"The persons we think we are have been manufactured out of some shotgun wedding of history and imagination."
-Robert Anton Wilson
"We live in an age when despair is fashionable, even chic; when human self-contempt has reached heights not known since the Dark Ages; and when it is considered naïve to believe that anything good could ever be accomplished...Consider for a moment the implications of what sociologists call the self-fulfilling prophecy."
-Robert Anton Wilson
It might actually not be your fault that you have developed anger or despair- or some combination of both- toward the "world," "society," or toward some more specific class or group of people. The way you feel is still your choice, however. Otherwise THEY have already won. It's not so black and white as many of you reading this last sentence will, no doubt, assume I am trying to make it out to be. Note that I didn't say that feeling despair or anger means THEY have won. What is explicit and implicit here is that when you have lost the choice in how you feel, then THEY have won. No matter how you feel in response to certain parts of the planet SNAFU we are living in, you need never abdicate your sovereignty to any emotion. Clouding up your life with the delusion that you have no choice but to feel the way you do, and then to act upon (or react to) that, accomplishes nothing more than passing the buck to others around you. You make a contribution to the very things you claim to hate about this world.
The way out is not so simple or clear cut and is unique for every individual. It may be that the best approach is to see how much of a fiction your own identity is and to realize you have as much creative input into the course of your own life as any environmental influence. (At least for those of you literate and comfortable enough in life to read.) You could go to the various self-help seminars which will teach you similar things, if you want to buy the bottled air they sell. (Snake oil seems to have gone out of fashion these days, but crystals and positive-thinking are still all the rage. So if you feel you need to pay some huckster for such things in exchange for peace or pieces of mind, so be it.) You could even buy the myriad books, CDs and DVDs from all of the pseudo-therapists that pop up on TV talk shows from time to time. But why? They'll all tell you exactly the same thing I have just written above, but they will take hours or days to get around to it and by that point you have bought all of their books, etc. All you really need is yourself and a mirror, if you want to find yourself. All you need is yourself and some awareness, if you want to regain your ability to choose the way you feel. You can toss out all of the pithy sayings and religious scriptures and self-affirmations.
In some forms of therapy, the simple practice of choosing how to feel and what to do in response to the environment was considered delusion management. You can only escape from the tricks your own mind has been playing by being aware of them. And at that point, you can see through the almost infinite regress of con-jobs, dogmas, assumptions, and myths that most people in today's world will defend as the whole truth and nothing but.
You can look at much of humanity's spiritual/religious/political/ideological project as nothing more than a massive willfully induced pack of delusions. But can you be so certain that you have none of these (or similar things) inside your own mind?
Having anger or despair seems only natural in light of the dehumanization that humanity is so intent on practicing whether on collective or individual scales. But does that anger and despair only lead to more dehumanization? It might if you aren't aware of what you are doing. Falling prey to the delusion that the world is a nasty violent place where only the powerful survive and the weak or stupid get ground up or pushed around says nothing about the ways in which the world actually works. It only says something about what you have seen and felt. And despair, which seems to be the major psychological complaint among residents of rich post-industrialized nations, seems to be merely a hypertrophied sense of failed entitlement to excuse the histrionics of those who want attention when they cry. (Let's face it. Unless you have lost your entire family to a storm or some war, or you have been diagnosed with an incurable form of painful disease, or some other such event like chronic poverty or malnutrition, you really have no reason to start despairing of anything. Most of you reading this have much going for you in terms of opportunities, education, and skills.) Anger is another thing entirely.
There are many reasons to get angry as we all well know; Not only the personal insults and affronts that some of us will undergo at various times, but also the major socio-economic and cultural dysfunctions of a rapidly metastasizing global consumer society. But always make sure that your anger is your choice, and not merely some knee-jerk reaction induced by your authorities to get you to support more of the things that will inevitably bring you to feeling more anxiety and anger. THEY love it when you lose control. It only justifies THEIR reason for being here in the first place. It makes you lose sight of who you could be and it collapses you into a reflection of the cardboard thin mass produced personality THEY want you to be. You are then reduced to finding meaning by buying all of THEIR neat and shiny products and regimens and lifestyles and religious experiences and dreams...all carefully crafted to keep you distracted from learning how to take your sovereignty back. "See?" THEY will say, "Look at these angry, sad, and fearful people. They need skilled leadership. They need US to show them the way. They need OUR protection. They need to participate in OUR economic system and buy OUR products. And for the really hard cases, we'll give them religion." That was the first lie, the mother of all lies, used to convert people to the idea of organized concentration camps that were the foundations of the first grand civilizations. And as the Principia Discordia, among other writings, has said "Mankind has been on a very bad trip" since then.
Seek therapy if you must, but realize that your aims might not be the same as anyone else who seeks therapy, at least on a conscious level. Your aim may be to regain your sovereignty over your own life...with a further stipulation that you want to help others do so as well, in some revolution project you have going on. Just remember that your own delusions are yours to do what you will with them. Your own anger and despair (which gave you the motivations to create your delusions, or buy into the mass produced delusions) can be changed as you become aware of them and how to use them as the mere emotional tools they really are. Sometimes you may need to treat yourself like a chaperone treats a small group of LSD-tripping people...laugh at your own illusions and hallucinations and realize the fun that could be had if you learned to manage them.
If you don't become skilled at managing your own delusions and at making choices in regard to your feelings, what will happen? The world and your life will continue going on the course it has been going on. Religious fundamentalists and political extremists will take even more control over the world than they have now. You will be forced to watch old re-runs of the 700 Club while reading from the KJV of the Bible, twenty three times a day until you become only too happy to give your last bit of hard earned pocket lint over to some crazed and overly made-up spiritual huckster with a zombie-like gleam in his eye who claims to speak to Jesus. All of your rum will be stolen by butter-knife wielding 8 year-old kids dressed up as clown-killing pirates. You will be forced to endure hours and hours of preaching about how much God hates gays, lesbians, and pagans. You will be forced to teach your children that Satan really does exist and he is your neighbor hiding inside the Santa Claus outfit who rings your door every Christmas eve. You will be liable to be imprisoned for any unauthorized orgasms. You may even be forced to go off and fight to the death against religious fanatics of a different breed over in far away countries with names you never thought possible to pronounce. Do you want this sort of life, where all of your reactions and feelings are simply the buttons that your authorities have installed inside of you to pull your strings any time THEY want you to do something for THEM? I can hear the bells ringing already. Get prepared. Is that what you want?
Never mind. We know what you want.
-Irreverend Hugh, KSC
(Driving under the influence of nicotine withdrawal.)
August 15th, 2005