"Pieter Breughel the Elder : The Triumph of Death
Renewal - Or the Abyss ? Beyond my own interests and needs of life, retirement gives me more time for the world around me. From a space of more external freedom, I'm grateful and take joy simply in the weather whatever it may be, at people in stores and the street, in friendships and relationships, for which - finally - I have more unspoken for time. I'm more free to read, to reflect if I take time for it, to observe mood and events in the great world around me. This is not all sweetness and light. I'm not unwell, but with age do come vulnerabilities, and I notice them. The companions of every human life - illness, death, evil around us in the world - and if we're honest, a measure of evil inside us too - don't sleep. They announce themselves in subtle ways and I, for one, can't help but hear. I want to share one especially vivid to me just now. My computer uses a Windows operating system, and when I turn it on each day, the first thing I see is its very intense newsfeed, Microsoft Start. The images and headlines are hard hitting, and it's almost impossible not to stop and read something. I worked in psychiatry for 40 years and I'm not excitable, not by nature, training or life experience. But the image of the world portrayed there is really something like a cauldron, rising steadily towards a boil. The story of the Russia-Ukraine war is a huge case in point. It's been a front burner theme on the feed since 2013. Rather than taking a side in the matter, I'd like to simply list some observations on the coverage of the war. The facts and interpretation of the situation, as portrayed consistently on the platform, center on the themes that
The starkness of content in the coverage is also striking : a language of obliteration, annihilation of Russian forces has been prevalent, even from the start. Video of a drone strike, the destruction of a tank, a ship, a group of Russian soldiers in a field are staples, to my sensibilities almost a kind of war porn - a daily diet of it. Similar are depictions of increasing unity, coalition among allies, country after country sending arms to Ukraine, building up weapons in their own. The tone of coverage in the feed, for more than ten years now, has been one not just of unity, but increasing inevitability, with other options either not discussed, or swept quickly off the table. Parallel is an accustoming of the world to risk, with multiplying stories, for instance, on nuclear war - and for Americans, of how you would be affected by one, with maps with red circles, state by state. Impressions of the authority of sources and stories are also remarkably conveyed, with articles at times 3 to 5 or more in a day credited explicitly to Ukraine intelligence services - and given the constant, intense specific details and videos, most likely with input from U.S. intelligence as well. To crown these factors, on a platform with a potential reach to 1.5 billion Microsoft OS users daily, until just recently comments by readers on these stories had been turned off for years. There are few or no other voices to be heard, and the powerful question in the air becomes "Where is all this going - and how soon ?" With the force and directness dreams can have, one morning recently, my own soul gave its take on this : I was in a house, and I heard shouting outside. I looked out the window and out across a large field of grass, I saw a group of young people, running towards something still a bit further in the distance. Looking to the point they ran towards, I saw a herd of horses, agitated, pacing restlessly to and fro among themselves. Looking towards movement from the right now, there came an immense tiger, healthy and strong, running at full speed and with fierce intention towards them. The screams of the women, especially, rang out in the air. The tiger bore down on one horse, separated from the rest, and it froze, head raised, terror in its eyes. Without breaking stride the tiger leapt, wrapping itself with all its claws on the horse's shoulders and neck, and bringing it immediately to earth, attacking with powerful jaws. The struggle would appear to have ended in seconds, but now the other horses descended on the struggle en masse. With fierceness to match the tiger's, they attacked, screaming and biting in frenzy, stamping with their hooves at the tiger, throwing up great clouds of flying earth and grass. The tiger's focus, however, was complete and it was not to be deterred. The young people too now joined the struggle, the women leading, shouting, striking and pulling at the tiger with their hands. The tiger broke its attack momentarily, turning and snarling, lashing with fierce claws in all directions, but returning to its prey with undiminished fierceness. At a certain point the struggled was finished, and horses and young people drifted away. I saw that there was nothing to be done, and prepared to leave the house. Out in the town there was excitement in the streets over the attack, and people walked talking energetically. I came to one woman with cuts and scratches on her face and arms, and she walked by. There then came another woman, and we stopped and talked. She had open cuts and scratches like the other woman. She said to me "yes, it was terrible - he took half my breast away." She open her coat, and indeed, although healed, the lower part of her left breast was scarred, and had a depression in it. Now the scene changed, and I was in the house again. Two men were there, attacking a third man. One of the two struck ferociously, intent to do harm, as much as he could. I jumped in, at first wanting to hurt him, but he was very strong, and threw me off. I realized with a feeling of helplessness that I had neither the strength to stop him, nor a real will to hurt him. I turned to the second assailant, holding him by the arms and shaking him. I looked in his eyes and cried at him urgently "stop this, and make him stop now !" The man stopped struggling with me, eyes closed, face contorted with inner tension, as if he was struggling with himself. I could see I had reached him at least in part, and that he was grappling with himself. I felt to myself, "this could be possible", and I felt a sense of hope. Then I awoke. My sense was that what would happen, whether it was yet more destruction or not, was in no way guaranteed - but that there was at least a direction to try. I won't interpret this dream just now, although I have ideas - but how would you see it ? I'll also come back to the glimmer of hope at the end, at what might need to happen next - but again, what do you think ? What do we do in the face of violent crisis - or perhaps more important, what do we do beforehand, that we don't have to go there ? I'll return to these questions, but first I want to look at what happens when we do go there. The Monstrosity of War It's been said that at this time in history, our tools of physical warfare have passed a certain tipping point - that we've become so skilled at it that we can destroy whole infrastructures - physical, but also human and social - in just months, weeks - even days. Overpowering force and technologies, however, also meet factors not seen in planning : they produce not submission, as hoped, but increased cunning in adversaries - the dark skills and intelligence of extreme extreme hatred, extreme fear and desperation. And what, collectively, does this then cost ? We read and forget the numbers : "casualties of war." But what and who does it actually mean ? Soldiers with weapons in hand, clearly ; but in our times the civilian toll is almost always more. Some deaths are from nearby combat, to be sure - but others also to greater or lesser degrees intented : deaths from shelling, bombing, landmines, executions, massacres, deaths of retaliation and revenge ; death from disease and starvation, from starvation even as a weapon, on the largest scale. Death in gulags and concentration camps, in refugee camps. "Collateral" deaths, yes, but also millions intended - or even planned. And this is to speak only of deaths. Miraculously, people survive these horrors - new life rises, and in the best case thrives. But the economic, physical and psychological costs are devastating - and not just for those who "lose" a war. Picture this in terms of your own life. Most of us never see it - it doesn't happen where we live. But what if it did ? What would it be like, how would it actually unfold ? Would people around us act decently ? Help each other - or under the wrong circumstances, slip into the madness themselves ? We like to think not - yet all over the world, again and again people do. These processes are the "downside" of human potential. They have patterns - triggers, starting points, steps by which they grow. Do we dare look at these processes, our own dark reflection when we lose our way ? Better perhaps to look, than blindly live it out. A Slippery Slope Illness, death, evil, as noted, simply can't be avoided in life. At best we deal with them honestly, creatively, morally - the mark and achievement of a good human life. Through ignorance, recklessness, carelessness however - through inattention to things that need our attention - they can also get away from us. This happens to individuals, and it can happen to whole societies. The consequences even of our mundane pride, self-centeredness, apathy and indifference can under the wrong circumstances magnify - multiply. Despite our better and best potentials as human beings, our humanity can also break down and unravel. Fear, doubt and hatred, as endpoints of these processes, have been called "the three beasts of the abyss" - which, if not overcome in ourselves, drive us to despair, violence, depravity, with no real lower limit. On this slippery slope, where do we find ourselves today - and which direction are we headed ? From Feelings to Attitudes Look again at your experience, at the social landscape around you. How do people think about each other, how do you hear them talk to and about each other ? Not to say no one feels or acts with compassion, with integrity today - but we characterize each other freely as stupid, gullible, brainwashed, "just evil". We dismiss each other's sources of information as "misinformation", "disinformation", "malinformation ", out of hand and with scorn. We demean each other's thoughts, feelings, life experience, and on social media, say these things to each other's faces, so to speak. We label each other right or left extremists, fascists, communists, conspiracy theorists, "sheep", and are done with each other. And where might thisit go from here ? From Attitudes to Actions From portraying others to ourselves as stupid, extremist, evil, to speaking badly of them easily, it's no large further step to want them out of our lives. But what if they won't go - and if they're active ? Tempting next steps are to push them out, to suppress, silence or coerce them. Censorship on search engines and social media during COVID 19, for instance, reached the point of keystroke by keystroke surveillance and removal of content, instigated or even demanded by government. Governments sought compliance indirectly through pressure on employers (e.g. vaccine mandates), and retail businesses (lockdowns, masking), restricting access to needed food, goods and services, even the chance to earn a living. The laws of many countries of course forbid them to deny freedoms of speech, movement, medical informed consent etc, and often these attempts failed in the courts - but still, only eventually, long after the fact. after the fact. In the moment they were almost impossible to fight, and their cost in terms of time and stress were extreme. The worldwide social and economic toll, the perverse costs of these measures on physical and mental health, even their costs in deaths, are still yet to be reckoned, and these facts too remain subject to censorship.
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AuthorJeff Smith RN, born 1950. A registered nurse since 1984 - but holistic in my outlook to health since probably around 1968. Living Waters Wellness considers not just the health of the physical body, but our soul and spirit, our social forms, our environment - and as a matter of fact, our whole earth. It's a new website, and a work in progress - but by all means, have a look around ! Archives
December 2024
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