It is no doubt often the case that intellectuals–thought workers, to use my preferred term at least for what I imagine myself doing–often project their own internal realities on the world. Those who seek to steal see everyone as a thief. Those unable to find meaning in their own lives say that “life is meaningless”.
In my own case, I am integrating the loss of a mother, of the possibility of a mother; the fact that my own mother did what was in her power to destroy me psychologically, from a very early age. These are powerful emotions. They invoke terror. But I watch, and I feel, and I cannot imagine a worse terror than that of feeling helpless, of giving up, of failing to use this life to grow as much as I possibly can. And so I go on, and it is fruitful.
But to continue the thread, I look out at the world, and I feel in some respects I am working to heal not only my own wounds–my own lacks–but those of the world generally. What has happened to the sense of place in our world, to the feeling of being nested, home, comfortable, warm?
We live in hives of activity, do we not? A purportedly rational, or at least rationalizable, world, one filled with archetypal male energy which can solve any physical problem, which is impatient with confusion, with hesitancy, with fog, with damp, with dark, with caves, with water, with soft voices in the distance we cannot decipher. Do we not, though, seek mothers? Through all this incessant activity, do we not want somewhere to rest? And how do we rest? Through sopophorics. Through distraction: through TV, mePods, Twitter (Flutter?), through movement, movement, movement, virtual or actual.
In some sick way, I sense that aspiring totalitarians seek, through the attainment of the ability to snuff out alternative narratives, alternative views, alternative behaviors, the “warmth” of place. But of course they are using archetypal male energy, without empathy, without warmth. Theirs is the energy of the psychotic mother.
And this point warrants making: the feminine has ALWAYS been far more powerful than men have admitted. Even if men think they have bested their wives, they were once utterly helpless in the face of their mothers.
And this energy, in its best use, is highly creative, highly nurturing. It is food for the soul. Where men are efficient at generating things and actions, women are efficient at generating affective states. And it is the latter that we really want. We don’t want things: we want the feelings those things give us. Women, at their best, help achieve the end without the middle.
Modern feminism is a process of making women into men. It is a process of seeking quantitative power, not qualitative power. It is a denuding of our culture of the energies that make life bearable, that make children happy, that bring joy to life.
Few–sensations, I will call them. I am likely sharing too much, but fuck it. My time will come, too, and I may as well get used to the idea of complete transparency. Our world, in any event, needs more true honesty.