Escape

Escape

by Marco M. Pardi

“We have art in order not to die of reality.” Friedrich Nietzsche

“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.” Ernest Hemingway

“Religion is believing in other people’s experience… Spirituality is experiencing your own.” Anon.

All comments are welcome and will receive the fish eye, I mean, a reply. All previous posts are open for comment; no one will track you, hunt you down, fiddle with your meds, or otherwise bother you. And, you are welcome to forward disagreeable materials you find to anyone you choose.

No, this is not a narrative of a daring-do escape; it is an exploration of how we – and that includes you – cope. This is particularly relevant for residents of the Untied States, but it can reasonably be argued that when the Untied States catches a cold the rest of the world catches………something. But, hey, I said reasonably argued. When’s the last time you heard that phrase?

As a young boy I looked at quiet people and wondered what was going on in their minds. I didn’t want to “read” their minds, that was too factual. And probably not interesting. No, I wondered if they were in the moment, or somewhere else. Were they hearing music, replaying old arguments, regretting something past, wishing they were somewhere else or in some other time? I had no understanding of psychology, rather I was developing a sense of philosophy, particularly of mysticism. How people answer the question, WTF am I doing here, and if they ask it at all.

In primary school the nuns, especially Nun the Wiser, chastised us for “daydreaming” in class. I found this troubling inasmuch as these women had dedicated their lives to someone they had never met, or had even seen in a photograph. And, they spoke constantly of mortal life as short, Earth as only a place of hard learning and trial, and a non-corporeal life to come in a “far better place.” That better place stuff must have taken hold as so many people carelessly say that to surviving families at funerals; “He’s in a far better place now.” A few years ago I knew a suddenly widowed woman who required in-patient care after someone said that to her at her husband’s funeral; as if being away from his wife and his wonderful, loving, young daughters put him in a “better place”. That has got to be one of the most horrible things one can say at a funeral.

Still, many of us – probably most – have our Anywhere but here moments. And that poses the question: Where do people go when they are mentally not here? And, when they go, do they not take themselves with them? Through years of knowing people with various problems, including substance abuse, I learned that many of these people thought moving somewhere else would solve the problem. But then someone spoke up and asserted that you take yourself with you, and until you deal with yourself you will not escape the problem. Seems obvious.

It also seems we are surrounded by innumerable suggestions, advertisements, and, frankly, come-ons for us to “pay your money and take your choice”. Sometimes when I think of the myriad escapes on offer day and night I think back to the graduate course in Criminology I took. During the course I took the opportunity to interview a variety of prisoners, from those sentenced to a few days in jail to those who spent their lives in prison. The “lifers” told me the most dreaded punishment was solitary confinement. No input of any kind, not even sounds from the rest of the prison. Cold sandwiches pushed through a slot in the solid door without so much as a glimpse of a hand. All alone. Or were they. No, in fact they were locked in with themselves.

The lifers laughed as they told me of the young punks who wanted to experience solitary, see how it was, and maybe set some new record for endurance. Invariably they broke down crying and screaming to be let back into the general population, all much sooner than they thought. I guess being with yourself is, for some people, much scarier than I thought. At least for some people.

Writing this reminded me of a funny occurrence at Harvard. The main library had an air circulation system which randomly clattered and clunked, not loudly, just enough to be heard. When the new central air system came on line it was totally silent. Not a sound. Ever. Within days students complained that they could not concentrate on their studies. It seemed their minds were listening and waiting for those familiar sounds.

It was the realization of the terror of being with one’s self which turned me against capital punishment – in most cases. I say most cases because I want to reserve the right – within the law – to personally mete out such punishment where and how I see fit. But I learned many decades ago that when you kill someone you can’t hurt them anymore. As Socrates said in answer to why he chose suicide over exile, (I paraphrase) If there is nothing after death then there won’t be a me to experience it. But if there is a life after death I will go on living as before. So, under option One you can empty your magazine in someone’s face and it makes no difference, except to how they look. Under option Two, maybe they went to a “better place”. Solitary confinement seems much more promising if your intent is to punish.

Some years ago I wrote a piece on Korsakov’s Psychosis, commonly known as Korsakov’s Syndrome or “wet brain”. You can find it in the archives if interested. When I hear apprentice intellectuals intone that we should “live in the now” I think back to those in-patients I had seen with Korsakov’s and how they lived in the now. The eternal now. Through alcoholism or TBI – Traumatic Brain Injury they were completely unable to form and experience memories, short or long term. Each moment was a moment of awakening from a dreamless sleep. Oh, they were not plagued by troublesome memories, but nor did they have any idea of who they were. Information given to them now was gone a moment later. Unlike prisoners in sound proofed solitary, they could not guess the passage of time by the appearance of food trays in their door slots. Thinking of this made me wary of the joyous pronouncements of “eternity”. Since by definition eternity is timeless – in every dimension and direction – is this “better place” a state of Korsakov’s Psychosis? How could someone have a sense of eternity if there is no way to measure time? No way to say, Geez, this forever thing is great! And, come on, affective states become normal. Therefore “great” loses it potency. It’s SSDD, same shit different day, without the ability to measure day.

Many traditions around the world, including early Christianity, believe in reincarnation. I’m okay with it for other people, but not for me. No way I’m ever doing this gig again. But wait, might this be an escape from the mindless tedium of eternity?

Okay, if you have read this far I’m guessing you have some sense of time having passed. Speaking of which, how did we come up with this concept of time wasted? Are we on the clock? Big Ben in the Sky? Thanks for spending part of your life with me. I’ll be going now.