[Written in 2004.]
A traumatized child is safe to broken parents because he does not threaten their dishonest authority. Thus he earns his crumb of love. A traumatized student is safe to broken teachers because he does not question their unearned authority. Thus he earns his right to gain a false education.
A traumatized worker is safe to broken bosses because he follows their numbing orders. Thus he keeps his dead job and perpetuates a dead system.
A traumatized soldier is safe to a bloodthirsty military because he will mindlessly kill anyone when ordered. Thus he perpetuates grand horrors and retaliation in the world, which proves to the world hell-bent on violent revenge that his criminal presence is required.
A traumatized spouse is safe to broken partners because he never really looks them in the eye and utters those dangerous and honest truths that destroy false relationships. Thus he stays married, never has to be alone with himself, and earns society’s approval.
But traumatized parents are not safe for the child. They squelch his passion, force him into a pigeon-hole of existence, refuse to heed his cries for love, comfort, and support, and abandon his mission on this earth – to grow, to develop himself, and to tell the truth.
And traumatized teachers are not safe for the student. They kill his desire to know, blind his eyes to truth, and put an electrified fence around the perimeter of his expanding curiosity.
And traumatized bosses are not safe to the worker. They whip him into a mindless obedience that stunts his potential to create true works of genius.
And a traumatized, bloodthirsty military is not safe to the soldier. It places him in positions where he commits evil actions which his soul will regret for the rest of his life, and which will leave him miserable, split-off from the best of himself, and hopeless about any deep peace either in the world or within.
And traumatized partners are not safe to the spouse who has a remaining spark of deep hope. They crush his desire to know, to love, to heal, and to relate.
Truth undoes trauma.
And trauma is killing our species.
Let’s just suppose that tomorrow, a special aura comes down to the world and everyone gets healed.
Then what?
Does anyone really want to live in Utopia? Think about it.
What place does a person have in perfection? What work is there left to do?
In the Torah, the Sages say that destruction of the evil inclination would lead to the destruction of the world. “Evil” (in apostrophes, because “evil” is an illusion created by God) is there in order to enable the free choice of good.
Our lives are given purpose by fighting for the good to prevail.
Trauma therefore, however painful, serves an important purpose: It enables us to be human, to have free choice.
For that is what being human means.
1) Then it will be cool and people will use their potential to the extent they don’t today.
2) Yes, I do and I’m sure it’s the same for many people other. I’m not happy with today’s society for various reasons, it drives me into deep depression. Maybe the world still won’t be perfect, but that would improve it significally.
3) The ”work” of finally living and all the things people are capable of. Such society would have to be maintained just like any other society. And it’s not like people would become absolutely perfect.
4) I don’t believe it and it’s not what my worldview’s like. I think you may be speaking from a place of trauma when a person is struggling with something that is difficult to resolve and they can’t even resolve *basic* existential questions for themselves. I know what it feels like and I don’t want to stay this way forever (especially because I’m this way for most of my life and I only found out about it a couple of years ago). I just see some people that were lucky to be so much more mentally healthier and personally developed than me and they live their lives without this gigantic burden that prevents them from living and they just do things they love and they *live* and they don’t feel nearly as much stress as me etc. I think that’s our most ”natural” way of being an I think everyone deserves that. Of course, those people may also have some problems and traumas but they’re not as severe as mine and their traumas are probably not early ones.
5) It depends on what you mean by ”good” because it’s a very vague word.
6) All my life it didn’t enable me to truly live it, I’ve been merely existing. It prevents me from being the human I could be. I stuck in a loop instead, there’s no groth. I’m pretty sure we humans can do better.
7) If I imagine people without traumas or without severe traumas then I assume they also go through the process of individuation therefore they’re also capable of free choice and reflection.
2004? Daniel’s been a genius speaking truth for a long time.
They traumatise death and stigmatise euthanasia, assisted suicide and dying with dignity. They glorify and glamourise martyrdom and murder for tribal lies.
The logical argument could be made for exiting their cauldron of trauma on the basis of that alone; their need to stigmatise, prohibit and prevent humane and pain-free death. When someone is willing to harm you to prevent from leaving, it’s probably time to go.
cool, Jonny!
It’s cool if life has no intrinsic value, if it only is worth living if the life is pain-free and pleasant, or, at least, headed that way.
People write as if the ideas of assisted suicide etc. are something new and progressive when in fact they have been around since the dawn of civilization.
Perhaps you should read some of the accounts of people who woke up from years- or months-long comas, and how they describe their enduring desire to keep living even when the outside world called them “vegetable.”
Or just ask yourself this question: If you had a choice, to come into the world as a child born to “non-healed” parents who inflicted a measure of abuse on you, or not being given life at all, what would you choose?
Trauma is not killing our species. It is the force that keeps humanity moving with hope toward a better future (with measures of success as well as measures of failure).
In any case, you can’t on the one hand claim that we’re overpopulating the planet, and then argue that we’re killing the human species.
We’re material beings. Nothing can be pain-free in this world so don’t worry. Life has more value when you don’t have such obstacles like childhood trauma.
So have been trauma.
Well I personally would choose no life at all then. Nobody asked me about whether or not I wanted to be born.
But you say you don’t want this future to happen. Also I don’t see it moving anywhere now, not a better future especially.
All very true. I believe trauma always denotes the rejection of a part of the self that seeks self-expression. The self wants to expand, express. Love wants to expand, express. And all the qualities of love – fear, anger, grief, envy – want to expand, express. A healthy system self-expresses. When self-expression is blocked, life energy is not allowed to flow. Broken parents teach the child to block the very same things that are blocked in the parent. By way of verbal and nonverbal judgments. The child is taught to fear like the parent fears. The child then becomes safe, because it no longer presents flow to a block in the parent. Any person will always shy away from flow when it itself is blocked in that area. Flow is uncomfortable. Flow seeks to reach out and touch the trauma. We run away from flow. It’s not safe. I’ve been running away from flow as long as I can remember.