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Kathleen Devanney. A human.'s avatar

Thanks, really enjoyed that. So many excellent points.

Our civilization - collapsing in slo-mo it seems - is largely toxic and traumatizing so won't be easy to escape bouts of anxiety. (Nature is for me the best way to release that) I know many people who simply live with ongoing anxiety as if it's a fait accompli. Wil share.

Re:"Love is something else entirely and its nature has been perverted by traditional religion as well as the New Age movement to trick you into giving away your power. This is why the Pope called taking the vax “an act of love” and many spiritual sects that preach loving compassion, acceptance and unity refused entry to the unvaxxed."

Thank you for noting this. I find it's a difficult point to make. I'm not judging faith via religion though definitely see frequently, a fusing of faith's two aspects (the intuitive Vs the organized expression of the intuitive) which makes an internal jumble and often leaves 'followers' unable to tease them apart. (Criticizing the religions feels like criticizing one's faith, or worse, God.)

Perhaps in this time of great change, the controlling hold religion has had on many people will also be shed. (And of course I am aware there are those aligned to religious institutions who do not have this challenge.)

PS - I've noticed the weather apps too.

Best.

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Mark Alexander's avatar

I have a friend who had a kind of mental break in March 2020, where she suddenly and unexpectedly acquired a crippling anxiety and fear about being around other people, whether in crowds, or small gatherings, or driving a car on a busy road. She doesn't know why this happened, but I think I do. Remember what happened in March 2020? The news media were full of panicked accounts of a terrible pathogen that was going to kill lots of people, and "experts" and politicians were reinforcing this message of fear by ordering us to respond accordingly.

My friend doesn't have a TV, but she does read mainstream news on her iPhone, so I'm pretty sure that's where she got this anxiety and fear that still cripples her three years later. The weird thing is that she doesn't really believe my theory about how she got this way, and she still reads the news every morning. It's as if she's in an abusive relationship, where the news media is the abuser, and she's in denial about the abuse.

This pattern seemed obvious to me, because I left an abusive relationship in January 2020, just before the fear-bombing. So it was much easier for me to recognize what was happening a few short months later: we were now in an abusive relationship with media and government.

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