So I attended my first-ever book launch last night for a book of poetry titled 'Two Hemispheres' by Nadine McInnis. In it, she features 10 photographs taken in the 1850's at a prominent asylum in England. The portraits have no names, no history, no diagnosis, just the images, and through the course of a year, she studied each one and thoughtfully devised a story for each, which she captures in a poem.
I was struck by one of her poems last night, ( at least in the way I interpreted it) that seemed to suggest that 'insanity' or mental instability as we know it, is thought of as the brain not being able to keep up to society's fast-paced demands, and thus it is a defective brain - but, in actual fact, the brain itself, an organ that 'exploded', evolving in a tremendously short period of time from a flight or fight response system to a complex logical processor capable of handling all the abstract challenges of today's world, sometimes becomes frustrated, as the flight or fight instincts have not disappeared, and are now firing at random as we drone on in an unstimulating world of 'bus walls' and computer screens.
It hit me that perhaps, the problem truly isn't that people need therapy, drugs, holistic approaches, support groups, etc to cope with this life, but instead, further reinforced the idea that our brains just cannot deal with all the meaningless, insignificant crap that surrounds us. It made me remember a book (which for the record, at the time, I didn't like, but suddenly have gained an appreciation for - the subject anyway). Farenheit 451 - by Ray Bradbury, written back in the fifties, when radio was threatening to diminish the joy of learning and thinking for oneself and television was on the horizon to destroy it. It's interesting that, in high school, we were taught that the premise of the book really was to bring to light how governments use extreme censorship and 'brainwashing' of society as a whole, to keep people docile and maleable. In reality, as I see it now, his book was a fortelling of the future, like none other I've seen, and it's scary... He was interviewed by the LA Times (http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/16524/) and explained that he's often angered when people try to tell him that his book was about government manipulation and censorship. Instead, he explains it was about, 'how television destroys interest in reading literature...' His fear, at the time, was that radio's constant barrage of information, noise and distraction was making it difficult for anyone to sit down and truly focus on a book, delving deeply into a subject. That, to me, is exactly why I have encountered whole books dedicated to 'Scanners' (people who cannot specialize in any one thing and instead learn to thrive on jumping from one thing to the next in life), as the age of the 'specialist' is dead and gone, which you can see evidence of in art, science, careers and even family life.
Anyway, to get back to my point, I was thinking of the people close to me (and though never formally 'treated', I'd include myself in this group), who have had to deal with some sort of mental/emotional issues that have resulted in their not having the ability to cope with today's world. These people (and they really are the majority in society now) rely on expensive therapy sessions, cocktails of pills, fad diets, and shows like Dr. Phil, to attempt to twist their exhausted minds to fit with the rest of our crazy, apathetic, zoned out society. That's when it hit me that we really are like the people in Farenheit 451. It's to the point now where you might feel 'stressed' and the first piece of advice you'll get is to run to the doctor to pop the latest pill... Kind of reminds me of the way they used to throw harmless people, who perhaps had hormonal imbalances, or who were suffering from depression into mental institutions where they only served to go mad as a result of being surrounded by people who were constantly telling them 'you're crazy'... Anyway, in the book, which takes place in a futuristic America, people are taught that books are bad, and firemen exist solely to locate books and burn them. The interesting parallel though, comes with how people live. They are taught that reading, thinking, appreciating nature and each other, is of little to no importance, and actually should be avoided. To do this, they pop pills to numb their minds, stare at wall-sized televisions all day, prefering their shows over the company of their friends and family, speak apathetically and superficially about an impending war, as though it was just something on TV, and not people's lives at stake - the TV basically becomes their lives, and the people on it their families and they stay 'plugged in' to the network of useless information and distracting 'factoids' via tiny 'sea shell ear buds' all day so as to keep their doped up state of false happiness going at all times. Now, if that doesn't sound like us, I don't know what does! Just in my own home, Luc and I own multiple mp3 players, radios, televisions (including a 50" flat screen), XBoxes and internet access from anywhere in the house (via laptop or our PC), and we're probably considered one of the lesser set-up families! The scary part is that I have found in the past few years, I've felt more comfortable and safe spending my evenings watching television or surfing the web, and will almost always choose to send an e-mail or post a message to facebook to avoid having to actually talk to anyone on the phone (let alone face to face!). Friends let me down, people hurt my feelings, and in my 21st century self-indulgent way, I draw further into myself, pop my earphones in so I don't have to make small talk at the bus shelter, avoid going out when I can just stay home and watch a movie, all the while it is a rare occurence where I might actually pick up one of 25 paint brushes that I own, and attempt to put something onto a canvas, though I've been catering to that side more and more lately.
Anyway, I'm sure that nowadays, people are recognizing more and more that his book really does draw some significant parallels to what our society has become. So the question is, do we stand up for ourselves and try to loosen the grip that the 'evil machine' has on us, or do we pop another pill and go catch an episode of 'Big Brother' and forget all about it? Makes me wonder, it really does. I'm not a 'tree hugging hippy', nor am I a die-hard green-peace environmentalist, and I too get caught up in the belief that those people are just attention hogging, mindless extremist hypocrites who really need to 'relax', but it does give me a sense of hope that perhaps we are in the midst of a slow 180, with all the increased interest in initiatives to 'slow time', 'recapture a love of nature', 'living simply', 'putting family first', finding religions that align more closely to an enhanced awareness of the Earth we live on and the complex relationships between everything one and everything on this planet... Maybe... I know one thing, I had a goal at one time to read one book a month. Not just fiction, but anything - if something captures my interest, I'd read it. I think I need to set a new goal for myself - I must go get a library card!! (But first, I have to find the library!).
Anyway, food for thought... I just think it's neat to see how we still do have those surprising and unlikely 'prophets' (and not in a religious sense) among us, it just takes us too long to realize it!
S
It hit me that perhaps, the problem truly isn't that people need therapy, drugs, holistic approaches, support groups, etc to cope with this life, but instead, further reinforced the idea that our brains just cannot deal with all the meaningless, insignificant crap that surrounds us. It made me remember a book (which for the record, at the time, I didn't like, but suddenly have gained an appreciation for - the subject anyway). Farenheit 451 - by Ray Bradbury, written back in the fifties, when radio was threatening to diminish the joy of learning and thinking for oneself and television was on the horizon to destroy it. It's interesting that, in high school, we were taught that the premise of the book really was to bring to light how governments use extreme censorship and 'brainwashing' of society as a whole, to keep people docile and maleable. In reality, as I see it now, his book was a fortelling of the future, like none other I've seen, and it's scary... He was interviewed by the LA Times (http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/16524/) and explained that he's often angered when people try to tell him that his book was about government manipulation and censorship. Instead, he explains it was about, 'how television destroys interest in reading literature...' His fear, at the time, was that radio's constant barrage of information, noise and distraction was making it difficult for anyone to sit down and truly focus on a book, delving deeply into a subject. That, to me, is exactly why I have encountered whole books dedicated to 'Scanners' (people who cannot specialize in any one thing and instead learn to thrive on jumping from one thing to the next in life), as the age of the 'specialist' is dead and gone, which you can see evidence of in art, science, careers and even family life.
Anyway, to get back to my point, I was thinking of the people close to me (and though never formally 'treated', I'd include myself in this group), who have had to deal with some sort of mental/emotional issues that have resulted in their not having the ability to cope with today's world. These people (and they really are the majority in society now) rely on expensive therapy sessions, cocktails of pills, fad diets, and shows like Dr. Phil, to attempt to twist their exhausted minds to fit with the rest of our crazy, apathetic, zoned out society. That's when it hit me that we really are like the people in Farenheit 451. It's to the point now where you might feel 'stressed' and the first piece of advice you'll get is to run to the doctor to pop the latest pill... Kind of reminds me of the way they used to throw harmless people, who perhaps had hormonal imbalances, or who were suffering from depression into mental institutions where they only served to go mad as a result of being surrounded by people who were constantly telling them 'you're crazy'... Anyway, in the book, which takes place in a futuristic America, people are taught that books are bad, and firemen exist solely to locate books and burn them. The interesting parallel though, comes with how people live. They are taught that reading, thinking, appreciating nature and each other, is of little to no importance, and actually should be avoided. To do this, they pop pills to numb their minds, stare at wall-sized televisions all day, prefering their shows over the company of their friends and family, speak apathetically and superficially about an impending war, as though it was just something on TV, and not people's lives at stake - the TV basically becomes their lives, and the people on it their families and they stay 'plugged in' to the network of useless information and distracting 'factoids' via tiny 'sea shell ear buds' all day so as to keep their doped up state of false happiness going at all times. Now, if that doesn't sound like us, I don't know what does! Just in my own home, Luc and I own multiple mp3 players, radios, televisions (including a 50" flat screen), XBoxes and internet access from anywhere in the house (via laptop or our PC), and we're probably considered one of the lesser set-up families! The scary part is that I have found in the past few years, I've felt more comfortable and safe spending my evenings watching television or surfing the web, and will almost always choose to send an e-mail or post a message to facebook to avoid having to actually talk to anyone on the phone (let alone face to face!). Friends let me down, people hurt my feelings, and in my 21st century self-indulgent way, I draw further into myself, pop my earphones in so I don't have to make small talk at the bus shelter, avoid going out when I can just stay home and watch a movie, all the while it is a rare occurence where I might actually pick up one of 25 paint brushes that I own, and attempt to put something onto a canvas, though I've been catering to that side more and more lately.
Anyway, I'm sure that nowadays, people are recognizing more and more that his book really does draw some significant parallels to what our society has become. So the question is, do we stand up for ourselves and try to loosen the grip that the 'evil machine' has on us, or do we pop another pill and go catch an episode of 'Big Brother' and forget all about it? Makes me wonder, it really does. I'm not a 'tree hugging hippy', nor am I a die-hard green-peace environmentalist, and I too get caught up in the belief that those people are just attention hogging, mindless extremist hypocrites who really need to 'relax', but it does give me a sense of hope that perhaps we are in the midst of a slow 180, with all the increased interest in initiatives to 'slow time', 'recapture a love of nature', 'living simply', 'putting family first', finding religions that align more closely to an enhanced awareness of the Earth we live on and the complex relationships between everything one and everything on this planet... Maybe... I know one thing, I had a goal at one time to read one book a month. Not just fiction, but anything - if something captures my interest, I'd read it. I think I need to set a new goal for myself - I must go get a library card!! (But first, I have to find the library!).
Anyway, food for thought... I just think it's neat to see how we still do have those surprising and unlikely 'prophets' (and not in a religious sense) among us, it just takes us too long to realize it!
S
2 comments:
Wow Shelley this is really insightful. I find I am in the midst of this transition from technology though it partially has to do with the limited access but I rarely watch TV and don't have the internet at home. I read alot but I often feel like I need to get out and appreciate the world around me. Thanks for this entry!
Glad you liked it!! :) I too am trying to get away from relying too heavily on technology - I am rarely on the Internet at home anymore (thanks to being way too busy), but I find it a little harder to stay away from the TV now that we live in suburbia and tend to spend our evenings sitting in the recroom together... ;)
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