Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley): I write about some dark, dark things in this space, and it's common to receive expressions of despair in response to the subjects I focus on. This is perfectly understandable. Not only is our world hurtling toward nuclear armageddon and environmental collapse while surging authoritarianism threatens our ability to even talk about these things with each other, but most people are completely oblivious to it all. Even relatively politically engaged people tend to believe society's biggest problems are things like sexism or drag shows, and they generally support one of the two mainstream political factions who are both driving us toward destruction.
Thank you, Caitlin, that's an excellent reminder that our world, our solar system, our galaxy, our universe, is still an amazing, beautiful, mysterious, baffling place. And we are some of the most amazing, beautiful, mysterious, and baffling things in it. There's a lot of suffering we don't need to buy into.
Thank you, thank you. An excellent antidote for those of us who feel the alienation that comes when we radically split from the fake world around us. I am so grateful to have a beautiful garden out back which is full of experiences of Being you remind us of. The question in the novel 1984 was “Do you want to be happy or free, politically and intellectually?” Your essay is a glorious reminder that choosing freedom need not be grim but joyous.
I woke up this morning feeling sad and disappointed by the state of the World and especially by what's going on in my home. A home I was once proud of as being related to the 1st Peoples. And btw We believe we come from there. We did not come over the Bering Straight via Africa. This is a made-up story by Invaders & Colonizers to justify taking over and commiting genocide. I had YouTube set on continuous play while I was washing my face. It morphed into a Frontline piece on Clarence & Ginny Thomas. Yikes! Then I checked my Twitter feed and I was once again trolled by Pro-Ukraine Nafo Nazis. Yikes again! Then I checked my email and found this article by Caitlin Johnson. No Yikes here! It certainly took me to a much better place. Thank you Caitlin. You saved my day from infinite despair.
Holy Crap! I’m not saying this is plagiarism, but reading this was like coming across something a secret, undetected mind reading scribe extracted from my brain a few years ago. Feels good to know y’all are out there... Tough to find those who get this in everyday life here in North Carolina. Thank You So Much Caitlin! You’re keeping me very nearly sane!
Tennessee here. Some guy in CJ's comment section yesterday was saying that most people around the world don't think like the West does and I used to despair too but Americans are the only ones in this abusive relationship and that does take a load off. That's a classic sign of being in a abusive relationship too, not knowing the reality outside of that relationship.
Right! What Caitlin wrote described “to a t” my perspective/experience of the modern shared “reality.” I see it all differently now. First thing today I reflected on the fact that I hardly know anyone who shares my point of view, here in Arkansas. I know they must be here but haven’t found them.
Thank you, Caitlin. What a beautiful reminder that this physical experience is such a gift. When you appreciate it, you treat it with more reverence. You live with more sacred purpose.
That there is something rather than nothing is truly boggling, and which there currently is no real scientific explanation. I also believe there is more going on in reality than just the mechanical clock system that deterministic materialists insist we believe (many of the same people who tell us we must kill more Russians, and start a war with China.) I think the mystery of consciousness remains a clue to the meaning of it all - in the dark period we now are living through. But you're right, even in the midst of these darkest times - like living in a Francisco Goya painting - one can find light, even light connections with consciousness - for example, the death-bed visions of people who are about to die. So I think there is a strong basis for hope this isn't all some kind of existential joke and accident of existence. I live my life assuming it isn't. I could be wrong though.
No way to know for sure, but I tend to cozy up to the idea that consciousness is primary, and it creates the physical world, like a dreamer has a dream. Our brains don't produce that, just filter and organize it. But the physical world is tough because it has it's own rules, and there are no safeties.
I believe there is much to consciousness yet to be fully explained. For example, J.W. Dunne's book "An Experiment with Time" written in 1927 is entirely convincing regarding his own observations of precognitive dreams. You also have very seminal work by Podmore, Gurney and Myers in their "Phantasms of the Living" book. You have very famous mediums such as Leonora Piper or Eileen Garrett - both well documented for decades. So therefore, the assumed materialistic theory that consciousness is entirely localized to the brain and also can perceive nothing but the present - can be challenged credibly (in my opinion). Also, another interesting book is "At the Hour of Death" by Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson. Their extensive study of people who were nearing death found the following: "1,318 of them saw apparitions, 884 reported visions, and 753 reported mood elevations shortly before death." #p29
Then you have the very extensive work of Carl Jung, who spent his entire life writing about and studying the unconscious (primarily), of which he mapped out many elements of the unconscious and observed some universally common features - but the most remarkable was the autonomy of the unconscious and its teleological features. Most of this though, is dismissed by the dominant paradigm right now of materialism, which restricts consciousness as only a product of brain function - and the materialists insist once the brain ceases so does consciousness. They may be right - but there is considerable scientific evidence (in my opinion) that does appear to contradict such an assumption. And the question of qualia remains entirely unanswered by the materialists.
Whether consciousness creates reality is a huge jump (at least for me). I know that is a particularly popular belief among new age bellievers. I think though that consciousness may interact with reality in more ways than is assumed - there is also the Observer Problem in quantum physics which to this day, remains unresolved. Does consciousness play a role in the Measurement problem? Many will insist not - but for a very long time, at least in quantum physics, the assumption was yes, consciousness was the primary cause of wave collapse - note the assumption though was that consciousness did not "create" a collapse, but played a role in the collapse - a kind of catalyst for collapse.
The Mind Body Problem remains unresolved philosophically and scientifically. Of course, you always have a few who insist they have it all figured out - especially the reductive materialists these days. Few of them are very well read in my opinion - because if they did read any of the psychological research - starting with William James and/or Bruce Greyson or a whole host of scholary scientists - you immediately do realize more is going on with consciousness than just simple neurons firing in a brain.
However, the enigma of the universe still remains an enigma - in this short life of ours. I think people ought to be allowed to believe what they want since in my opinion, no one has a fucking clue what really makes it all tick - especially consciousness.
Thanks for your very informed and interesting response. I have read a few of these but my ideas mostly come from Vedenta and transpersonal psychology (so theoretical).
What makes most sense to me is if matter and energy are at essence forms of information, then they don't have substance without a system to receive or cognize that information (consciousness). The other side is that if information is just our way to describe the world, then it is a mystery what is actually being described because it actually contains no attributes that we can experience or perceive. So it comes around that either consciousness is or creates reality, or consciousness is a projection onto (and from) an unknowable nothing! These might even be different ways of describing the same thing.
To feel sane, you can of course also find solidarity with the few fellow humans out there who do also think like you. Appreciating the universe and nature are one thing, but you also for the best mental health need to find some peers and community. They are out there!
Thanks, it's good to remember that this false and phony paradigm we're living in is ephemeral, while we are surrounded by a natural beauty that transcends and outlasts Man's world, and we are capable of contemplating and sometimes tasting the eternal.
"It feels like what it probably felt like to be a lucid thinker back in much less enlightened times when civilization was dominated by religion and superstition."
The problem is that we live in an age of obscurantism and a real obscurantism, not the one invented by the propaganda of the Enlightenment, which, to be luminous, absolutely had to succeed the darkness. To associate religion and superstition is of an imbecility without name. Religion is the exact opposite of superstition. And as far as lucid thinkers are concerned, the "obscurantist" times saw the birth and expression of Saint Augustine, Thomas More, Blaise Pascal, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Montaigne or Descartes (to name but a few), who cannot be qualified as superstitious or obscure, even though they were all animated by a Catholic faith.
When I read Voltaire or Diderot, I have the impression of reading the first propagandists who use sophisms and lies to extinguish any critical spirit in his reader. And the patent liars who run the American empire and its lackey countries are indeed Voltaire's bastards, as John Saul brilliantly wrote.
Awwww. I love Voltaire and DIderot. They looked down the barrel of the gun and called it like they saw it. And liberated many an American college student in the early ‘60’s! I respect your point of view but for me, as a woman and a queer, those other dudes would just as soon see me burned as see me at all.
I also respect your point of view but it is necessary to get away from clichés. The witches of Salem is Protestantism in the form of Puritanism, so it has nothing to do with the Catholic authors I quoted.
Moreover, Voltaire and Diderot never looked at the barrel of a gun: they were part of a protected elite and better, while they accused their king, Louis XV, of being a tyrant, they bowed down to Frederick II of Prussia (Voltaire) and Catherine of Russia (Diderot) who were well known to be great liberal democrats. I am French. The school of the Republic formed me in the cult of Voltaire and the Enlightenment but fortunately, it also gave me the basis of a critical mind. So, the nonsense of the Enlightenment, I've come back from it. Voltaire's philosophy is desolatingly platitudinous: it reminds me of the man to whom the wise man shows the moon but who prefers to look at the finger: Voltaire also concentrates on the finger when he is shown the moon.
Good analogy but with respect, I too would look at the thumb. The moon is great but the thumb tells me where the picture from. And looking down the barrel of the gun meant, for me, that they didn’t flinch when certain thoughts lead them inexorably to certain conclusions that were extremely difficult to think in their time. They liberated me from the culture of church and “we’re number 1” that was so prevalent in the late ‘50’s, early ‘60’s in the Midwest of America. But I too have outgrown the liberal democratic way of thinking and am way into dumping patriarchy in all its forms and searching searching for new ways to think and be, ways that answer my question, which is what is that thumb doing there anyway? Who is this wiseman and why is he bothering me? If you get my drift. The pain of a dying empire and a changing ecosystem demand new answers and for me, even a flawed iconoclast is better than no iconoclast. Plus, I love you French. You guys really got it. 🙏
I thank you for the friendly and cordial dialogue we have. Responding to you would lead us into a lengthy discussion that would unduly occupy the space Caitlin Johnson is offering. We don't have exactly the same ideas, but at heart we are similar: we love our neighbors, the humans, and would like them to defend their freedom a little better.
Another excellent post, Caitlin. I feel this one could be/should be the central plot and theme to a movie that has no political or propagandist agenda attached to it, only hope and salvation from the nightmare we are all currently living.
I too have penned a lot of musings on the evils of this world, but I share Caitlin's amazement at the wonders of this our celestial home. Sometimes, I express that appreciation by observing a simple creature, plant or rock. Here is one such piece.
The Ant and Her Man
You seem to think the paths I clear are tracts
designed for you as you move your mound
out of the grass and right into the middle of my good work.
Well, that suits me well enough.
I can walk around you while marveling at your homestead.
You know your place and you keep it well.
Not like your tiny little cousins, who like
to set up the daily migration into kitchen
and closet through invisible passageways.
No, you do your good work out in the open—
looking for whatever might be useful. And
any of those pesky grasshoppers you
can haul back to the mound for your winter
stores, you have my blessing to sting with your
deadly sting and have for yours alone.
(I wish we had more of you and fewer of them).
It gives me some joy to think that the cleared path
has given you
the unobstructed morning view of the beautiful
desert plateau you call home with your several thousand kin.
I will pass on your words to my young son who patiently bears with my anger, sadness and anxiety about the state of the world. The bad news consumes me; I keep going back for more endings to the awful stories and of course am exposed to new atrocities and I know I am only seeing the tip of the iceberg . . . perspective is desperately needed so thank you.
Thank you, Caitlin, that's an excellent reminder that our world, our solar system, our galaxy, our universe, is still an amazing, beautiful, mysterious, baffling place. And we are some of the most amazing, beautiful, mysterious, and baffling things in it. There's a lot of suffering we don't need to buy into.
ikester8: Wait until you get get old. The suffering doesn't need buying into.
Masterpiece! Beautiful sentiment to start the weekend. Doesn’t hurt to find humor in everything too. Sportsball is the bread and circuses of our clown world: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-root-for-pro-sportsball
Thank you, thank you. An excellent antidote for those of us who feel the alienation that comes when we radically split from the fake world around us. I am so grateful to have a beautiful garden out back which is full of experiences of Being you remind us of. The question in the novel 1984 was “Do you want to be happy or free, politically and intellectually?” Your essay is a glorious reminder that choosing freedom need not be grim but joyous.
Looove Caitlin's essays, but how one can be free or happy if ...... listen to this -
https://www.brighteon.com/f33f06c3-9fcb-44c4-9e15-507e50a72d3f
ummmm, do I want to ? ;) :)
I woke up this morning feeling sad and disappointed by the state of the World and especially by what's going on in my home. A home I was once proud of as being related to the 1st Peoples. And btw We believe we come from there. We did not come over the Bering Straight via Africa. This is a made-up story by Invaders & Colonizers to justify taking over and commiting genocide. I had YouTube set on continuous play while I was washing my face. It morphed into a Frontline piece on Clarence & Ginny Thomas. Yikes! Then I checked my Twitter feed and I was once again trolled by Pro-Ukraine Nafo Nazis. Yikes again! Then I checked my email and found this article by Caitlin Johnson. No Yikes here! It certainly took me to a much better place. Thank you Caitlin. You saved my day from infinite despair.
Holy Crap! I’m not saying this is plagiarism, but reading this was like coming across something a secret, undetected mind reading scribe extracted from my brain a few years ago. Feels good to know y’all are out there... Tough to find those who get this in everyday life here in North Carolina. Thank You So Much Caitlin! You’re keeping me very nearly sane!
Tennessee here. Some guy in CJ's comment section yesterday was saying that most people around the world don't think like the West does and I used to despair too but Americans are the only ones in this abusive relationship and that does take a load off. That's a classic sign of being in a abusive relationship too, not knowing the reality outside of that relationship.
Very classic sign is they will make you feel like "the only one" and they won't let you be friends with other people. Sound familiar?
Right! What Caitlin wrote described “to a t” my perspective/experience of the modern shared “reality.” I see it all differently now. First thing today I reflected on the fact that I hardly know anyone who shares my point of view, here in Arkansas. I know they must be here but haven’t found them.
As they say: "better alone than badly accompanied".
This is my rule of life.
Thank you, Caitlin. What a beautiful reminder that this physical experience is such a gift. When you appreciate it, you treat it with more reverence. You live with more sacred purpose.
"looking for happiness in all the wrong places" , yup , that's for sure
I just love your ability to express so beautifully how we all think, Caitlin. Thank you.
That there is something rather than nothing is truly boggling, and which there currently is no real scientific explanation. I also believe there is more going on in reality than just the mechanical clock system that deterministic materialists insist we believe (many of the same people who tell us we must kill more Russians, and start a war with China.) I think the mystery of consciousness remains a clue to the meaning of it all - in the dark period we now are living through. But you're right, even in the midst of these darkest times - like living in a Francisco Goya painting - one can find light, even light connections with consciousness - for example, the death-bed visions of people who are about to die. So I think there is a strong basis for hope this isn't all some kind of existential joke and accident of existence. I live my life assuming it isn't. I could be wrong though.
No way to know for sure, but I tend to cozy up to the idea that consciousness is primary, and it creates the physical world, like a dreamer has a dream. Our brains don't produce that, just filter and organize it. But the physical world is tough because it has it's own rules, and there are no safeties.
I believe there is much to consciousness yet to be fully explained. For example, J.W. Dunne's book "An Experiment with Time" written in 1927 is entirely convincing regarding his own observations of precognitive dreams. You also have very seminal work by Podmore, Gurney and Myers in their "Phantasms of the Living" book. You have very famous mediums such as Leonora Piper or Eileen Garrett - both well documented for decades. So therefore, the assumed materialistic theory that consciousness is entirely localized to the brain and also can perceive nothing but the present - can be challenged credibly (in my opinion). Also, another interesting book is "At the Hour of Death" by Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson. Their extensive study of people who were nearing death found the following: "1,318 of them saw apparitions, 884 reported visions, and 753 reported mood elevations shortly before death." #p29
Then you have the very extensive work of Carl Jung, who spent his entire life writing about and studying the unconscious (primarily), of which he mapped out many elements of the unconscious and observed some universally common features - but the most remarkable was the autonomy of the unconscious and its teleological features. Most of this though, is dismissed by the dominant paradigm right now of materialism, which restricts consciousness as only a product of brain function - and the materialists insist once the brain ceases so does consciousness. They may be right - but there is considerable scientific evidence (in my opinion) that does appear to contradict such an assumption. And the question of qualia remains entirely unanswered by the materialists.
Whether consciousness creates reality is a huge jump (at least for me). I know that is a particularly popular belief among new age bellievers. I think though that consciousness may interact with reality in more ways than is assumed - there is also the Observer Problem in quantum physics which to this day, remains unresolved. Does consciousness play a role in the Measurement problem? Many will insist not - but for a very long time, at least in quantum physics, the assumption was yes, consciousness was the primary cause of wave collapse - note the assumption though was that consciousness did not "create" a collapse, but played a role in the collapse - a kind of catalyst for collapse.
The Mind Body Problem remains unresolved philosophically and scientifically. Of course, you always have a few who insist they have it all figured out - especially the reductive materialists these days. Few of them are very well read in my opinion - because if they did read any of the psychological research - starting with William James and/or Bruce Greyson or a whole host of scholary scientists - you immediately do realize more is going on with consciousness than just simple neurons firing in a brain.
However, the enigma of the universe still remains an enigma - in this short life of ours. I think people ought to be allowed to believe what they want since in my opinion, no one has a fucking clue what really makes it all tick - especially consciousness.
Thanks for your very informed and interesting response. I have read a few of these but my ideas mostly come from Vedenta and transpersonal psychology (so theoretical).
What makes most sense to me is if matter and energy are at essence forms of information, then they don't have substance without a system to receive or cognize that information (consciousness). The other side is that if information is just our way to describe the world, then it is a mystery what is actually being described because it actually contains no attributes that we can experience or perceive. So it comes around that either consciousness is or creates reality, or consciousness is a projection onto (and from) an unknowable nothing! These might even be different ways of describing the same thing.
To feel sane, you can of course also find solidarity with the few fellow humans out there who do also think like you. Appreciating the universe and nature are one thing, but you also for the best mental health need to find some peers and community. They are out there!
Thanks, it's good to remember that this false and phony paradigm we're living in is ephemeral, while we are surrounded by a natural beauty that transcends and outlasts Man's world, and we are capable of contemplating and sometimes tasting the eternal.
"It feels like what it probably felt like to be a lucid thinker back in much less enlightened times when civilization was dominated by religion and superstition."
The problem is that we live in an age of obscurantism and a real obscurantism, not the one invented by the propaganda of the Enlightenment, which, to be luminous, absolutely had to succeed the darkness. To associate religion and superstition is of an imbecility without name. Religion is the exact opposite of superstition. And as far as lucid thinkers are concerned, the "obscurantist" times saw the birth and expression of Saint Augustine, Thomas More, Blaise Pascal, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Montaigne or Descartes (to name but a few), who cannot be qualified as superstitious or obscure, even though they were all animated by a Catholic faith.
When I read Voltaire or Diderot, I have the impression of reading the first propagandists who use sophisms and lies to extinguish any critical spirit in his reader. And the patent liars who run the American empire and its lackey countries are indeed Voltaire's bastards, as John Saul brilliantly wrote.
Awwww. I love Voltaire and DIderot. They looked down the barrel of the gun and called it like they saw it. And liberated many an American college student in the early ‘60’s! I respect your point of view but for me, as a woman and a queer, those other dudes would just as soon see me burned as see me at all.
I also respect your point of view but it is necessary to get away from clichés. The witches of Salem is Protestantism in the form of Puritanism, so it has nothing to do with the Catholic authors I quoted.
Moreover, Voltaire and Diderot never looked at the barrel of a gun: they were part of a protected elite and better, while they accused their king, Louis XV, of being a tyrant, they bowed down to Frederick II of Prussia (Voltaire) and Catherine of Russia (Diderot) who were well known to be great liberal democrats. I am French. The school of the Republic formed me in the cult of Voltaire and the Enlightenment but fortunately, it also gave me the basis of a critical mind. So, the nonsense of the Enlightenment, I've come back from it. Voltaire's philosophy is desolatingly platitudinous: it reminds me of the man to whom the wise man shows the moon but who prefers to look at the finger: Voltaire also concentrates on the finger when he is shown the moon.
Good analogy but with respect, I too would look at the thumb. The moon is great but the thumb tells me where the picture from. And looking down the barrel of the gun meant, for me, that they didn’t flinch when certain thoughts lead them inexorably to certain conclusions that were extremely difficult to think in their time. They liberated me from the culture of church and “we’re number 1” that was so prevalent in the late ‘50’s, early ‘60’s in the Midwest of America. But I too have outgrown the liberal democratic way of thinking and am way into dumping patriarchy in all its forms and searching searching for new ways to think and be, ways that answer my question, which is what is that thumb doing there anyway? Who is this wiseman and why is he bothering me? If you get my drift. The pain of a dying empire and a changing ecosystem demand new answers and for me, even a flawed iconoclast is better than no iconoclast. Plus, I love you French. You guys really got it. 🙏
I thank you for the friendly and cordial dialogue we have. Responding to you would lead us into a lengthy discussion that would unduly occupy the space Caitlin Johnson is offering. We don't have exactly the same ideas, but at heart we are similar: we love our neighbors, the humans, and would like them to defend their freedom a little better.
Boy howdy! You are exactly right. And thank you to Caitlin, the only writer I know that could spark such a conversation in her column. 🙏❤️😁
Crack, it’s all the way in the air and.... it’s gone. Another home run of an article.
Another excellent post, Caitlin. I feel this one could be/should be the central plot and theme to a movie that has no political or propagandist agenda attached to it, only hope and salvation from the nightmare we are all currently living.
I too have penned a lot of musings on the evils of this world, but I share Caitlin's amazement at the wonders of this our celestial home. Sometimes, I express that appreciation by observing a simple creature, plant or rock. Here is one such piece.
The Ant and Her Man
You seem to think the paths I clear are tracts
designed for you as you move your mound
out of the grass and right into the middle of my good work.
Well, that suits me well enough.
I can walk around you while marveling at your homestead.
You know your place and you keep it well.
Not like your tiny little cousins, who like
to set up the daily migration into kitchen
and closet through invisible passageways.
No, you do your good work out in the open—
looking for whatever might be useful. And
any of those pesky grasshoppers you
can haul back to the mound for your winter
stores, you have my blessing to sting with your
deadly sting and have for yours alone.
(I wish we had more of you and fewer of them).
It gives me some joy to think that the cleared path
has given you
the unobstructed morning view of the beautiful
desert plateau you call home with your several thousand kin.
You outnumber us, outwork us,
and will no doubt out-survive us.
Harvest on, quiet laborer.
Harvest on.
I will pass on your words to my young son who patiently bears with my anger, sadness and anxiety about the state of the world. The bad news consumes me; I keep going back for more endings to the awful stories and of course am exposed to new atrocities and I know I am only seeing the tip of the iceberg . . . perspective is desperately needed so thank you.