Night and day alike, he was continually shrieking in the tombs and among the hills, and cutting himself with stones.
self-abuse is self-limiting
self-limitation is not a therapy
awareness too periodic
evasions too plentifulwhether pre- or post-Freudian
dealing with demons or ego
is mostly a failing proposition
insight and exorcism insufficiently systemicwarfare advancing one trench at a time
in a time of arbitrary drones
protects personal proclivities
from multi-disciplinary interventionswilderness abandoned
reveals not wilderness
but our own wilderness
multi-layered abandonment
When, day-in and day-out (24/7), we find ourselves powerless in the face of captivity by an overwhelming external or internalized oppression we admit it and start on a new way of living.
Before this recognition we are likely to cut ourself off from ourself and others—literally as well as figuratively.
A tomb is an apt image for such personal and social dislocation.
To the reigning structures, this behavior is evidence of an individual bad apple rather than a signifier of something seriously wrong with the mechanisms of social ranking not effectively challenged by the majority who go along with the latest façade of power. A result is a bitter cycle of fewer resources going to fewer people leading to more need that is even less capable of being affected by tinkering with welfare formulas. In fact this behavior validates those in power.
We have reached here a self-defeat of powerlessness and a confirmation that there is nothing that can be done to help some people. Missing here is a picture of healthy partnerships among people of varying gifts and needs. The complexity here justifies a cutting through the confusions and living by the externalizing desires of status and power.
As we deal with this representative of all the lost who have accepted anti-shadow projections received from those with power over others, it will be important to listen to a response that doesn’t determine, ahead of time, a preferred methodology of healing. This important moment needs more reflection than a reliance on faith.