Unsound Minds
Watching what happens when the cattle prod no longer works
What to make of so much insanity? So much greed, so much violence, so much “polluted mind”, as recent pod guest Geshe Lhakdor would describe it as. Month on month this thing comes out and month on month the doom escalates, the harms accumulate, the sense of a just-below-the-surface terror notches up.
This isn’t a chronicle of that insanity, it’s not my job or place or expertise to. There are enough hot takes and smug TV drivers to let me know what’s right and wrong at the moment. What I see is a world gone mad. A literal escalation in conflict, emissions, death, destruction and displacement. Under that is an experience of powerlessness and increasingly visible hopelessness. A case of the fuck its settling into a culture detached from impact of its everyday lifestyle. When nothing matters it doesn’t matter how I behave.
The awfulness that happens over there is an affront to my petrol budget here. I can’t engage with that actual tragedy as I’ll be overwhelmed by anger, lost in confusion, fearful of mis-speaking or being told I made someone feel unsafe. It’s easier, more comfortable and safer in my relationships and for my status to get angry about getting slugged at the bowser. No matter Australia is at arse end of a complex set of global supply chain logistics and dynamics I won’t bother to try and understand nor accept the extra costs of preparing for sovereign risk events like this one. I want immediacy, gratification, blame and shame.
The unravelling is well and truly here. How willing are we to see that? To stare reality in the face and feel the true force of terror, of grief, of desperation? My suspicion is very little.
Sanity in this moment seems to be about holding two seemingly divergent views at once. An unravelling is occurring and much is being lost and harmed through that, and the need to have fortitude to face this storm with honesty, an openness to accept this reality and a willingness to be of service from that place. Coral reefs are being lost everywhere and in every way - abundance, diversity, quality. With that goes individual beings, species go extinct, livelihoods and lifestyles are upended. Does that stop the Emma Camp’s of the world from not doing everything in their power to communicate this and carry out research into reef and coral resilience and adaptation? Emma saw firsthand what coral bleaching is. Life like in Finding Nemo disappeared in a matter of days. Onwards she marches.
Emma offers an example of this sound mind. Reality causes grief which stirs action. Not a shift like an online petition for your local MP to talk about solar or 2,859 events in one week where the noise in the echo chamber is unbearable. I mean rising up against the likes of QBE as shareholders to compel changes in their fossil fuel support all while their fundamental business model collapses. Sound of mind would be doing the laborious, diligent, complicated work of structural change. Though why would I when the hit of validation and shaming others together is immediately possible in the echo chamber?
None of this is easy.
If it was, a week of action, petitions plus following some accounts online and buying a bamboo toothbrush would deliver the salvation we want. What would though? Willingness. How willing am I, how willing are you, how willing are we together to face the despair of this moment? To see reality as it is instead of through or with the stories we tell ourselves?
It’s awful. From the experience of my own life oblivion, I don’t know if we can volunteer to see reality honestly. It is too much to bear. Only when it is enforced does it become possible for most, I think. Change is not for those who need it but for those who want it.
Undoubtedly we need it.
Can we get to a state of sanity to reckon with what that truly means?
Am I, are you, are we, willing to want it?
See you in the pit.
