Back from a trip to Montana to visit family. Lots of cloud and storm watching. There's fires everywhere, and frequent storms, some of them quite violent. Besides their disturbing context, they're quite beautiful and exciting to watch and hear if you are in a safe place.
I then fell ill right upon returning and I still feel pretty shitty. From then to now my mind has been pretty thoroughly gone. There because of copious drinking and here because of some sort of illness.
I've realized that I've developed quite an aversion to social contact and overstimulation in a short period of time, being out in the mountains by myself and then overlooking a rural valley town in Montana. This of course could have been avoided if I had stayed away from media and just meditated and observed the surrounding environment the entire time, but I can't seem to pry myself away from this perpetual slow-motion train wreck that is contemporary world affairs. Rural surroundings can actually intensify stress in this regard: the dearth of artificial stimuli and human presence tends to emphasize the sights and sounds that do exist, especially if you are in a heightened state of alert. Some rural people are slow and laid back, but then others (oftentimes the ones that have settled from the city, or are at least still plugged into the national media) are high-strung and paranoid, most likely for this reason among others. Besides, unless you farm or live in a tightly-knit community or commune, you are still part of the tightening economic fabric with its associated inhumanity and stress.
It shouldn't take long to deprogram. I need to get exercising again and meditating regularly. Perhaps I need to eat better too, and drink less. We'll see how that goes.
I've been reading Hannah Arendt's The Origin of Totalitarianism. Started it some time ago but left off on it for a while. Picked it up again and boy is it a remarkable work. She's quite a thinker. The most striking thing about the book so far is its account of society in the run-up to the two world wars, especially the emergence of antisemitism and its political instrumentalization by reactionary parties to gain power. Antisemitism grew as an irrational generalization out of phenomena that were actually observable and frustrations that were justifiable: there were many Jewish businessmen and bankers, and many of them were insulated from the general population due to the nature of the formation of the nation state and the Jewish people as a stateless race, and so due to historical and social reasons suffered antagonism in greater society. The higher classes of course delighted in adopting the language of antisemitism to guide the angry mob that they had created through greed, exclusion, and cruelty. The monsters that would soon rise had a desperate and confused populace to propel them to power, almost like the heat engine phenomena of a hurricane, a positive feedback loop that derives its fuel from the latent energy in the environment. Its eerily similar to today's state of affairs in which an embattled populace that is growing increasingly strained latches onto confused explanations and declares ethnic scapegoats such as immigrants and arabs, phenomena which powerful reactionary political and economic elites are all too eager to take advantage of so that they can manipulate the masses to further achieve their ends.
Why is it that portions of the populations of rich, powerful empires become so bloodthirsty and depraved? Wealth polarization is part of the explanation, as well as internal patterns in which an empire treats more and more of its population as it has treated external populations. And then, to modify a Nietzschean aphorism, those who fight monsters that they create run the risk of becoming monsters themselves.
On a lighter note, there is talk that a new religious sensibility is emerging. Well, this has been talked about for quite some time, but it seems as though something truly substantial is beginning to take shape around the world. Hopefully it can be done right this time. As if anything can be done right on such a large scale anyways. More on that later.
I've been trying to scold myself into resuming progress on a fairly large philosophical work that's on the backburner. I tend to only produce when I am wired and manic and riding a wave of pleasure and excitement, so to speak, but one has to eventually settle down and begin to edit and systematize the deluge if one wants to be heard. It has been hard to get back to; cycles of deep depression and then apathy and aimlessness and occasional minor hedonism are not exactly conducive to such aims. It is a process, as I keep trying to tell myself. Keeping at it.
