Releasing the false narrative

It Takes So Much Energy to Deal with People

And, I’m a person, so I guess that includes me

Photo by Drew Farwell on Unsplash

When I’m around people, simply conversing, I end up feeling exhausted.

I can imagine how the salmon feels swimming upstream. It can’t be enjoyable to take that depleting route against rushing water, but the salmon knows that the feat must be accomplished for the salmon of the future.

At least the salmon isn’t surrounded by other salmon telling him that he is an idiot for thinking that this inner drive that is the purpose of his life, is just a stupid waste of time.

After all, the reward for the adult salmon who swim upstream is a mating partner. So, while the salmon may be in competition for the “prize”, they are all on the same page about how to get there — gotta do the hard work of swimming upstream.

My life is one of finding balance. A balance between listening to folks spout “talking points” from the mainstream media (points that they never bother to research on their own; they just absorb the words and made them their own), and me trying to fit in a little historical context to the conversation, while at the same time acknowledging that learning is an evolving process and it takes time to discern the truth.

A truth that many would rather not examine, for it is discomforting and upsets long-held world views. Our culture is one of denial.

Our toxic culture is the subject of Dr. Gabor Maté’s latest book, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture.

Dr. Maté compares “Western” culture to the “culture”, i.e. the “broth”, that is used in a Petri dish in the laboratory. If that broth (or culture) is contaminated (toxic), the organisms placed in it will suffer and die.

He explains the premise of his book in this way, in that we are now swimming in a toxic culture, yet we are mostly unaware of how all our problems stem from this toxic culture that has become normalized, when it is anything but normal.

It’s not that humankind has suddenly become depraved; it is rather that we are struggling to survive in a “broth” of growing inequality.