One week into January 2018. In that week it seems I have lost two friends. They've not died, just deserted me. On one level it hardly matters but on another level it is profoundly upsetting. It is upsetting because piece by piece the connections with some group, some history, some society, are being eroded and severed leaving me adrift in a world which makes no sense and one which I clearly don't belong to.
I can sense the fear. It seems to be what often happens to children when their parents divorce. Their friends at school, usually with no awareness of why, simply don't want to associate with them anymore. They become ostracised and isolated. It is not long before they become the object of criticism and cruelty. It looks like an animal instinct of avoiding the sick, the weak, or the injured in the group. These erstwhile friends are shunning me as a consequence of the breakup of the family. In part they don't want to be associated with me lest they end up on the wrong side of the fence with the outcast, the leper, the mutant disease of the family.
We all have a diverse range of emotions and to some degree we need to express them. I have a good friend with whom I can vent my frustration and fury about the state of the world. There is a kind of adult consent. For a while the internet provided an outlet for that rage. I could make my criticisms of the social structure, the conventional norms, or the downright misconceptions of the culture. In part the reason was anonymity. By having a pseudonym, a Nom de Grrr, people who knew me didn't have to read it. And there are people out there, the minority of course, who feel the same way. They appreciate the expression because it begins to create another group of like minded people with which they can identify.
Another point that needs to be brought into this mix is that in needing someone to understand and accept us, parents all too often seem to think their captive innocents, their children, are some God given gift that they are free to abuse. A plain sheet of paper upon which to spill their darkest ink. Our culture has created the isolated family home, the hidden back room where torture and abuse can be played out with impunity and no one outside has the right to interfere or even express an opinion. It is rife in our culture to the point that all institutions in the hierarchy from the education system to the government, rely on, utilise, and protect, this secret inner chamber of horrors.
The internet is facilitating the breakdown of the medieval castle and as it collapses the horrors and turmoil are spilling across communities. The facade of respectability defends itself with expressed outrage at the crimes being exposed and attempts to bolster the charade by publically decrying the evils. But these hideous writhing creatures emerging from the depths of the rubble are mere scapegoats and whipping boys for the monsters still compelled by the urge to dispose of their distress by injecting it into others.
My mother used to lock me in the porch "And you'll stay there until your father gets home." It wasn't as nightmarish as it sounds because the porch was cold but I was allowed a dressing gown and my father would just send me back to bed when he came in. I would spend hours in that porch most often for something I had not done. The internal dynamics of dysfunctional families are complex and unfathomable. I don't recall the girls being punished in this way, just the boys. Maybe my mother felt righteous in beating her daughters but was somehow inhibited from beating her sons lest it break their manhood. Who can tell what is going on in the minds of these disturbed individuals.
But now I feel imprisoned and isolated in the porch of my life. Those on the outside dare not break the spell, they dare not question the current arrangement, the power structure that appears to maintain their survival. They collude with, and protect, the hideous abuse lest they get singled out and dragged screaming and undefended to the torture chamber within. They know, by their own acceptance and compliance, that no one would come to their defence. They know it is wrong but they are caught by their own sense of guilt at being party to it.
Of course we will continue to vote for and support, hail and promote, the most hideous, the most stupid, the most judgemental authoritarians amongst us, because it protects the failing hierarchical structure which currently appears to sustain us in our secret guilt. We are victims of our own inhumanity. We will rally round those opposing authority in other lands because it is a proxy for our own resentment whilst we dare not stand against our own oppressors. We are tragic cowards clinging on to a life with no meaning, no substance, and certainly no value.
I have no desire to be here on this planet in this form. I am isolated, scorned, blamed for others' failings, and deprived of any reasonable existence. But I am here, with a daughter who I would not desert even to save my own soul. My most sincere regret is that I was in any way responsible for bringing her into this conscious material existence. All I can do, contained in the porch of my life, is hope that what I imagined might be possible can still happen for her. Maybe humanity can turn some corner, maybe collectively we can alter course from this insane decent into hell. Maybe another world is possible. I might never know it, but if she finds herself in a good place, all of my suffering will have been worthwhile.
I am trapped in an echo chamber ringing with the cries of the lost souls around me. I am immersed in a pit of their disowned failings and guilt. I am smothered by their failure to deal with their own problems and choking on their desperation to hide it from themselves. I am decaying and dissolving in the corrosive waste of humanity. Roll on 2018.
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