{"id":54401,"date":"2021-02-26T08:22:37","date_gmt":"2021-02-26T08:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/?p=133497"},"modified":"2021-02-26T08:22:37","modified_gmt":"2021-02-26T08:22:37","slug":"the-good-the-bad-and-the-profound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/26\/the-good-the-bad-and-the-profound\/","title":{"rendered":"The Good, The Bad and the Profound"},"content":{"rendered":"

January 29\u00a0marked the day the United States of America\u00a0rejoined<\/a>\u00a0the Paris Climate Accords and is back in the global fight against the climate chaos, which is inevitable if we follow business as usual, now termed\u00a0RCP (representative concentration pathway) 8.5<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To make the political climate even worse, politicians served up the doozy of trying to blame renewable energy for the failure of the power grid in\u00a0Texas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Though it should still be a day of celebration,\u00a0\u00a0today also marks the day we reached the unthinkable number of\u00a0500,000 deaths<\/a> due to COVID-19, at the same time that most states are opening back up. And, our young people are becoming suicidal at\u00a0alarming rates, a secondary yet major pandemic. As a psychiatrist, I see that thus far we are doing virtually nothing about that escalating tragedy.<\/p>\n

Increasingly my work in mental health brings me up against this fundamental moral and existential crisis.\u00a0\u00a0How can humanity go on in a world so in denial about the facts which confront us?\u00a0\u00a0Our tendency to compartmentalize bad things works against us in the most urgent of ways now.\u00a0\u00a0But it is our inability to confront our own mortality that most haunts us.\u00a0\u00a0We trick ourselves into believing it will never happen to us.<\/p>\n

I spent many nights of my childhood worrying about the myriad of ways I could die.\u00a0\u00a0I am the opposite of most people.\u00a0\u00a0And the world did not disappoint.\u00a0\u00a0I have had many near death experiences.\u00a0\u00a0I come from trauma so it feels like it accompanies me.<\/p>\n

Those who come from trauma know what I speak of.\u00a0\u00a0It tends to happen, again and again.\u00a0\u00a0If you are one of those struggling, I would highly recommend taking a course in\u00a0psychological first aid<\/a>, a technique I have been using through the pandemic to help those in crisis.<\/p>\n

There are others who suffer with\u00a0solastalgia<\/a>, a term coined in 2003 by Glenn Albrecht, an Australian psychiatrist.\u00a0\u00a0The term encompasses both somaterratic illness (threats to our physical wellbeing caused by climate change) and psychoterratic illness (damage done to our psyche due to our distress over the changes we observe).\u00a0\u00a0Increasingly I think we are not suffering from any illness at all.<\/p>\n

Rather, I think it is our inability to admit that as individuals we do not control our physical environment.\u00a0\u00a0But as a species we destroy ourselves as we go. As thinking humans, we simply cannot stand that. At this point, we find ourselves at a major crossroads, and our young people know it.<\/p>\n

What if it is they who are having the normal reaction to a highly abnormal situation which we older humans caused?\u00a0\u00a0Then we are doing a great\u00a0disservice<\/a>\u00a0to the generations to follow by presenting it as pathology. They know we are lying to them, just as I knew that my parents were lying to me about my anxiety. Death was real and they always pretended it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

In the past year, I have become a radical activist, for many issues.\u00a0\u00a0For violence prevention, for social justice, for climate change, for all of human rights.<\/p>\n

Take this for what it is worth: I feel better in my body.\u00a0\u00a0It turns out aligning your moral values with your lived values is good for mental health, especially in a pandemic.\u00a0\u00a0It turns passive to active, increases a feeling of efficacy, and confronts the learned hopelessness many of us were taught.<\/p>\n

It is\u00a0soul work<\/a>. I can feel my ancestors cheering me on.\u00a0\u00a0They would not want our planet destroyed.\u00a0\u00a0I do it for them, I do it for me, I do it for my children and the children of the 7th<\/sup>\u00a0generation.<\/p>\n

Join us. There is room for all humanity under the umbrella of the \u201cmovement of all movements\u201d coined by the wise elder activist George Lakey.\u00a0\u00a0He writes in\u00a0How We Win<\/u>, \u201cMy hope is that you, if you are not already acting boldly, will experience the joy and empowerment I have found by my decision to act in history rather than watch it go by.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday was a good day for activists everywhere, all over our blue planet. Today, we mourn and tomorrow we get back to work. Mother Earth is calling.\u00a0\u00a0We are killing each other with our division. Our children are dying. We need everyone to care for everyone else. This means a lot of seismic change. Ps: It also means continuing to wear your mask.<\/p>\n

Are we ready?<\/p>\n

Texas, we see you<\/a>\u00a0and feel your pain.\u00a0\u00a0We will all be next.\u00a0\u00a0We are in this together, whether we know it or not.<\/p>\n

The post The Good, The Bad and the Profound<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

January 29\u00a0marked the day the United States of America\u00a0rejoined\u00a0the Paris Climate Accords and is back in the global fight against the climate chaos, which is inevitable if we follow business as usual, now termed\u00a0RCP (representative concentration pathway) 8.5. To make the political climate even worse, politicians served up the doozy of trying to blame renewable More<\/a><\/p>\n

The post The Good, The Bad and the Profound<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":273,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54401"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/273"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54401"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54402,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54401\/revisions\/54402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}