking in our society: a culture (including elders, community, ceremony, and shared sense of meaning) which is able to functionally integrate the experiences of people on the front lines into a broader picture.
To explore this topic more, I would be curious about, for example, rates of PTSD among soldiers coming from different cultures at different periods in history. For example, I would assume that the expression and experience of PTSD is significantly different among imperialist soldiers engaged in clear wars of aggression versus those engaged in wars of defense. And I would be curious about this in modern vs. traditional societies, as well. I'm sure there are wonderful books written on this topic, which I haven't read. Maybe you or another reader have.
Excellent overview/summation, and very informative. I am bookmarking and plan to share this.
I am also personally in need of it, as I'm currently dealing with....I'm not sure what....moral exhaustion? A deep and complete loss of faith in humanity? It's a place I haven't really been before, so it's a bit hard to describe, but that, and other symptoms, make me thing I'm currently between 'Reactive' and 'Injured'.
I'm actually headed for a spiritual retreat soon as I've recognized that I'm in need of a deeper healing than intellectual understanding (which itself does help, but not resolve, my incomprehension at the ongoing and willful self-destructiveness of our species) or various self-help techniques.
Much to think about here.
Unrelated side note: re: your employment....to whatever extent is appropriate, can you share what you are seeking, and what your location flexibility is? Environmental non-profit work? Activism organization? Etc.
Thanks for sharing some of your journey and wisdom with us.
Hey Janet, I'm glad you got something out of this post! I have spent a lot of time in the yellow and orange zones myself and have come to that humbling realization that I no longer have the tools to take care of myself in some of these circumstances and need external help, which of course is a challenge to the American individualism that I was inculcated with growing up. It's all part of the healing process in my opinion. Good luck at your retreat!
As far as employment, I live in the southern Willamette Valley in Oregon, and will be staying here for the time being. I've lived here for a long time, and it's home for now. I'm open to any work within my realm of experience, which includes manual labor, naturalist educator, and outdoor/wilderness guiding, as well as organizing. I'm a writer, as you know, and also a photographer with some expertise in video, live streaming, podcasting, and general multimedia communication including media relations. I also have experience in fundraising and nonprofit administration and strategy work.
I've been able to survive the last three months on a small income from this Substack, a few donors supporting my ongoing organizing work, and a couple odd jobs like guiding some kids on a wilderness backpacking trip, but I'll have to find more steady sources of survival soon. I'm trying not to rush into anything, in the hopes that something wonderful will present itself.
Max, this post was so very powerful for me and makes me love you even more than I already do - coming from one traumatized human being to another.
I just got put in Facebook jail, yet again, and I'm wondering whether I should, yet again, just close my account. I am SO ANGRY that in order to maintain relationships with my community I am forced to use an abusive platform which treats its users like disobedient children even as it rakes in billions in profits. My crime? I posted photos and videos of a joyful rally that I attended in my hometown with a whole group of new friends fighting against the Canadian government.
But I'm also angry and disappointed at the people I know which are using the platform which should know better and despite MANY alternatives because they have also been subjected to Facebook jail for the most minor infractions.
Until/unless we as human beings walk away from all of these relationships with abusive technologies I do not think we stand a chance. Given the fact that so many alternatives exist it remains a mystery as to what is stopping people.
In any case, I'm profoundly moved by this article. It reminds me how important it is to keep resisting. Our very humanity is at stake.
I'm sorry you got banned. My suspicion that my critiques of green tech were getting me caught up in social media censorship of global warming denialism is one thing that led me to this platform. That's a tough one, because it's definitely true that the fossil fuel lobby is funding astroturf groups and bots to distribute false information about global warming. But I'm not sure censorship is the right way to deal with it. In fact, I'm not sure there is a way to deal with it besides doing what I've always advocated — dismantling industrial civilization before it destroys our own ability to survive and much of the rest of life on Earth. Modern communication technologies are profoundly dangerous in unexpected ways, and I'm only expecting things to get more complex and chaotic with the rise of AI and other distruptive communications tech.
Max, did you feel like you were rendered semi-invisible on Twitter as a result of your posted subjects? A few activists I know on there are wondering if that is happening to them - getting taken largely out of the feed etc. I could of course always see your posts because I go directly to people's home pages, but I don't know how the feed algorithm works.
I'm not sure, to be honest. I actually noticed it quite a bit more on Facebook and Instagram as well as on YouTube than on Twitter even before Musk took over. But I know that people are actively getting censored, algorithms are manipulating what people see, and content is getting marked as misleading or false information.
I understand that there is an incredible amount of false information out there on these platforms, as well — false information that does need to be debunked in some way. But this is, in some sense, the Pandora's box of online technologies like this. Once information is divorced from real-life, face-to-face relationships, then things can go very sideways very quickly. Essentially you're either going to have a free for all where anything goes and things are wild — especially in the age of AI and deepfakes — or you're going to have a tightly controlled set of knowledge that is approved by official sources. Either way is profoundly dangerous. I think overall this is part of the systemic / existential risk of information technology.
I think this is why I literally subvert Twitter as a social connector in the sense of people actually having conversations, getting to know each other, sharing skills and interests, giving each other practical and emotional support, having a laugh together, thinking seriously together etc. The things a community should be doing.
Social media is designed to do the opposite despite its moniker - to further atomise people while giving them the illusion of being social and connecting them in the most meaningless and superficial ways. That's one reason it is so dangerous, for society and for individual intellectual and emotional growth.
Thank you, Will. I needed to read that as it seems the US, France and the European Union are descending into Fascism.
I meant Max - sorry!
Thank you, Kathy. I hear you. It's a discouraging and dramatic situation. Of course, one way that I look at it is that on the global scale, the U.S. and western Europe have been more or less totalitarian states for centuries. Hyper-racist nationalism and militarism are nothing new. That doesn't make me feel better, but it does help put things in a larger context and explain why deep organizing is more important than ever.
Thoughtful and provocative well written essay. I'm a retired physician/psychiatrist/addictionist/stress researcher/recovered alcoholic-addict/and Buddhist, and the author of the free online e-book PDF, "Stress R Us". "Anxiety" is the word we use to describe the feeling associated with the activation of our "stress response", the "fight-flight response" coined by Walter Bradford Cannon in his 1929 book, "Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage". Cannon was born in Prarie du Chein, WI, in the late 1800's, schooled (at the top of his class) in Superior,WI, and went on to get a degree at Harvard where he remained to found the physiology Dept., if I remember correctly. In 1927, he participated in an international seminar on the emotions at my alma mater, Wittenberg University, in Springfield, Ohio, much in the news of late. I won't try to summarize my 623 page book here, but to repeat its subtitle: "An Essay on What's Killing Us, Why, and What We Can Do About It".
You and I share similar lifeways, I admire and respect you sincerity and passion, but, at 79 yo, I have moved well beyond violent resistance actions and after a brief stint as a medical student in SDS, I completed my medical and psychiatric training. I am a childhood sexual abuse and emotional abandonment survivor and found my true calling in my 42 yr. psychiatric practice, treating over 25,000 patients, writing 1,000,000 Rx and giving supportive psychotherapy to each of those wonderful, suffering souls. So, my resistance work was one person/family at a time, but all the while haunted by my own CPTSD and depending on alcohol-marijuana for escape. 12-step meetings and the AA recovery program have been foundational to my ultimate recent total recovery from the re-living nightmares, chronic anxiety, and other symptoms of CPTSD.
I wish you the very best, but do not share your willingness to take direct violent action against the monolithic power of the corporate overlords or your youthful exuberance in a world clearly in a state of irreversible climate collapse. Gregg Miklashek, MD
Bingo Gregg. Another cPTSD here, albeit one who avoided substances because I saw what it did to people early in my life. Interesting topic and many more have it than people think. And interesting different roads to recovery. I got rid of the flashback nightmares by essentially going down a Pensieve into the past and talking to the young kid I was at various stages when I didn't have but sorely needed a safe kind adult to talk to and get mentored by. I had to reparent myself. The moment I began that, the nightmares became daytime flashbacks that immediately resulted in my consciously showing up for the little girl in the past/at my core to listen and support. 6 months later those flasbacks had mostly gone. It's a long road to be sure and many are on it.
Hey, Sue! Fascinating reply! I've never seen it laid out like that before. And, I believe that you're correct in saying that "many more people have it than people think". Let's be honest, America is, much like Australia and Hispanic nations of South and Central America, a dumping ground for Europe's massive overpopulation, as well as Africa's and Asia's. In our Hunter-Gatherer/pastoralist ancestry, when they were living in migratory Hunter-Gatherer clans/bands, population numbers were controlled by the availability of that area's sustaining natural resources and a woman's ability to care for one child at a time. Suckling prevented further pregnancy for 4 yrs., predators were plentiful, and unwanted pregnancies/births were relatively rare, as well as the limiting inter-clan boundaries. Our more recent ancestors have developed energy sources such as grain crops and fossil fuels that have allowed a massive overpopulation, which is throwing an ever greater number of us into the wind and leaving us unparented, vulnerable to human predators.
Your recovery story is amazing and your great courage and insight is truly amazing! I hope you write about it, perhaps a book: "My Personal Journey of Reparenting", or something like that. Thanks for sharing and best wishes, Gregg
Dear Gregg, I did write about it but not in a book - little people like me don't get published on topics like this, especially if not expressing views fashionable in the mainstream. So I wrote about it in an online music journal a few years ago, primarily because when I went through the worst of the PTSD nightmares and fallout, the thing that helped me above any other was reading stories from other people who had been in these same dark places. So when I became bold enough to speak up, I thought it would be good to give back by also writing about such things. I stuck it on an alternative music forum because obscure blogs don't have traction and I did want a handful of people to be able to find it.
http://curefans.com/index.php?topic=9196.0
I've written separately about the addiction aspects and other aspects of mental health but the above link should provide enough to chew on for a while. The main story is all on the first (forum) page of 14 posts. There is music between the large tracts of recount to keep people awake. 😜
It's interesting comparing American and Australian colonial history. We're not that far behind the insanities of the US here, with the political class leading the rapid descent into hell. But you guys got more of the puritans/religious nutcases on your colonial boats, while we got many convicts early on, so I postulate that your starting colonial population already had more sociopathy genes than ours (since I don't believe the sociopathic tendencies of the kind of convicts sent to Australia held a candle to those of their alleged superiors who were running the show, or to those of fundamentalist religious folk).
Overshoot is certainly the mother of all elephants in the room. I wish fervently that Australia had never been "discovered" by Industrial culture but had remained safely behind an impenetrable invisible barrier. The Indigenous people on this continent did not create an unholy mess and many tribes also kept their numbers voluntarily a bit under carrying capacity (to allow for bad years).
Best wishes to you too. And a piece of music I love from an Indigenous band. The didgeridoo in this piece is referencing all sorts of animals and I heard the key to that explained somewhere else (I'll find the link if you would like it).
https://youtu.be/UZ6xw5IrXOQ
OMG! I would tell you how much I enjoyed your writing and musical review, but I'm afraid your head might explode! I had night terrors my entire life and only recently, at 75, (4 yrs. ago), realized were reliving nightmares of near death experiences. The little girl you were and have reparented since must have been scared to death on numerous occasions. It may help to realize, as I have anyway, that people who traumatize children were most likely traumatized as children themselves. I certainly needed this perspective in order to understand and forgive my emotionally abandoned and seemingly hateful father, and my mother, who just didn't have clue about what living with him in an "Oedipal triangle" was doing to me. I was caught between my fear of his potentially fatal reprisal for existing, and his obvious jealousy of my loving relationship with my mother/his wife, and her honest love which I was forced to reject in order to stay alive.
When I went off to college, I did not return to that home for 2 yrs., and I was only 50 miles away. I had made my escape and I wasn't looking back. My mother continued to pay for my education but stripped my family bedroom of any and all of my childhood belongings and sold the little Metropolitan auto she had purchased for me, believing that its diminutive size would be safer (American Motors made that model to appeal to women drivers). She was over protective, except when it came to the monster she was married to. When I entered into my first disastrous marriage (one of four!), they called me in my marital apt., my father drunk, and demanding that I tell my mother she couldn't leave him, which she did. A great freedom swept over me as I explained that I would no longer be caught in the middle of their marital problems.
You have written a marvelous book of self-discovery and it is liberating to all who have had similar traumatic childhoods. I only wish you'd publish it, even as a print on demand PB on Amazon, as I have published "Stress R Us", although I also give it away as a free PDF online. 623 pages. large print, 120,000 words, 51 chapters. But not anything like the artistic and musical presentation that you have done. It will take me weeks to go through all the material you have published on the music site. I am relishing every line and the amazing musical/video inserts. Clearly, you have experience and skills that I lack, and, at 79, have no intention of learning.
OK, I said I wouldn't, but here it is: you are a treasure to any and all who know you, although I suspect your husband, the source of the "protection and care" that allowed the Great Wall of China to come tumbling down, has said this to you many times. From this retired physician/psychiatrist/addictionist/stress researcher, perhaps it may have an additional impact, and bring a huge smile (even if through tears of joy) to your face. Continued best wishes and prayers for your continued journey of self-discovery, Gregg
I'm very grateful to you both for sharing this. I've been on my own journey of recovery, as alluded to in the piece above. Although of course, everyone has their own path. But deconstructing family trauma and inter-generational trauma has been a key part of that for me.
My thoughts on violence are really quite complex. I see it as being unjustified in almost all situations where it is used. There's so much violence of aggression and abuse. And there's also so much violence that is invisibilized, such as the inherent violence in an economy that provides us with products which are built on the backs of slave labor, stolen indigenous land, exploited workers, and destroyed ecosystems. So I'm often thinking of strategic and moral questions like, "under what specific circumstances might the defensive use of force be justified?"
Greeley, I'll have to check out your book! Can you share a link? Sue, now your thread is on my reading list, too.
Just Google "Stress R Us" for the PDF, or go to Amazon books for the PB for $25. The PDF is free, thanks to Stanford and MAHB.
I'm sorry you also have to deal with such painful stuff, Max. Insight seems to come at a personal price.
You're very kind, and yes, my parents were traumatized children too, but didn't deal with the backwash and so repeated the cycle. They did have the means to but you have to admit there is a problem and many people do not, whether in how they are relating to their children or whether it is the huge environmental and social issues many are in active denial about. Microcosm, macrocosm etc.
I think the emotional incest you're relating is pretty common in families where parents don't get on, lack emotional maturity and subconsciously will use opposite -sex children to make partners jealous, try to get emotional needs inappropriately met by the children instead, set up a toddler as "the other woman" to punish instead of recognize it as a child that needs love and nurture from the parents even if the parental relationship isn't working (as happened to me, one of a number of difficult problems including family violence, neglect and scapegoating).
In my case, as in many, there never was resolution of these issues, let alone an honest acknowledgement, and so contact was minimized from my side after a series of attempts to address these things in writing after my cPTSD diagnosis in my early 40s was no match for the continued denial.
I smile wryly when considering the environmental and social issues that our society is equally inept at admitting, and at dealing with.
Thank you Max. I really appreciate your connection between activism and self-care. It doesn't even seem like a connection to me at all, but more like a necessary integration that has been stunted and maimed by our cultural norms.
Not to get super philosophical, but it brings to mind Nietzsche's "tragic man," who is a healthy integration between the Apollonian and Dionysian man. The former lives in the world of illusion and dreaming and art, participating in a way that denies the inevitable endings and the many limitations of Earth and humans. The latter sees through the illusion of endless growth but is psychically taken down by both the facade and its lack of sincerity and the limitations to the point he cannot engage. Play doesn't enter the Dionysian experience at all. The so-called "tragic man" integrates the two. I see great activists aware of the illusion of industrial civilization, yet if they can playfully (at times) engage in activism infusing curiosity and imaginative/relational spirit with wild nature, then this seems like a healing counterpart to the work.
"a necessary integration that has been stunted and maimed by our cultural norms." That definitely resonates with me, Erica. The capitalist culture of individualism is quite dangerous. I like your comparison, and there is certainly tragedy in facing what is happening rather than turning away, and taking action even when hope is slim. But as I tried to communicate in this post, I believe it's possible and important to find beauty and joy even amidst the worst of these times, not as a distraction, but to be fully engaged with what we are doing and why.
This post covers a lot! and reminds that there are "self-help" books but i've yet to see the label "help others", tho some books encourage that. Also, "self" and "other" tend to be divisive categories as a "self" is simply one of the "others" and "others" are simply reflections of the One Self, so both self-care and care for others have their same different places. Then again, some "others" are outright dangerous and much of civilization is as John Trudell said in "Look At Us"..."Trying to isolate us in a dimension called loneliness leading us into the trap believe in their power but not in ourselves piling us with guilt always taking the blame". When i feel "alone" i remind myself of "allone" and suddenly that cloud or bird or breeze or stranger becomes a new friend.
I like that, Mankh. A friend of mine wrote a book recently called "Activism is Medicine," also seeking to bridge this imaginary divide. I haven't read it yet, but it's sitting in my stack of to-read books. I'm planning to interview him about it for the Green Flame podcast when I get through it.
Intriguing title. Max, and a good guideline in general. Another "imaginary divide" is inside/indoors & outside/outdoors, as if there's going 'out' to be with nature, then back 'in' away from nature... though being inside during a storm is not an imaginary welcome : )
I think you would both love this interview.
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/allinthemind/indigenous-language-and-perception/11457578
Thanks for sharing! I know Tyson a bit from years ago, and would love to reconnect with him sometime.
And I live here, and you know him a bit. Obviously I live under a rock.😄
Listened to the audio... i like the emphasis with the inter-active and inter-related. Interesting how the Tao Te Ching (Thou Dei Jinn) also mentions pairs, "The myriad creatures arise paired together..." I have Yunkaporta's book, have read some of it. His mention of yarn is a bit like my approach with writing, "the aim of the yarn is to build a loose consensus out of many different points of view, so you've got an accurate picture of the reality from as many different points of view as possible because that is more approximating the truth".
And that is the way I approach thinking (tied for me personally to writing), and why I think that we really need healthy community to think properly, with a network of brains.
Yeah, group think, in a positive sense, and the group includes trees, birds, rocks, etc.
Thanks, Sue! i'll have a listen. i know in general Indigenous languages are verb-based, as they reflect the living-energies and how 'things' are ever in motion, unlike noun-based English which object-ifies. And i don't remember which but one has a good amount of adjectives. You might find interesting, my article from last year "Upside Down Ox Houses and Indigenous Place-Based Languages" https://dgrnewsservice.org/civilization/colonialism/indigenous-place-based-languages/
Well, Mankh, then you are in for a few surprises relating to Australian Indigenous languages. :)
Thanks for piquing interest : )
It is, isn't it! Frank interviewed me earlier this year, and you may remember I published this excerpt: https://maxwilbert.substack.com/p/activism-as-medicine
Yes, Max, i remember that! The love of the daily discipline of whatever one does is often overlooked, along with how a little bit at a time adds up. Sometimes i tell people who want to write but say it seems daunting: If you wrote just one page a day, in a year... Even though some books require years to happen. And though i read it a long time ago, this line from the Bhagavad Gita stood out: "Those who see action in inaction and inaction in action are truly wise amongst humans." Reminds me to aim to stay calm and centered when very busy, and sometimes sitting around doing nothing/contemplating i figure out stuff and make plans.
You may like Stephen Cope's book "The Dharma in Difficult Times," which looks at activism (broadly defined) in the context of the Gita.
Looks interesting, thanks for the mention.
Haha, you have a stack like that too? The Japanese have a great word for those. Tsundoku. The stacks of books you have piled up but not gotten around to reading yet!😀
Max- let’s play or work if you return to Bham. My garden needs human hands!
Heather K - I check my messenger or email me a signel or phone number. In between your seeking paying work , I can do a green paper exchange for helping me in the garden by the lake
Hi Heather, it's great to hear from you! Thank you so much for the offer! I'd love to see you sometime. I live down in the Willamette Valley these days, so I'm quite a ways away. But I miss Bellingham a lot and visit occasionally, and often daydream about living back up there — especially on a day like this when it's 100 degrees down here. Hope you're well.
Great article, Max. While my posts are much more 'off the cuff,' it would seem they come from many of the same schools of thought, if not specific people. It would be great to communicate with each other, including sharing our posts. Actually, I plan to share, with permission of course, stuff I think would be of interest to people who read my Substack. Let me know, if you are open to my doing so. Peace.
Hey John, thanks for the comment and for reading this essay! Of course, it would be an honor to have you share my work. I'll check out your Substack too. Thanks and hope everything is well with you.
I love this… and with much honor and gratitude and support for your work “This is psychologically, physically, and spiritually stressful, and can result in trauma and burnout.”
What if- this isn’t *inherently* true outside of the physical tiredness, resolved by sleep? What if there’s another orientation towards the danger we run toward that enables us, hones our, sharpens or clarifies our ability- capacity for- “healing presence” which is always inherently mutual?
I’m afraid the western paradigm of “cost” has invaded our most intimate moments: what if being with someone at the moment of death, or suffering, is as equally an honor and a fullness of presence that is a gift to both us and those we tend as is- or more than- any “self care?”
I’m concerned that the paradigm of “give” and “take” (eg: caregiver and caretaker) have settled into our belief- bones as a society in ways that simply do not serve. There are ways of knowing in our physical bodies that don’t add the psychological paradigm of “cost” and “stress” to the realness of “being with each other” (and the land, etc.).
There is plenty of physical need for the use of our adrenals towards other ends.
I hope I’m making sense here- I am committed (and am a veteran healing professional working with both first responders and addicts on the side of the spectrum closest to death, amongst others- as well as an org systems worker) to the same things you are pointing to here, so if further conversation makes sense I’m here for it.
Hi Jade, thanks for the interesting additions. I think I would agree in some circumstances that this is absolutely the case. I know it has been true for me that "give and take" is too simple a paradigm when it comes to family members and loved ones dealing with illness and death, but I'm not so sure that it's the case when it comes to front line activist work. I think it's because of the potential for violence and conflict, which is a profoundly different experience for the nervous system.
But it's also pointing out something that is lacking in our society: a culture (including elders, community, ceremony, and shared sense of meaning) which is able to functionally integrate the experiences of people on the front lines into a broader picture.
To explore this topic more, I would be curious about, for example, rates of PTSD among soldiers coming from different cultures at different periods in history. For example, I would assume that the expression and experience of PTSD is significantly different among imperialist soldiers engaged in clear wars of aggression versus those engaged in wars of defense. And I would be curious about this in modern vs. traditional societies, as well. I'm sure there are wonderful books written on this topic, which I haven't read. Maybe you or another reader have.
Excellent overview/summation, and very informative. I am bookmarking and plan to share this.
I am also personally in need of it, as I'm currently dealing with....I'm not sure what....moral exhaustion? A deep and complete loss of faith in humanity? It's a place I haven't really been before, so it's a bit hard to describe, but that, and other symptoms, make me thing I'm currently between 'Reactive' and 'Injured'.
I'm actually headed for a spiritual retreat soon as I've recognized that I'm in need of a deeper healing than intellectual understanding (which itself does help, but not resolve, my incomprehension at the ongoing and willful self-destructiveness of our species) or various self-help techniques.
Much to think about here.
Unrelated side note: re: your employment....to whatever extent is appropriate, can you share what you are seeking, and what your location flexibility is? Environmental non-profit work? Activism organization? Etc.
Thanks for sharing some of your journey and wisdom with us.
Hey Janet, I'm glad you got something out of this post! I have spent a lot of time in the yellow and orange zones myself and have come to that humbling realization that I no longer have the tools to take care of myself in some of these circumstances and need external help, which of course is a challenge to the American individualism that I was inculcated with growing up. It's all part of the healing process in my opinion. Good luck at your retreat!
As far as employment, I live in the southern Willamette Valley in Oregon, and will be staying here for the time being. I've lived here for a long time, and it's home for now. I'm open to any work within my realm of experience, which includes manual labor, naturalist educator, and outdoor/wilderness guiding, as well as organizing. I'm a writer, as you know, and also a photographer with some expertise in video, live streaming, podcasting, and general multimedia communication including media relations. I also have experience in fundraising and nonprofit administration and strategy work.
I've been able to survive the last three months on a small income from this Substack, a few donors supporting my ongoing organizing work, and a couple odd jobs like guiding some kids on a wilderness backpacking trip, but I'll have to find more steady sources of survival soon. I'm trying not to rush into anything, in the hopes that something wonderful will present itself.
Thanks!
Max, this post was so very powerful for me and makes me love you even more than I already do - coming from one traumatized human being to another.
I just got put in Facebook jail, yet again, and I'm wondering whether I should, yet again, just close my account. I am SO ANGRY that in order to maintain relationships with my community I am forced to use an abusive platform which treats its users like disobedient children even as it rakes in billions in profits. My crime? I posted photos and videos of a joyful rally that I attended in my hometown with a whole group of new friends fighting against the Canadian government.
But I'm also angry and disappointed at the people I know which are using the platform which should know better and despite MANY alternatives because they have also been subjected to Facebook jail for the most minor infractions.
Until/unless we as human beings walk away from all of these relationships with abusive technologies I do not think we stand a chance. Given the fact that so many alternatives exist it remains a mystery as to what is stopping people.
In any case, I'm profoundly moved by this article. It reminds me how important it is to keep resisting. Our very humanity is at stake.
Thank you for the kind words, J!
I'm sorry you got banned. My suspicion that my critiques of green tech were getting me caught up in social media censorship of global warming denialism is one thing that led me to this platform. That's a tough one, because it's definitely true that the fossil fuel lobby is funding astroturf groups and bots to distribute false information about global warming. But I'm not sure censorship is the right way to deal with it. In fact, I'm not sure there is a way to deal with it besides doing what I've always advocated — dismantling industrial civilization before it destroys our own ability to survive and much of the rest of life on Earth. Modern communication technologies are profoundly dangerous in unexpected ways, and I'm only expecting things to get more complex and chaotic with the rise of AI and other distruptive communications tech.
Max, did you feel like you were rendered semi-invisible on Twitter as a result of your posted subjects? A few activists I know on there are wondering if that is happening to them - getting taken largely out of the feed etc. I could of course always see your posts because I go directly to people's home pages, but I don't know how the feed algorithm works.
I'm not sure, to be honest. I actually noticed it quite a bit more on Facebook and Instagram as well as on YouTube than on Twitter even before Musk took over. But I know that people are actively getting censored, algorithms are manipulating what people see, and content is getting marked as misleading or false information.
I understand that there is an incredible amount of false information out there on these platforms, as well — false information that does need to be debunked in some way. But this is, in some sense, the Pandora's box of online technologies like this. Once information is divorced from real-life, face-to-face relationships, then things can go very sideways very quickly. Essentially you're either going to have a free for all where anything goes and things are wild — especially in the age of AI and deepfakes — or you're going to have a tightly controlled set of knowledge that is approved by official sources. Either way is profoundly dangerous. I think overall this is part of the systemic / existential risk of information technology.
I think this is why I literally subvert Twitter as a social connector in the sense of people actually having conversations, getting to know each other, sharing skills and interests, giving each other practical and emotional support, having a laugh together, thinking seriously together etc. The things a community should be doing.
Social media is designed to do the opposite despite its moniker - to further atomise people while giving them the illusion of being social and connecting them in the most meaningless and superficial ways. That's one reason it is so dangerous, for society and for individual intellectual and emotional growth.