a pandemic.
school shootings.
the climate crisis.
looming recession.
women's rights.
the collapse of democracies and the existing world order—
the response that many have to all of this
is to crawl inside a safer space, to find refuge from the chaos.
the world is teeming with threats
to our physical, psychological, and emotional well-being,
and in order to feel safe and secure,
we’ve had to get a bit more resourceful than usual.
enter dissociation.
the response at the root of so much trauma.
whenever human history darkens,
this impulse—to obscure meaning,
to flatten affect, to don expressive masks—emerges.
chaos erupts.
entropy spreads.
mistrust multiplies.
there’s some occult math at work:
overturn enough treasured assumptions
at a proper velocity, and we will begin
to doubt even our most basic impulses.
if the current situation is a verdict
on humanity’s ability to interpret reality,
maybe our interpretation was the problem all along.
maybe there is virtue in remaining inscrutable.