Thanks for another wonderful piece of writing Caitlin! It was exactly what I needed to read in this wonderful moment! Your gifts are very much appreciated on this particular little node of the internet. Best wishes to you and your husband.
I have been anti-war alt party activist my entire adult life -- since Nam. I live in total isolation, I have lost all my family and friends to death. I published an activist book, was arrested over a dozen times, participated in many events/causes/initiatives, published a rag. My last 2 friends nearby I lost to RussiaGate and my condemnation of Ukraine proxy war. I am 72 and disabled, live alone, in isolation. I am glad you are so lucky that you never have to feel despair or depression. Thanks for the condemnation, it really helps. I do have one small glimpse of hope in BRICS, but seems nothing much I can do about my town collapsing under the weight of inflation and sanctions. Hedges wrote an interesting personal piece called : "The Plague of Social Isolation" -- though a different environment from my lifestyle, he still pinned it.
I'm 75, with 73 yo wife, "challenged" stepdaughter, two challeged but lovable dogs, and I feel your pain. Deeply. As this just a comment, I only add that Caitlin again hits the nail on the head and gives a beautiful moral compass: Witness the beauty, it is all around. As I will continue to remind myself...
I do not live too far away from Vandenberg AFB. last year or so, major air flights over head, low and LOUD. I get so PTSD, sometimes I scream at the sky, as the noise is oppressive and can continue at times, 10 minutes perhaps? I feel this is all about preparing for war with China. I once in early 80s protested that airbase several times, met Daniel Ellsberg, guided him into the back country. So Cait tells me I do nothing, and my depression is not well deserved? Also met breifly Daniel Ortega via Amy Goodman, in San Fran, before we went out to try to stop arms shipments to Nicaragua at Concord Naval Weapons Station. But, i am a bad person for getting depressed. Being depressed means what again?
Sorry, too much contradictions in her piece and useless condemnations, self aggrandisement. I live in one of the most beautiful places on earth, in small town on the coast. Watching humans trash it is not particularly pleasant, much like Hedges piece on Isolation and his experience at his local gym, which is on Substack, BTW.
It is painful. I've been an active environmentalist since before I knew the word, growing up 30 miles out of NYC. I was a bio major and in Nature much of my life. It is because of this and so much more that I appreciate Caitlin's reminder on where to keep my attention, as I do work at daily.
But are you really a useless good-for-nothing POS in need of condemnation because you feel depressed, full of grief, and despair? I do not connect these things in this way. We all have different levels of sensitivity and debilitation, isolation, perimeters of influence. I see my great grief because those things of beauty have been swiftly disappearing and destroyed, not because i am an "inferior" person, which is what is inferred here IMO. It is overwhelming as if one looks at history, then adds 8 billion, any fantasies or projections about human enlightenment is looking through some rose colored lenses and automatically condemns anyone who sees the horror and atrocity. Feels like gaslighting to suggest anyone who feels despair or depression is somehow inferior and not doing enough. Sigh. If she had perhaps omitted that one line or two, this piece would have had a different shade.
I find reading helps - something about a different era that reflects situations similar to the current conditions. As nothing is really new at any point in time. Reliving similar events through books helps a lot, at least for me.
Thanks, wish that did give me comfort. I have been big on anthropology and history for a long time, got degrees. I have spent a lot of time already comparing this to different eras. Granted, it is not as bad as WWI or WWII -- or the Crusades. But, the barbarians and sadism is still all there with 8 billion on the planet. Exponentially this might translate.
I am somehow reminded of when my mum used to tell me to be thankful, others always have it worse. Then I obsessed over how other people at it so much worse. I do not understand what comfort there was in that!
Then, I recall a Jonathan Winters joke. When he was a kid he said his parentstole him that people in China were starving, so he should eat all his food. He just kept eating and eating, but the people in China were still starving. Maybe it is one of those jokes you would have to see him perform!
I should have been more specific re books. I meant fiction more than documentaries. Written by those who actually experienced those times. This way it's not "dry science" and more engaging. Erich Maria Remarque immediately comes to mind.
Well. Damn. My point was that demonizing others for depression is pretty low, then to use it to aggrandize, I am sorry, but that is sort of low.
Yeah, the beauty part, is another issue. People might actually be depressed because those things they hold dear and beautiful are being destroyed. I can see beauty despaired or depressed. I live a comfortable life in a beautiful place, but without community, as Hedges wrote in his story about the gym, we have nothing. This is the uncomfortable Truth. After decades of trying to build community, there is none. The Transcience caused by post industrial capitalism, wars and migration, alienates and traumatizes all eventually, except for a few lucky ones.
I was being sarcastic, BTW, it is pretty low to condemn people for feeling despair and depression, IMO, especially in light of history, and the last 7 years -- with which time frame my life was consumed with my usual activism. The damages to community, family jobs, lives, through several crisis is rather profound. I have revisited much of history lately, and McCarthyism and Vietnam pale next to this, this is like a super mash. The fact I only look forward to BRICS shows extreme desperation.
On a technical level, I like to remember that even within the world of psyops, as Tavistockian and British psyops pioneer Brigadier John Rawlings Rees put it, “winning wars is not about killing, it’s about destroying the enemy’s morale while maintaining one’s own.” The wizards of psychological warfare and illusions know that if people believe there’s a chance they can win, that the war can be won, they’ll keep fighting and won’t give up. A lot goes into convincing people there’s nothing they can do, or putting out false choices—“illusions of choice”—to throw people off from the real thing.
Anyone with a “black-pilled” mentality subscribes to a worldview that guarantees they’ll never make a creative leap, or imagine how others could either. It destroys creativity and the ability to see that sacred spark in others, even in those many cases where it seems that the other person themselves isn’t aware that there’s something deeper within them.
On a higher spiritual level, removing illusions is really a powerful idea. In the words of philosopher and theologian Nicholas of Cusa, God is the absolute absence of all contradictions. Each time we remove an illusion, we move closer to God, the real thing, and our own deeper self.
This is a fair point, but they drink their own kool aid. These aren’t beings of logic beyond deception and tactical savvy, at which they excel. They are fully convinced of their own right to rule, their absolute divine right. I know, I’ve dealt with them. I did a podcast on my experience under targeted surveillance. They came for me just for shitting on their narrative control ops on social media. I know because they told me they were there. It was a sordid ordeal, but the take away is this: I expected them long before they revealed themselves and suspect they were watching me long before they revealed themselves. But I wanted to see them eye to eye. I wanted to get a measure of them. I do t know if they were in remitted evil incarnate, but I DO know that they are very serious about their disdain for me and I may have narrowly escaped being suicided. It’s very real.
My paradigm of life is that my purpose is the continual expansion of awareness. There are countless dimensions to that. One recurring thread is that a major component of expanded awareness is the ability to hold the coexistence of opposites. The more I can hold opposites at the same time and the larger of those opposites that I can hold, the more comprehensive my understanding is. With that, right and wrong, good and evil are one part of the whole. The deeper I can hold each; the deeper my understanding is. Reducing life to one or the other is a fundamental mistake and shortcoming in understanding truth.
I believe it is very likely there is more to consciousness then the current dominant paradigm of our intellectual epoch (Materialism) wants to shove down our throats. That doesn't mean I think there is necessarily some kind of "God", only that consciousness is likely fundamental to reality, as a necessary Observer - or the 'It from Bit" as John Wheeler might quip. So that gives me some hope - in the mystery and often darkness of one's suffering, and of so many others one is forced to witness.
Thank you Caitlin for that piece and reminding me that there is always hope as we make our way through life, that is what keeps me going and that moment of wonder that comes upon us unexpectedly as we see beauty in a flower , the sky or the pattering of raindrops.
A friend of mine left me with a beautiful comment about my writing asking I really appreciate what you are calling out I appreciate hearing wat you are calling up just as much
Hope, awe and curiosity are three powerful mindsets we can all carry in to the sea of these uncertain times
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail.”
When people (including me, often at 3am) feel hopeless, I go to my Grandmother, Veronica, and her story of Warsaw in 1945, the Nazis had just left, and now the Russians came. I recall how she carried on, had two children, kept on carrying on. And although we laid Gran to final rest in 2003, her sad, colourful and sometimes hilarious stories from those dark dark days lived with her, and all of us, many decades later. Her husband taken from her bed in the early hours by men with guns (something of a secret police blessing, he was a randy womaniser!) and the constant threat of arrest or disappearance if you spoke out. As I reflect now on her packed out Funeral in 2003, the lighter and the love; my feeling is that there is only really hope at the darkest of pre dawn times, as now, with evil men working their money and pride out with the lives of billions in the balance, hope and a sense of humour. Thank you for the precious work you have committed, Caitlin ❤️
Right: life is worth fighting for, only because it is worth fighting for: it is a miracle beyond our comprehension, something to be relished every possible moment, and thankful for, and aware of. Our wish should be that everyone be allowed to enjoy it, for as long as possible. The universe has so arranged it, on the most beautiful of all conceivable places. Unfortunately, some twisted minds see it otherwise. But the enjoyment of life as much as possible, every waking moment, is not a guilty pleasure : it is a birthright.
You call it a birthright, I call it a delusion brought on by the mind to make life seem bearable in keeping with or biological mandate to strive to keep living. You people see my take as “twisted mind” I see yours as delusional and childishly naive. It’s like a mantra you repeat until you believe it, despite all the evidence to the contrary. For one to think this system is wonderful, this system which dictates the harsh realities of life for so many, one clearly must live in a safe socioeconomic bubble of relative comfort. I suppose the people dying of poverty, hunger, or war don’t spend much time on Substack. The people dying from exposure to them elements due to lack of housing probably don’t feel like their salvation lies in chat forums. And they’d be right. People LOVE to pontificate about how good and virtuous they are, love to drone on and on about the “wonder of life”. Believe me, I’ve been homeless. You would not feel this way if you knew how little society values your life and how meaningless you are to the populace at large. But like Caitlyn said in her latest letter, she never thought that anyone could feel this way, so obviously I do t know what I’m talking about, right?
Like you, Caitlin, I prefer to take the attitude that the world won't end in disaster. If it does, there isn't much we can do to stop it, so why worry. Just be aware of the world around us.
I so fully agree with everything you've said here. So easy to miss in the dystopia, the enormous opportunity and gifts also embedded. I'm very optimistic for humanity, despite all the hard aches and challenges. Thank you.
I have felt the crushing despair and hopelessness Caitlin is speaking of myself. It is like you are being suffocated. But if you can turn within and pray for grace and mercy, I promise you it will not last. We feel that so we can turn within and learn to get meaning, validation, and peaceful joyful wellbeing from ourselves. I truly wish for everyone to feel joyful just because they can and are worthy of it. I truly wish for everyone to experience the beauty and wonder that is present within us and all around us.
It does seem that even in one's dark times, if one is patient - things do turn around, or as they say, another door eventually opens. Even death seems to hint of it likely being just another transition for one's consciousness. I live life assuming there is a reason (and not an absurdity), or as William James wrote: The Will to Believe.
We are really a lot dumber than we think we are. Wouldn't it be cool if... followed by a scream and intense pain.
Another one I love is The government should...followed by 5 billion injections and 21 million deaths. Also experiencing untold economic and environmental damage. Is there 10 sq meters on the planet where there isn't a forever mask?
Proving once again we are pretty much the dumbest creatures on the planet.
We elect dilettantes, crooks, liars, scumbags, senile old darts, blowhards and evil monsters.
Thanks for another wonderful piece of writing Caitlin! It was exactly what I needed to read in this wonderful moment! Your gifts are very much appreciated on this particular little node of the internet. Best wishes to you and your husband.
I have been anti-war alt party activist my entire adult life -- since Nam. I live in total isolation, I have lost all my family and friends to death. I published an activist book, was arrested over a dozen times, participated in many events/causes/initiatives, published a rag. My last 2 friends nearby I lost to RussiaGate and my condemnation of Ukraine proxy war. I am 72 and disabled, live alone, in isolation. I am glad you are so lucky that you never have to feel despair or depression. Thanks for the condemnation, it really helps. I do have one small glimpse of hope in BRICS, but seems nothing much I can do about my town collapsing under the weight of inflation and sanctions. Hedges wrote an interesting personal piece called : "The Plague of Social Isolation" -- though a different environment from my lifestyle, he still pinned it.
I'm 75, with 73 yo wife, "challenged" stepdaughter, two challeged but lovable dogs, and I feel your pain. Deeply. As this just a comment, I only add that Caitlin again hits the nail on the head and gives a beautiful moral compass: Witness the beauty, it is all around. As I will continue to remind myself...
You are lucky.
I do have a beautiful bratty cat, a small orchard, and vegetable garden. So thankful I am not getting drone attacks!!!
Yeah - when I feel really gloomy, I remember that I live in an attractive part of rural Scotland, and not in Yemen.
I do not live too far away from Vandenberg AFB. last year or so, major air flights over head, low and LOUD. I get so PTSD, sometimes I scream at the sky, as the noise is oppressive and can continue at times, 10 minutes perhaps? I feel this is all about preparing for war with China. I once in early 80s protested that airbase several times, met Daniel Ellsberg, guided him into the back country. So Cait tells me I do nothing, and my depression is not well deserved? Also met breifly Daniel Ortega via Amy Goodman, in San Fran, before we went out to try to stop arms shipments to Nicaragua at Concord Naval Weapons Station. But, i am a bad person for getting depressed. Being depressed means what again?
But is not that so very .... sad. Sigh. When you know our war machines and corruption is causing these sorts of suffering, and our taxes pay for it!
Sorry, too much contradictions in her piece and useless condemnations, self aggrandisement. I live in one of the most beautiful places on earth, in small town on the coast. Watching humans trash it is not particularly pleasant, much like Hedges piece on Isolation and his experience at his local gym, which is on Substack, BTW.
It is painful. I've been an active environmentalist since before I knew the word, growing up 30 miles out of NYC. I was a bio major and in Nature much of my life. It is because of this and so much more that I appreciate Caitlin's reminder on where to keep my attention, as I do work at daily.
But are you really a useless good-for-nothing POS in need of condemnation because you feel depressed, full of grief, and despair? I do not connect these things in this way. We all have different levels of sensitivity and debilitation, isolation, perimeters of influence. I see my great grief because those things of beauty have been swiftly disappearing and destroyed, not because i am an "inferior" person, which is what is inferred here IMO. It is overwhelming as if one looks at history, then adds 8 billion, any fantasies or projections about human enlightenment is looking through some rose colored lenses and automatically condemns anyone who sees the horror and atrocity. Feels like gaslighting to suggest anyone who feels despair or depression is somehow inferior and not doing enough. Sigh. If she had perhaps omitted that one line or two, this piece would have had a different shade.
This is sad. I wish you strength.
I find reading helps - something about a different era that reflects situations similar to the current conditions. As nothing is really new at any point in time. Reliving similar events through books helps a lot, at least for me.
Thanks, wish that did give me comfort. I have been big on anthropology and history for a long time, got degrees. I have spent a lot of time already comparing this to different eras. Granted, it is not as bad as WWI or WWII -- or the Crusades. But, the barbarians and sadism is still all there with 8 billion on the planet. Exponentially this might translate.
I am somehow reminded of when my mum used to tell me to be thankful, others always have it worse. Then I obsessed over how other people at it so much worse. I do not understand what comfort there was in that!
Then, I recall a Jonathan Winters joke. When he was a kid he said his parentstole him that people in China were starving, so he should eat all his food. He just kept eating and eating, but the people in China were still starving. Maybe it is one of those jokes you would have to see him perform!
I should have been more specific re books. I meant fiction more than documentaries. Written by those who actually experienced those times. This way it's not "dry science" and more engaging. Erich Maria Remarque immediately comes to mind.
I have never been big on too much fiction, though I have a few favs.
Yes, I remember experiencing my parents telling me that AND Jonathan Winter's joke. My father loved Winters...Robin Williams loved him too;)
Well. Damn. My point was that demonizing others for depression is pretty low, then to use it to aggrandize, I am sorry, but that is sort of low.
Yeah, the beauty part, is another issue. People might actually be depressed because those things they hold dear and beautiful are being destroyed. I can see beauty despaired or depressed. I live a comfortable life in a beautiful place, but without community, as Hedges wrote in his story about the gym, we have nothing. This is the uncomfortable Truth. After decades of trying to build community, there is none. The Transcience caused by post industrial capitalism, wars and migration, alienates and traumatizes all eventually, except for a few lucky ones.
I hear you. That's all I can offer.
I was being sarcastic, BTW, it is pretty low to condemn people for feeling despair and depression, IMO, especially in light of history, and the last 7 years -- with which time frame my life was consumed with my usual activism. The damages to community, family jobs, lives, through several crisis is rather profound. I have revisited much of history lately, and McCarthyism and Vietnam pale next to this, this is like a super mash. The fact I only look forward to BRICS shows extreme desperation.
Right on Caitlin.
On a technical level, I like to remember that even within the world of psyops, as Tavistockian and British psyops pioneer Brigadier John Rawlings Rees put it, “winning wars is not about killing, it’s about destroying the enemy’s morale while maintaining one’s own.” The wizards of psychological warfare and illusions know that if people believe there’s a chance they can win, that the war can be won, they’ll keep fighting and won’t give up. A lot goes into convincing people there’s nothing they can do, or putting out false choices—“illusions of choice”—to throw people off from the real thing.
Anyone with a “black-pilled” mentality subscribes to a worldview that guarantees they’ll never make a creative leap, or imagine how others could either. It destroys creativity and the ability to see that sacred spark in others, even in those many cases where it seems that the other person themselves isn’t aware that there’s something deeper within them.
On a higher spiritual level, removing illusions is really a powerful idea. In the words of philosopher and theologian Nicholas of Cusa, God is the absolute absence of all contradictions. Each time we remove an illusion, we move closer to God, the real thing, and our own deeper self.
This is a fair point, but they drink their own kool aid. These aren’t beings of logic beyond deception and tactical savvy, at which they excel. They are fully convinced of their own right to rule, their absolute divine right. I know, I’ve dealt with them. I did a podcast on my experience under targeted surveillance. They came for me just for shitting on their narrative control ops on social media. I know because they told me they were there. It was a sordid ordeal, but the take away is this: I expected them long before they revealed themselves and suspect they were watching me long before they revealed themselves. But I wanted to see them eye to eye. I wanted to get a measure of them. I do t know if they were in remitted evil incarnate, but I DO know that they are very serious about their disdain for me and I may have narrowly escaped being suicided. It’s very real.
My paradigm of life is that my purpose is the continual expansion of awareness. There are countless dimensions to that. One recurring thread is that a major component of expanded awareness is the ability to hold the coexistence of opposites. The more I can hold opposites at the same time and the larger of those opposites that I can hold, the more comprehensive my understanding is. With that, right and wrong, good and evil are one part of the whole. The deeper I can hold each; the deeper my understanding is. Reducing life to one or the other is a fundamental mistake and shortcoming in understanding truth.
This is fair, and honestly, what we all do regardless, until we die
I believe it is very likely there is more to consciousness then the current dominant paradigm of our intellectual epoch (Materialism) wants to shove down our throats. That doesn't mean I think there is necessarily some kind of "God", only that consciousness is likely fundamental to reality, as a necessary Observer - or the 'It from Bit" as John Wheeler might quip. So that gives me some hope - in the mystery and often darkness of one's suffering, and of so many others one is forced to witness.
Thank you Caitlin for that piece and reminding me that there is always hope as we make our way through life, that is what keeps me going and that moment of wonder that comes upon us unexpectedly as we see beauty in a flower , the sky or the pattering of raindrops.
Brilliant read! Bravo 👏
A friend of mine left me with a beautiful comment about my writing asking I really appreciate what you are calling out I appreciate hearing wat you are calling up just as much
Hope, awe and curiosity are three powerful mindsets we can all carry in to the sea of these uncertain times
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail.”
~Helen Keller
When people (including me, often at 3am) feel hopeless, I go to my Grandmother, Veronica, and her story of Warsaw in 1945, the Nazis had just left, and now the Russians came. I recall how she carried on, had two children, kept on carrying on. And although we laid Gran to final rest in 2003, her sad, colourful and sometimes hilarious stories from those dark dark days lived with her, and all of us, many decades later. Her husband taken from her bed in the early hours by men with guns (something of a secret police blessing, he was a randy womaniser!) and the constant threat of arrest or disappearance if you spoke out. As I reflect now on her packed out Funeral in 2003, the lighter and the love; my feeling is that there is only really hope at the darkest of pre dawn times, as now, with evil men working their money and pride out with the lives of billions in the balance, hope and a sense of humour. Thank you for the precious work you have committed, Caitlin ❤️
Loads of people didn’t get an inspiring tale to tell. You’re one of the fortunate ones. I doubt Anne Franks ghost would have any hopium to sell.
Right: life is worth fighting for, only because it is worth fighting for: it is a miracle beyond our comprehension, something to be relished every possible moment, and thankful for, and aware of. Our wish should be that everyone be allowed to enjoy it, for as long as possible. The universe has so arranged it, on the most beautiful of all conceivable places. Unfortunately, some twisted minds see it otherwise. But the enjoyment of life as much as possible, every waking moment, is not a guilty pleasure : it is a birthright.
You call it a birthright, I call it a delusion brought on by the mind to make life seem bearable in keeping with or biological mandate to strive to keep living. You people see my take as “twisted mind” I see yours as delusional and childishly naive. It’s like a mantra you repeat until you believe it, despite all the evidence to the contrary. For one to think this system is wonderful, this system which dictates the harsh realities of life for so many, one clearly must live in a safe socioeconomic bubble of relative comfort. I suppose the people dying of poverty, hunger, or war don’t spend much time on Substack. The people dying from exposure to them elements due to lack of housing probably don’t feel like their salvation lies in chat forums. And they’d be right. People LOVE to pontificate about how good and virtuous they are, love to drone on and on about the “wonder of life”. Believe me, I’ve been homeless. You would not feel this way if you knew how little society values your life and how meaningless you are to the populace at large. But like Caitlyn said in her latest letter, she never thought that anyone could feel this way, so obviously I do t know what I’m talking about, right?
I think that’s right. It is always darkest before the dawn 😊
Like you, Caitlin, I prefer to take the attitude that the world won't end in disaster. If it does, there isn't much we can do to stop it, so why worry. Just be aware of the world around us.
I so fully agree with everything you've said here. So easy to miss in the dystopia, the enormous opportunity and gifts also embedded. I'm very optimistic for humanity, despite all the hard aches and challenges. Thank you.
"So from my point of view hopelessness is an illogical position"
And from mine, "hope" is the illogical position.
Now what? Seems like a yin/yang thing.
Hope for what? I understand hope being illogical if one has unrealistic expectations.
I suppose hoping for global thermonuclear war is a bit irrational as it’s not realistically a likely outcome.
So nice
to Be
here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDzXbdxeeHI&ab_channel=FleetwoodMac-Topic
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh_y_ygew0o&ab_channel=Simon%26Garfunkel-Topic
I’m glad you’re having a good time.
I have felt the crushing despair and hopelessness Caitlin is speaking of myself. It is like you are being suffocated. But if you can turn within and pray for grace and mercy, I promise you it will not last. We feel that so we can turn within and learn to get meaning, validation, and peaceful joyful wellbeing from ourselves. I truly wish for everyone to feel joyful just because they can and are worthy of it. I truly wish for everyone to experience the beauty and wonder that is present within us and all around us.
It does seem that even in one's dark times, if one is patient - things do turn around, or as they say, another door eventually opens. Even death seems to hint of it likely being just another transition for one's consciousness. I live life assuming there is a reason (and not an absurdity), or as William James wrote: The Will to Believe.
We are really a lot dumber than we think we are. Wouldn't it be cool if... followed by a scream and intense pain.
Another one I love is The government should...followed by 5 billion injections and 21 million deaths. Also experiencing untold economic and environmental damage. Is there 10 sq meters on the planet where there isn't a forever mask?
Proving once again we are pretty much the dumbest creatures on the planet.
We elect dilettantes, crooks, liars, scumbags, senile old darts, blowhards and evil monsters.