We All Need Recovery
We All Need Recovery
When you live in a toxic society, everyone needs recovery.
Welcome to Western “civilization” …
It’s a world of commodities, not entities; of consumers, not human beings; and economic expansion is the primary measure of progress. Profits are valued over people, money over meaning, our national entitlement over global peace and justice; ‘us’ over ‘them.’
Wild Mind, p186
In such a place, is it any wonder we find ourselves a cohort of addicts and escapists? Is it any wonder that the inner protectors of the East often rule the day?
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Where We Find Ourselves
To some, that opening sounds fatalistic. In response, they might suggest that we need to focus on the responsibility of individuals to pull themselves up and not give into the blame game. When done in a way that denies circumstance, that too is another form of escapism, an unwillingness to face life as it is because doing so is just too painful.
Avoiding such overwhelming emotions is exactly what happens when we do not have a healthy East facet of the psyche. Our innocent-sage, the sacred fool and trickster, gives way to escapists and addicts.
This is the society that Brene Brown highlighted in her 2011 Ted Talk on the power of vulnerability when, she describes us as “the most in-debt, obese, addicted and medicated adult cohort in U.S. history.”
Some of us numb using substances or behaviors, others dive into a fantasy world of entertainment through books, games, or movies, and still more turn to food. Not wanting to acknowledge the heartbreaking truth or step into discomfort is another way to numb. The same can be said of religion, whether it is a religious rightness or a spiritual bypassing. If there is no escape, then we will simply block out the trauma from our memory (or erase it from our history books).
So What Do We Do Now?
On the journey of manhood, this is where the actions of healing our psyche, growing beyond cultural expectations, and overcoming societal obstacles collide.
When we find ourselves in the wounded East, something our society assures we will, the question then becomes how would we respond if we were living in wholeness? How would the innocent-sage, the sacred fool and trickster, respond to the world we find ourselves in?
This is someone who can embrace the paradox of both/and, one who finds themselves enamored by the beauty in the brokenness, capable of finding space to play even as the world falls apart.
I would say it looks something like this:
Notice how Dave talks honestly about issues of race, inequity, and injustice, with a playfulness that honors the horror of the reality that we’ve created, shines light into the darkness, and yet has fun with it. He’s not just a comic, he’s a social prophet.
But not all of us are that funny, so how do we seek to move from escape and addiction to the realm of the innocent-sage?
Holding the Tension
In the book, “Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most” (affiliate), three Yale professors offer the paper version of a popular undergraduate course. In one chapter, they identify three realities you need to address in order to create a meaningful life.
One, is circumstance. These are factor that exist beyond your control. This is what prompts Xero Shoes CEO Steven Sashen to say that his business success, which involved turning a DIY sandal kit company into a shoe manufacturer with over $50-million a year in sales, is, “90% luck and another 10% luck.”
Sashen recognizes that there is far more to business than just making a great product that you back with excellent service, especially in a toxic society. That toxic society is part of our circumstance (as is the luck that sometimes works in our favor). In the wholeness of the East, we can embrace circumstance and call it what it is, even if that means labeling it toxic or unjust.
The second reality, is agency. Here Sashen talks about, “a separate 100 percent where 90 percent is working your butt off and 10 percent is, hopefully, being smart enough to put out the fires that start overnight despite nothing having changed from the day before.” Yes things are wrong, press for what is right anyway.
Finally in our journey to a healthy East, we need to address affect. We need to shift our focus from the external world to the inner one. We need to dive in to the mystery of the West.
More on that in the next post.