Emotion

A life after Ishmael reflection: One of the effects that reading Ishmael back in the late-nineties had on me was that it moved my emotions out it into the world. In other words the inrage started to change into outrage. Reading Derrick Jensen's work then pushed it further.

"Emotions are mainly social. The word comes from the Latin ex movere, to move out. Emotions connect to the world. Therapy introverts the emotions, calls fear 'anxiety." You take it back, and you work on it inside yourself. You don't work psychologically on what that outrage is telling you about potholes, about trucks, about Florida strawberries in Vermont in March, about burning up oil, about energy policies, nuclear waste, that homeless woman over there with the sores on her feet--the whole thing."--James Hillman, pg. 12, We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and The World's Getting Worse

Smash The Machine

Back on August 22, 2004 Derrick Jensen signed my copy of Welcome to the Machine with this statement: Smash the Machine! When I first layed my eyes on those words I was excited. I was finally reading a book by someone that finally had the courage to say such a thing, and on top of that write a book about it. It's been almost 10 years and I still think about it. But there are times I pull back and question why smashing the machine and taking down civilization appeals to me. Of course, there are the fantasies of doing things I shouldn't be doing under the cover of darkness. And then there are the thoughts and questions that accompany those fantasies like: If only I was normal I wouldn't be thinking about this. If only I wasn't so barbaric. I'm being too male; women don't think about this. If only my childhood was better. If only I'd went to college and became a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher. And, finally, could I actually sit down and utter these fantasies and thoughts to a psychologist?

This morning the last concern was answered.

"Suppose we entertain the idea that psychology makes people mediocre; and suppose we entertain the idea that the world is in extremis, suffering an acute, perhaps fatal, disorder at the edge of extinction. Then I would claim that what the world needs most is radical and original extremes of feeling and thinking in order for its crisis to be met with equal intensity." pg. 151, We've Had A Hundred Years Of Psychotherapy And The World's Getting Worse

I'd express them to Dr. James Hillman. Perhaps the world needs us to be as radical and intense as Derrick Jensen writes.

Empty Yourself Out: Start Bitching

Yesterday I ran across some of the best political advice I've seen in my 38 years so far. It appeared on page 104 of We've Had A Hundred Years Of Psychotherapy And The Worlds Getting Worse. But before I type the quote I want to say one reason why I like James Hillman's writing: he stays within Western civilized thought and brings ideas that are thousands of years old to the table.

"I used to get stopped cold in political arguments. I would be going on about something, and the other guy would say, 'All right, if you're so smart, what would you do about it?' And I had no positive idea what to do, no program, nothing. It wasn't just that I was impractical; I was empty. My protests were suddenly emptied out because I had nothing positive to offer. They say that the '68 revolution in Berkeley and in Europe among the students were so easily crushed or petered out because the revolutionaries had no positive programs.

"Kenosis puts the emptiness in a new light. It values the emptiness. It says "empty protest" is a via negativa, a non-postivist way of entering the political arena. You take your outrage seriously, but you don't force yourself to have answers. Trust your nose. You know what stinks. Don't try to replace the helpless frustration you feel, the powerless victimization, by working out a rational answer. The answers will come, if they come, when they come, to you, to others, but don't fill in the emptiness of the protest with positive suggestions before their time. First, protest! I don't know what should be done about most of the major political dilemnas, but my gut (my soul, my heart, my skin, my eyes) sinks, creeps, crawls, weeps, cringes, shakes. It's wrong, simply wrong, what going on here."-- James Hillman, Pg.104

So, there it is. The planet is burning up, nonhuman species are going extinct faster than they should be, the human population is doubling every 50 years or so, the tension between women and men just keeps increasing, I can't eat too much fish out of our local lakes because of mercury, the whitetail deer in my area now have Chronic Wasting disease, the elite in this country have to much money, our food has been poisoned by pesticides, the cancer rates are increasing, forests keep getting cut under the guise of improvement, we keep losing top soil, my house might get bombed by a drone, the local landfill just keeps growing, the post office is falling apart, and I could go on and on and on.

We've All Been Abused

I remember a few years back, on an Ishmael related discussion board that I participated in, someone made the remark that they didn't philosophize from the standpoint of a victim. This was in relation to Derrick Jensen's work. At the time it made sense on the surface. But given the depth and subtlety of Jensen's work I knew it didn't go far enough. That Jensen wasn't just sitting around whining about the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father.

Well, I ran across this insight by the psychologist James Hillman this morning:

"So we don't want to get rid of the feeling of being abused--maybe that's very important, the feeling of being abused, the feeling of being without power. But maybe we shouldn't imagine that we are abused by the past[For example, by parents, teachers, etc, from the past] as much as we are by the actual situation of 'my job,' 'my finances,''my government'--all the things that we live with. Then the consulting room becomes the cell of revolution, because we would be talking also about, 'What is actually abusing me right now?' That would be a great venture, for therapy to talk that way." Pg.39, We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and The Worlds Getting Worse

The system we live in is abusive. I think this is the first time I've ever typed that.