Beauty in the breakdown - Message in the madness

29 June 2010

Because of the way our senses work we have developed a world-view that is overly mechanical. We take comfort in thinking that everything makes sense in a materialistic push and shove kind of a way. With that kind of thinking we see the body as a mechanical machine. We think things wear out over time and when something goes wrong, we imagine and certainly hope that we can just remove the broken bit and replace it with some new parts.

My father is a surgeon and he represents the pinnacle of that kind of thinking and I have enormous respect for his skills and his science because in many ways it is possible to cut things out of the body and replace the broken parts with new bits of things. We are now growing human ears on the backs of mice and can replace your hips with sculptured bits of metal that wouldn’t look out of place under the skin of the first Arnold Schwarzenegger terminator. Those incredible titanium hip replacement joints are made by Johnson and Johnson and on the far tip of the replacement hip, which is cemented deep into the thigh bone there is a very subtle but still very clear Johnson and Johnson logo. Does that not seem a little unnecessary to you?

I believe we have gotten addicted to this idea that when something goes wrong we have very clever scientists and definitely brands that will save the day, mend our hip and solve all of our problems.

It is like science wants to reach out in ever expanding ways to be able to delve into our bodies in ever increasingly intrusive ways, adding metal here, logos there and gluing us back together again. Now, don’t get me wrong if the ball in my socket needs replacing I will be the first one in the queue hobbling along but it is really important to remember that this kind of science begins to affect how we view ourselves and how we view life. It begins to determine how we think about our responsibility or are relationship to ourselves, each other and the planet. We are essentially organic interdependent parts of a very complex biosphere.

Everything has an impact on everything else and this overly mechanical idea of the world begins to creep into areas where it doesn’t really apply. The problem is we want it to apply, we want the world to be like that, we want to believe that the unknown is just the known that we haven’t yet worked out. We don’t want to think that the unknown is actually expanding faster than our known. In fact the more things we know the less we understand in proportion because each answer leads to more questions being asked that are not being answered. I don’t blame scientists for striving to know more, I think that is great, why not, this world is fascinating and these discoveries are exciting and important but it is more important to keep this all in balance. To notice in ourselves the hope we have that there is a magic bullet that will always be out there to save us. The essence of the materialistic thinking is the idea that we are safe because there is something ‘out there’ that can save us. It starts with medicine but soon turns into other kinds of matter. We will be ok when we have that second home or that third pension scheme - that collection of white vintage Ferraris. The material mechanical idea sees external things as the key to life. If we have enough money then nothing will ever be able to touch us. There is no problem too big, no death that is not avoidable. At worst we can use our mountain of money to have ourselves frozen until those clever people work out how to keep me alive for longer. Now I am not opposed to being wealthy or living forever. I simply want to explore how this ‘my salvation is external” thinking affects how we see ourselves.

Where this turns up most dangerously is in the field of mental health. This mechanical material thinking sees civilisation as the great good. That is where we produce more matter, more money, more safety, make, make, grow, grow etc. However much of our ‘civilised’ world is somehow not that ‘civilised’. We are organic beings living in an inorganic world and much of our working process is imbalanced, unpleasant and unsatisfying. When people get anxious and depressed I tend to think they are having a perfectly natural reaction to what is a fairly unnatural world. Traditional mechanical thinking sees this differently, they see society as the great good and they see the depressed person as the “weakling” who can’t hack it. They don’t see them as someone naturally questioning how we are all spending our time. Heck, don’t ask those big questions, don’t bring what we do into question for god’s sake, we don’t have time to think those thoughts, we don’t have to time to question how we are spending the majority of our lives, keep your head down, shelve your discomfort, ignore your upset, drink if you have to, drink a lot if it helps. So some poor fellow gets depressed and the answer, the solution, the great golden hope is not to think of there being a problem at all, not with the person, not with society, their ‘weakness’ is not societies fault and actually according to modern medicine nor is it the individuals fault. Thank goodness for science, because science has discovered that his brain is just like any other machine and like his photocopier at his grey and depressing workplace his brain is a little low on toner. Don’t worry, don’t ask yourself any important questions just get a top up, then your lines will be nice and clear again, you will be able to continue reproducing your day and your life over and over again without any problems. “You see,” says the doctor, “the reason you are depressed is an imbalance of chemicals in your brain, you are running a little low on serotonin, fortunately our pals at the pharmaceutical company who are really lovely guys – by the way they paid for my last golfing weekend and have told me all about your problem, after all they have done the research and they have created this amazing solution, so don’t worry take these magic pills and everything will be fine”. You get back out there on the wonderful treadmill of life, all glued back together asking no questions making perfect copies of your days again.” Whilst this imaginary conversation isn’t an accurate reflection of the sincere desire that almost every doctor has to do good, it is a reflection of the underlying attitudes that have led us to do the very worst thing in medicine.

Sometimes when the solution works the message in the madness or the message in the illness gets lost. People are not depressed because there is an imbalance of chemicals in their brain. But rather BECAUSE they are depressed there is an imbalance of chemicals in their brain. That may seem like only a small difference but it is actually a completely different way of looking at happiness and society. I am not denying that some people who are very distressed shouldn’t be given drugs to help them cope but for the majority of people who are on anti-depressants what they are doing is avoiding listening to a part of them that really wants to be heard. A part that wants them to know that maybe they should change jobs, or maybe they should start believing in themselves more or maybe there are some things from their past that are making them act out painful patterns.

All too often when a person has the courage to ask themselves these questions the answers are most often a great relief. Yes, exploring your own dark side can be painful because who we think we are and what we think we want and how we choose to live our lives can change, but if that happens that is because that change needed to happen and without that change our old life would only have been bearable if we are able to ignore our misery by either self medicating, keeping busy, possibly over-eating or never stopping or any other number of addictions that so many people have without even realising. All those addictions are just further extensions of the idea that something external will fill us up, plug the hole, fix the problem. Very often, upon reflection, what we discover is that we are actually complete, there is nothing that we need to change on the inside. No amount of branded pills, booze and sugar sweetened fat will make any difference anyway. What we need to do is to listen to the message in our madness. When we can do that we may find that what society calls madness is really an ancient part of our being calling us back into balance. For many a madman has known for certain, what society is afraid to consider.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. Henry David Thoreau