Caged In - Part 2

Last week’s blog considered whether drug addiction (as well as other addictions) was, in part, triggered by urbanisation. This week the possibility that our brains are changed (for the worse) and that violence is intensified under caged conditions.

When animals are kept in cages they will suffer from zoochosis – a psychotic condition whereby animals display uncharacteristic behaviours, such as monotonous, obsessive, and/or repetitive actions that serve no purpose. Polar bears will swim in circles for hours, lions and tigers will pace back-and-forth nonstop, and elephants will sway to-and-fro. These are all signs of zoochosis.

In some animals, zoochosis can result in self-harm, and in big cats especially, the harm may be taken out on others of their species. In the wild, big cats are normally solitary and territorial by nature. Put into cages conflict and violence can escalate quickly and dangerously.

Zoochosis has been studied and shows that the brains of animals are changed (for the worse) when kept in captivity. A 2024 article¹ notes the following:

‘The chronic stress of living in captivity without any control over their environment leads to learned helplessness, a trauma response that affects the hippocampus, which handles memory functions, and the amygdala, which processes emotions. As a result, a captive animal’s memory and emotions are irregular, and some animals have been shown to become emotionally unpredictable. Prolonged stress also disrupts the balance of serotonin and dopamine in an animal’s brain, which can lead to repetitive and often damaging behaviour.’

Just as we saw last week, human response to being caged in is comparable to the response of caged animals; humans are animals after all!

Neurological research shows that ‘…urbanization represents an evolutionary mismatch between contemporary brains and the neural systems of our human ancestors, an increased vulnerability for psychiatric illness may represent an escalating medical threat as urban populations are projected to rise in future years.’²

So it is then: the brains of we humans too, are changed for the worse when in caged conditions.

Does this changed brain result in greater violence? It appears it might.

A 2012 article on the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance (ALNAP) website³ urgently claims that ‘Cities have increasingly become the battlefield of recent conflicts as they serve as the seats of power and gateways to resources.’

Alarmingly, the correlation between violence and urbanisation may not be contained within one or two generations. Transgenerational effects of violence and its related trauma (including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – PTSD) has been shown to exacerbate the harmful effects of caged living.

Breaking the cycle of violence and its associated PTSD may not be easy, especially as we humans continue to cage ourselves in.

Can we re-wild ourselves in time, before we descend into total inter-tribal, inter-generational, and inter-cultural warfare?

Only through re-wiring our brains and cutting the bars of our cages it would seem.

Notes:

1. https://www.worldanimalprotection.us/latest/blogs/heres-how-captivity-affects-mammals-brains/  Accessed 12 April 2026

2. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4774049/  Accessed 12 April 2026

3. https://alnap.org/help-library/resources/rapid-urbanization-and-the-growing-threat-of-violence-and-conflict-a-21st-century/ Accessed 12 April 2026

Caged In (Part 1)

In the late 1970s the Canadian psychologist, Bruce Alexander (and others), conducted a number of famous experiments with rats. Known as the Rat Park experiments these experiments organised rats into four distinct groups, each with eight rats in a group. Each group consisted of rats weaned on their 22^nd day of life.

Group CC were kept in laboratory cages until the age of 80 days, i.e. 58 days.

Group PP were housed in Rat Park: an area 200 times larger than a laboratory cage, and provided with food, balls, and wheels for play, and plenty of space to mate.

Group CP were initially located in laboratory cages and then transferred to Rat Park at 65 days old (i.e. 43 days later).

Group PC started off in Rat Park and then moved to laboratory cages at 65 days old.

Each group had a choice of two drinking dispensers. One dispenser contained sweetened morphine, and the other plain tap water.

So, what happened? What did the rats in each group drink?

The caged rats (Groups CC and PC) took to the sweetened morphine immediately, drinking it nineteen times more often than those in the other two groups (Groups PP and PC). The rats in these other two groups (PP and PC) did try the water with morphine in it occasionally but showed a distinct preference for the tap water.

The difference between the groups was not the choices they had. It was not their cultural background. It was not their family history.

The difference was that caged rats opted for the sweetened morphine at a significantly higher degree than those not caged.

Are We Human Rats?

A question quickly forms when we learn of this research. Might the same be going on in human society? Is drug addiction a symptom of being caged in?

Research indicates a correlation. Research reported in May 2025 noted that: ‘Urban environmental risk factors of economic disparity, marginalization and barriers in accessing healthcare and negative individual characteristics of low education, low income and comorbid diagnosis of mental illness significantly increased risk of drug use.’¹

In 2023 (the year of most recent data) 316 million people worldwide (6% of the population aged 15-64) had used drugs in the previous year. The incidence of drug use had increased over the previous decade, outstripping the increase in population (indicating that per capita use had swelled), with the synthetic drug market having expanded rapidly.

As an example of this increase, consider the production of cocaine. In 2014 the global production of this drug was 869 tonnes, by 2023 the production of cocaine had more than quadrupled to 3,708 tonnes.

Some researchers and psychologists go further than simply urbanisation, suggesting that civilisation itself is a factor in addiction. And not just drug addiction, but most addictions; gambling, sex, alcohol, shopping and consumption, and technology to name a few. The eco-psychologist, Chellis Glendinning, writes of this brilliantly in her 1994 book My Name Is Chellis & I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization.²

For Glendinning and others, the cage we are in may not be a physical one, we may not be able to see it or touch it. But, it is there, nevertheless. And, like the rats in cages, we opt for addictive substances or experiences.

It is a sobering thought, isn’t it? Our addictions may be a natural (albeit unhealthily so) response to being caged in.

As we know, too, the manufacture, transport, and trafficking of illicit drugs have an association with violence. Next weeks blog (Part 2) will consider whether (as with drugs) there is a correlation between violence and being caged in.

Notes:

1. https://journals.lww.com/co-psychiatry/fulltext/2025/05000/drug_addiction_and_impact_of_urbanization__a.13.aspx  Accessed 7 April 2026

2. Chellis Glendinning, My Name Is Chellis & I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization, Shambhala Publications, Boston, Massachusetts, 1994.

But I’m Dr Jekyll

Sometimes in conversations where the topic is that of some horrific, brutal, and/or cruel act, someone will declare that “it just shows the inhumanity of people,” or words to that effect. Statements such as this suggest that our human nature is basically nasty and brutish. It is a dismal verdict for the human race.

Statements like this one are tantamount to justifying the brutal acts; in fact, these statements come very close to defending them, on the basis that brutality is simply the base nature of the human race.

This miserable view of humanity’s innateness is akin to characterising humanity as Mr Hyde in the Robert Louis Stevenson classic, The Stange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.¹  Stevenson’s horror story, published in 1886, follows two characters (Jekyll and Hyde) through London streets and houses with one of them (Dr Jekyll) being of upright and gentlemanly manner, and the other (Edward Hyde) a murderer and person of low morals. As the story progresses, the reader comes to realise that the two are one-and-the-same. An elixir transforms the one into the other.

Yet, if the person pronouncing this morbid baseness is questioned about their own character, most are likely to say something like, ‘But I’m Dr Jekyll.’ The innate wickedness just attributed to the whole human species is rejected as not applying to them.

Both of course – Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – are found in all of us. Thinking of oneself as a Dr Jekyll and not as Mr Hyde is an easy way to absolve oneself of any guilt, or participation in any of the atrocities of the world.

Stevenson was well aware of this tendency and its effect. In the final chapter of The Stange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – titled Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case – Henry Jekyll maintains that,

‘It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was guilty. Jekyll was no worse; he woke again to his good qualities seemingly unimpaired; he would even make haste, where it was possible, to undo the evil done by Hyde. And thus his conscience slumbered.’

“And thus his conscience slumbered” is an illuminating sentence. It tells us that if we can attribute nastiness to some other and not ourselves then we can slumber on in innocence and ignore the brutality that occurs in the world.

It was this slumber and innocence that Nazi war criminals claimed at the Nuremberg trials. Many argued that they were simply doing their job. Hannah Arendt, who wrote much about totalitarianism and Nazism attended some of those trials.

In particular Arendt attended the trial of Adolf Eichmann, an official in the Schutzstaffel (the SS) and one of the major organisers of the Holocaust. She wrote a book - Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (published in 1963) – outlining her observations and analysis of Eichmann and others.

What Arendt found to be truly terrifying about Eichmann was that he was not psychopathic, he was a common man. Almost anyone could have become a war criminal. But Arendt does not offer this up as justification for Eichmann’s actions. She does not excuse him. He still had choice, even in a totalitarian state. The consequences of making that choice are political, she said, even if the person is powerless in that state.

Robert Louis Stevenson was writing about just such situations fifty years before the rise of Hitler and the Nazis.

Reading The Stange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde one hundred and forty years after its first publication there are at least two major lessons we can take from it.

1. All of us can find a Dr Jekyll and a Mr Hyde inside us.
2. We must not allow our conscience to slumber.

 

Notes:

1. Stevenson, Robert Louis, The Stange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, p 60. Penguin Books, London, 2002. First published 1886.

Three Psycho-Emotional Impediments to Degrowth

We live today in a world where socio-environmental collapse for some has already begun, and for others is imminent. One of the few social movements that understands this and attempts to respond is the Degrowth movement. It is one of the few movements that understands that collapse is because of overshoot, described in detail in William R. Catton’s groundbreaking book Overshoot in 1982 – more than 40 years ago!¹

On the cover of his book Catton defined overshoot as ‘growth beyond an area’s carrying capacity.’ The area now is the whole world.

Arguably, we have so vastly outgrown global carrying capacity that we can no longer prevent collapse. However, that is no reason for despair or surrender.

The Degrowth movement is one of the few movements that has not given up, nor lapsed into despair. But it faces three psycho-emotional impediments towards getting its message widely accepted and acted on. All three are inter-related, however, I will outline them separately.

I have no panacea for overcoming these impediments. I do know that there will be no one-size-fits-all solution. The three impediments are: Going Back, Progress, and Positivity.

Going Back

This is perhaps the greatest barrier because it is fuelled by one of our strongest emotions - fear. Degrowth is often thought to mean we must go back; back to a previous age, an age in which our modern comforts and conveniences no longer exist. For decades we have been told that previous ages were worse (sometimes a lot worse) than those of today. We get shown pictures of darkened streets, cold houses without electricity, inferior medical interventions, and poor working conditions. Going back to such times is a scary thought. We would rather shun such a move.

Yet, were we able to travel back in time to those earlier periods and talk with our great-grandparents we might be surprised to find that we are no happier now than they were. We might also find that rates of depression, anxiety, and addiction were less prevalent.

Yet, the idea that going back entails a worsening of the current situation persists. Degrowth is not synonymous with ‘going back’ but the two notions have become entwined within the minds of many leaders and other people. It will be an emotional obstacle that the Degrowth movement will have to overcome.

Progress

If fear drives the impediment of Going Back, then desire drives the impediment of the myth of Progress. The idea of progress energises our desire for a better life, a life of greater comfort and more convenience (as well as conveniences). The idea that we must progress has been with us for a long time, and gained momentum following WW1, WW2 and the Great Depression with what Catton terms the Age of Exuberance. This Age resulted in consumption on a grand scale, with the American Dream being beamed into the living rooms of not only Americans but also the residents of westernised nations throughout the world.

Progress became associated with betterment, improvement, comfort, and convenience. It told us to look forward, to see tomorrow (or at least next year) as being better than today. Yet again, paradoxically, although we have greater “comforts” in our lives than our grandparents did, and even more than we did in our youth (for those of us of advanced years) our lives are no better. Mental health issues are worse, depression, self-harm, and suicide (especially amongst young men) are at similar, if not worse, levels than they were half a century ago.

Progress also comes at a huge planetary cost. The air we breathe is smog-bound in many cities. The water we drink is polluted and, in some places, highly toxic. The ground in which our crops are grown is being leached away and contaminated with pesticides, fungicides, and insecticides.

Advocates of progress cannot abide the Degrowth movement, because for them progress is growth. And growth, for those advocates, is the means by which all those future improvements are supposed to come about. Advocates of growth will fill our screens, radios, and billboards with adverts promising a better life in the future if you buy this product. Millions of dollars each year are spent on these advertising campaigns, and millions of people buy into the advert, and buy the product.  

Progress as a myth is a means that has become an end, yet without an end in sight.

The Degrowth movement will have to address the myth of progress.

Positivity

How many exhortations every day to be positive do we get bombarded with?

Positivity when it becomes toxic is an unhealthy state. Toxic positivity ignores and negates emotions such as sadness, sorrow, anger, disappointment, and such. Positivity tells us to ignore the perils, dangers, and cruelty of the world.

For the Degrowth movement, positivity is an impediment, because it so easily leads to the belief that there is no need to change. Positivity maintains and promotes the Business-As-Usual economic model.

Positivity is also a strong feedback loop stimulating the Going Back myth. Going Back is suggestive of negativity and so becomes a powerful disincentive to considering Degrowth as an option, let alone an imperative.

It is important to recognise that positivity is not the same thing as contentment. Contentment is able to hold both positive and negative states of mind. A contented person could be happy one day and sad the next, and be fully accepting of both states. Similarly, a contented person is able to appreciate the beautiful aspects of life at the same time as recognising the ugly aspects. A contented person is able to understand that we have overshot our carrying capacity and is able to know that we must change course.

How is the Degrowth movement to address these three impediments? I have only answers for myself. What I do know, however, is that these three psychological-emotional impediments must be addressed.

I would appreciate any thoughts, ideas, or possibilities.

Notes:

1. William R.Catton, Jr., Overshoot, University of Illinois Press, Urbana & Chicago, 1982

Man’s (In)Humanity To Man

(Preliminary note: I have kept to the original noun (viz man) in this blogpiece, recognising that today this is regarded as a sexist description.)

In 1784 the Scottish bard, Robert Burns, composed his poem Man Was Made To Mourn.¹ One of the eleven stanzas of the poem includes the lines,

‘Man’s inhumanity to man

Makes countless thousands mourn!’

During the 250 years since the penning of this poem the phrase ‘Man’s inhumanity to man’ has been quoted many thousands of times, mostly as ratification of the inevitability of human atrocities. The phrase, quoted this way, suggests that malevolence is innate to the human condition.

Such implication, however, may not have been Robert Burns’ intention. Burns wrote the poem soon after meeting the father of a woman, Kate Kemp, whom he wished to court. Kate though, was out looking for a lost cow at the time of Burns’ visit. Burns thus had to spend time with her father, a man of ill-temper. Burns’ ill-fated visit with Kate’s father may have been the inspiration for the inhumanity wording. Most of the poem he composed on his walk home.

It may also have been that Burns was recording his antagonism towards the class inequalities that were prevalent at the time in Scotland and throughout Great Britain. The Industrial Revolution was well underway, concomitant with poor working conditions, rising inequality, and unhealthy living conditions. The young Robert Burns (25 years old at the time of writing the poem) would have been appalled at what was happening and passionate about protesting it through his poetry.

Hence, the words ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ must be read in the context of the time, Burns’ age, and his meeting with a cantankerous father of his love interest.

I would guess that many who quote the phrase today do not know where it came from, nor perhaps, who wrote it, and why it was written.

Today, it is a line thrown out as verification that humans are basically ill-willed and immoral at heart. When we see clips of warfare and violence happening in Gaza, Ukraine, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, or Somalia Burns’ phrase is sometimes quoted as if to say ‘well, that’s just the inhumanity of human nature.’

But, is this the case?

One of the reasons we see clips like those mentioned above is because they are newsworthy. In other words, they are out of the ordinary, they are literally – news, something new and not something usual. They are un-usual.

And, being unusual, they cannot logically be cited as proof that human nature is basically ill-willed, violent, or in-human.

Furthermore, when a comparative analysis of how different cultures understand the basic nature of humans, we have to concede that the notion that humans are innately inhuman is not a global understanding.

Certainly, it seems, violence and ill-will occur in all cultures. Sadly however, it seems that western culture is unique in its rendering of human nature as being inhuman at core.

The American First Nations author, activist, and historian, Jack Forbes for example, writes of the First Nation notion of wetiko, which he describes as a disease that has no respect for the cycle of life and death and is without any sense of sacredness. But, as he notes ‘Non-wetikos may, at times, be cruel, but their cruelty is individual and sporadic, not part of a system of cruelty.’ It was this system of cruelty that he saw within the western culture, particularly that part of western culture that colonised the Americas.²

The cultures of SE Asia share a similar conceptualisation, with Buddhism especially speaking of Buddha nature, which has been expressed as the innate capacity for awakening, compassion, and understanding that resides in everyone.

Amidst the struggle against the apartheid system in South Africa Bishop Desmond Tutu was able to proclaim that, ‘You know human beings are basically good. You know that’s where we have to start. That everything else is an aberration.’³

Sadly however, western culture has so infused the whole world (via colonisation and/or economic hegemony) that western ideas, understandings, and concepts now dominate globally. From within this western worldview it is difficult to look from outside to see that this worldview is not a universal one.

Tragically, when this view of the of man’s inhumanity to man is normalised, assumed to be true, and legitimised it becomes very difficult to confront and change those situations in which violence, ill-will, and inhumanity do take place. After all, if this is the way things are, then they cannot be changed, only shifted slightly until the next outbreak of inhumanity.

Man’s inhumanity to man must be questioned and shifted towards the more central tenet of: Each person’s humanity to each other person.

Notes:

1. Robert Burns, Man was Made to Mourn, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, first published by John Wilson of Kilmarnock in 1786

2. Forbes, Jack D., Columbus and other Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism, Seven Stories Press, New York, Revised Edition, 1992. Original version 1979

3. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, The Book of Joy, Avery, New York, 2016

Rugged Individualism: Where Did It Come From?

Lastweek’s blog noted that there was a strong correlation between using first-person singular pronouns (e.g. I, me, mine, myself) and depression. That blog also noted that the use of these pronouns had increased dramatically since the early 1980s.

We might ask: Where did this focus on me, myself, and I come from?

One of the strands that has contributed to this is the rugged individual archetype and the associated myth of the lone hero. They have been with us for a long time.

Stories and myths of this archetype stretch back at least as far as Greek and Roman mythology. Many of us will have heard of, or read of, the exploits of heroes such as Jason, Odysseus, Perseus, Hercules, Romulus, and Remus. Within Norse mythology we know of Odin, Thor, and Hodr. In English mythology we have the rugged individual myths of Beowulf, King Arthur, and Robin Hood. All men. There have been female heroines, although many of us would be hard pressed to name many of them.

The term rugged individual is only recently coined, by US President Herbert Hoover, has been portrayed in Hollywood style Westerns. Butch Cassidy, Wild Bill Hickock, Buffalo Bill, Davy Crockett, and others have all etched their rugged individual heroism onto the minds of young boys growing up in the first half of the 20^th century. Those growing up in the latter half of that century were habituated by male heroes such as James Bond, Indiana Jones, Magnum, Rambo, Jason Bourne, and Neo.

These rugged individuals do not need others to fulfill their destiny; they are highly resilient, can withstand a hail of bullets, leap from burning buildings, and of course, save the threatened damsel in distress. The hero rises above his pain, is always in control, and is never vulnerable. It is one of the most toxic archetypes young men can be exposed to. It is an absurd and unattainable self.

Rugged individualism (akin to toxic individualism) promotes an outlook that views other people as competitors rather than as our peers. Accordingly, such an outlook fosters self-promotion and, at its extremity, narcissism. Furthermore, rugged individualism cultivates a belief that one can, and should, solve one’s own problems, even if the solving involves addictive behaviours, such as alcohol and drug misuse, or gambling. A person entrenched in the mythology of the rugged individual is unlikely to be able to reach out for help, further aggravating the likelihood of resorting to unhealthy behaviours.

Francis Weller likens the rugged individual archetype to a prison and says, ‘We are imprisoned by this (hero) image, forced into a fiction of false independence that severs our kinship with the earth, with sensuous reality, and with the myriad wonders of the world. This is a source of grief for many of us.’¹

Sadly, when individuals come to this grief, and crash headfirst into recognising that individualism does not benefit them, the illusion is so firmly entrenched that it becomes extremely difficult to break away from the addictions, habits, and obsessions that have arisen to shore up the false sense of invulnerability.

Paradoxically, it is the very notion of the Self in westernised culture that promotes this sad state of affairs. Western culture, to a large extent, conceives of the Self as a self-sufficient, separate, and a discrete entity. The Self in this construction can be conceptualised as a homunculus residing within our body, responsible to no-one but itself.

Other cultures, especially indigenous ones and those of the Orient, perceive the Self in a different manner. So much so, that within a couple of these cultures the concept of no-Self is more frequently found. The concept of no-Self could be explored in depth and take up much space. A brief clarification will be presented here. No-Self does not mean literally that there is no self and no individual person. It simply means that all selves come into being, live, and pass on, as part of a highly entangled web of life.

Buddhism, for example, calls this concept dependent co-arising; a concept in which nothing arises by and of itself. Rather, phenomena arise by a dynamic interaction of mutually conditioned events. Although this concept is central to Buddhism, and hence to the cultures that embrace it, other cultures have similar concepts.

Within such a concept the idea of the rugged individual is unlikely to gain traction.

Rates of depression vary considerably around the world. It is telling that the highest rates are found in North America, Europe (although Poland bucks the trend), Scandinavia, Australia, and middle East nations. All of whom, to varying degrees, have a high regard for the individual.

On the other hand, the nations where rates of depression are lowest are found mainly in SE Asia, West Africa, and some South American countries. Significantly, these are nations that view the person as being part of a whole, not a separate individual. They are also amongst the least European colonised nations on Earth.

Surely that tells us something.

Notes:

1. Weller, Francis, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA, 2015

Me and My Depression

Narcissus

How often do we hear that one of the ways to release oneself from the tentacles of depression is to use self-affirmation statements. Statements such as, I alone hold the truth of who I am.

A google search of self-affirmations recently showed me 99 such affirmations. Tellingly, 66 of the 99 began the affirmation with the first-person singular pronoun I. A further 8 affirmations began with the word My. Furthermore, only seven of the affirmations did not include the pronouns I, me, mine, or myself.¹ That is a staggering 93% of affirmations that include the first-person singular pronoun.

Do these affirmations work? I guess the answer to that question depends on the question: work towards what purpose?

If the purpose is to overcome feelings of anxiety or depression, then the answer may surprise you. Research suggests that those who use first-person singular pronouns (such as I, me, myself, mine) often are more likely to have feelings of anxiety and depression than those who use these pronouns less often.

Researchers from a variety of German Universities in 2015 found that there their ‘present study unravelled some important insights into the link between first-person singular pronoun use and symptoms of depression and anxiety.’² Furthermore, such pronoun use ‘is positively related to brooding.’ The researchers defined brooding as referring to the ‘passive comparison of one’s current state with desired but unreached states.’ They were quick to point out that brooding is qualitatively different from reflection which they characterised as a ‘purposeful turning inward to engage in cognitive problem solving to alleviate one’s depressive symptoms.’

The researchers also clearly mentioned that first-person singular pronoun use is positively related to brooding, but not to reflection. The two states are qualitatively different, with reflection being beneficial, whereas brooding is harmful.

Of course, as any self-respecting statistician will tell you, correlation is not the same as causation. Yet, if we trace the incidence of usage of first-person singular pronouns over time, and the incidence of depression over similar periods of time, the correlation is strong.

The word I in the English language was used approximately 4,000 – 5,000 times in every one million words used between 1800 and 1870. After 1870 the usage of this first-person singular pronoun began to decline to less than 2,500 times per million in the early 1980s. Since then, it’s use has climbed rapidly to around 7,000 times in every one million words today. That is, the word I is used 280% more often today than it was less than 50 years ago. Quite some rise!

Similar increases can be noted in the use of me, myself, and my. All since the early 1980s. Me, for example, is now used four times as often today than it was 50 years ago.

If we track rates of depression over a similar time period, we note a steady increase in depressive symptoms, especially amongst young people.

Is a focus on me, myself, and I making us more depressed?

Many point to a rise in narcissism in recent decades. Indeed, the word narcissist is now used eight times more often nowadays than it was in 1980. Eight times!

Although this short piece is not the place to address the rise of narcissism, it is interesting to note that it’s rise came on the back of the self-development and human potential movements of the late 1960s and 1970s. Many at the time believed that if enough people raised their individual potential, then wider social change would follow. A worthy intention but ultimately flawed as it tended to view the world in a dualistic way – the individual as separate from the wider culture. Furthermore, the rabbit hole of intense self-absorption was opened up, and many followed the rabbit.

Why did the human potential movement not live up to its ideal of social change via individual self-development?

Perhaps because it failed to recognise a simple truth that many teachers and indigenous cultures had known for centuries. There is no separate, disconnected self. The Buddha taught this simple truth 2,500 years ago in his teaching on dependent co-arising. Tribespeople in southern Africa knew it years ago in their concept of ubuntu. The Zulu notion of ubuntu is described by Bishop Tutu as, ‘the philosophy and belief that a person is only a person through other people.’³ The Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, more recently coined the term interbeing and described this as, ‘the many in the one and the one containing the many.’ In a nod to the famous Descartes dictum, Thich Nhat Hanh expressed interbeing as ‘I am, therefore you are. You are, therefore I am. We inter-are.’

These are profoundly different ways of conceptualizing the notion of personhood. They also offer a radically different pathway towards a healthy state of mind.

None of the above is meant to suggest that we do away with words such as I, me, myself, mine; rather it suggests that we should be mindful of recognizing that an intense focus on our individual selves leads to unhealthy outcomes.

Notes:

1. https://www.thegoodtrade.com/features/positive-affirmations-morning-routine/  accessed 30 June 2025

2. Brockmeyer et al., Me, Myself, and I: self-referent word use as an indicator of self-focused attention in relation to depression and anxiety, Frontiers in Psychology, October 2015, Vol 6, article 1564

3. Desmond & Mpho Tutu, The Book of Forgiving, William Collins, London, 2014

Sad and Depressed

We are living in a time when much of the world (human and other-than-human) is in pain. The phrase tears of the world has been applied to this time. The first use of this phrase seems to be by Samuel Beckett, in his renowned play Waiting For Godot. In that play Beckett has a character stating that ‘The tears of the world are a constant quantity.’

In his 1976 song Tears of the World, George Harrison applies this phrase to seeing warfare and pollution yet ‘All warnings fall on deaf ears.’

If we notice this constant pain and observe the unheeded warnings then we may respond in a couple of ways: prolonged periods of depression and despair or brief, albeit intense, bouts of sadness.

Each of these possible reactions offer quite different psychological and responsive pathways. Etymology helps to illuminate the difference.

Depression has Latin roots and literally means to press down. The image of someone pressed down, their face in the mud, possibly a knee on their back illustrates depression. In such a situation the person finds it difficult to move. It is utterly disempowering. Despair has a different lineage yet ends with the same outcome. Old French gives us de (meaning without) and the second part of the word arrives from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word spes meaning prosperity. Hence despair applies to someone without prosperity which has come to mean without hope in our modern-day language. Again the image of a person pressed down in a hopeless situation comes to mind. Neither depression nor despair leave any room for an active response.

The word sad however has a far more intricate and interesting lineage. The PIE word seto (meaning to satisfy) became the word sæd in Old English and originally meant to be sated, to have ones full. It sounds like an unlikely ancestry for our modern word sad doesn’t it? Following the chain of changes in meaning is revealing. The Old English meaning morphed into firmly established, set, and hard in Middle English. These meanings in turn gave way to ponderous, heavy, and full (both physically and mentally) all of which implied a sense of weariness. By the 1300s seto, sæd, and sad had come to be identified with unhappy, sorrowful, melancholy, and mournful.

But, critically, even though it contains a heaviness the word sad never suggested being pressed down and without hope.

With this exploration of the lineage and meanings of depression and sad we can begin to piece together the different responses we have to the tears of the world that each provides us with.

Pressing us down and making us immobile, depression closes in on us and collapses our circle of concern inward. All our energy and attention becomes focussed upon ourselves and may cause us to implode and become self-destructive.

Periodic sadness, on the other hand, widens our circle of compassion and empathy, and we recognise that our pain and sadness connect us to our common humanity and intimacy with the totality of life on this planet.

In 2015 two of the most notable spiritual leaders on the planet, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, met in Dharamsala (the Dalai Lama’s Indian residence) to explore the meaning and expression of joy. The meeting was recorded and published as The Book of Joy.¹ During that meeting much attention was paid to the emotion of sadness. Archbishop Tutu argued that rather than viewing sadness as being a challenge to joy, ‘it often leads us most directly to empathy and compassion and to recognizing our need for one another.’ The Dalai Lama referred to psychological research which showed that those ‘in a sad mood had better judgment and memory, and were more motivated, more sensitive to social norms, and more generous than the happier control group.’

It was also noted that sadness often lingers longer than fear and anger and hence may provide a more lasting basis for acting with compassion.

So, the next time you feel tears begin to slide down your cheek for no apparent reason it may be that you are shedding the tears of the world and mirroring the pain of many upon this planet.

Use this time of sadness to listen to the messages those tears hold. They may contain and fortify your compassionate response.

Notes:

1. Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, with Douglas Abrams, The Book of Joy, Avery, New York, 2016

Get Over It or Let It Go

A friend of mine sometimes tells the story of his father returning from naval service after WW2. His father and a friend of his father were affected emotionally, mentally, and psychically by their experiences during the war. Upon their return after the end of the war, they were often told to “Have a beer and get over it.”

How many people suffering from PTSD or some other painful situation are told the same thing: “Get over it”?

Being told this does not help, in fact it tends to make the condition worse. The statement implies that the person in pain is to blame for the experience leading to their pain.

An example may help clarify this. Suppose a soldier on a battlefield is continually bombarded with the sounds of crashing bombs, the whizzing of bullets all around, and witnessing the death (sometimes horrendous) of their comrades. They are likely to experience PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). During WW1 this was known as shell-shock, and at that time was only just starting to be recognised as a wound as debilitating as a physical wound. These men and women did not create those events, but they certainly felt the pain.

The psychology surrounding PTSD and other painful experiences has been widely studied since WW1. The research does not support a practice of “getting over it.”

Buddhism – often referred to as “less a religion and more a psychology of mind” – has some useful insights into how to deal with psychological pain. The first of these insights is to distinguish between pain and suffering. Pain is inevitable, it is a feature of being alive. Pain can be physical, mental, biological, and/or social. Suffering is different. Suffering is our reaction to these pains. So, there are two parts to the experience of, say PTSD. The first part is the incident or event that gave rise to the pain. The second part, following the first, is the various emotions that arise in response. These may be anxiety, anger, confusion, fear, grief, frustration.

The second insight is to recognise that continuous suffering results from attempting to push away the pain and trying to con ourselves into believing the pain does not exist. Buddhists call this aversion. This is what others mean when they say, “Just get over it.”

The opposite of aversion is craving. The opposite of “just get over it” is “just be happy, have a beer.” Both states, at best, are fleeting.

If aversion and craving do not work, then what does?

Buddhism suggests to simply “let it go.” I say “simply” but it is much harder than that, as it involves reconfiguring our mental, emotional, and psychological states. The concept is simple. It is rather like watching a cloud (your suffering) slowly pass by overhead, drifting on the wind, with no active involvement by you at all, aside from simply watching the cloud pass away. Getting into this frame of mind takes time, practice, and (yes) some effort. Even once this frame of mind is achieved, it is possible that the cloud could take a long time to pass by. Simply letting go is not simple.

Notice too, that the exhortation to “get over it” is often uttered by another person, not yourself. “Letting go” however, is something you do, not the instruction of another person. “Letting go” permits you to hold onto your power, rather than allowing someone else to take it from you.

So, how do we get to a state of mind that allows us to “let it go”?

The classic Buddhist response is meditation and mindfulness. This blog will not go into detail on these practices. There are numerous articles, videos, and books around teaching these.

There are many other ways to get to this state. Here are a few possibilities.

·       Spending time in nature. Take a slow, deliberative, walk in a forest. Notice what you hear, see, smell.

·       Physical exercise, especially aerobic exercise: jogging, swimming, cycling, or similar.

·       Enjoy time with a dog, or a horse, or other animal.

There are also some things to refrain from that otherwise would hinder getting to this state, for example:

·       Refraining from harmful pursuits: alcoholism, smoking, gambling, and other forms of addiction.

·       Reducing time in stressful situations. Much of our time in modern society keeps us hyper-vigilant, constantly alert, and on time deadlines. All of these keep us well removed from a “let it go” state of mind.

·       Beware of the trap of consumerism. Consumerism is one of the forms of “getting over it.” A beer is just one of the multitudes of consumer options. The phrase could just as easily be “Go buy a new car and get over it,” or “Add an extension to your house and get over it.”

Thus, next time you hear someone tell you to “Go have a beer and get over it,” let them and their message drift away as would a cloud.

Where Did Our Selves Go?

Around one in eight people globally suffer from at least one form of mental health issue. Whether it be anxiety disorders, depression, PTSD, bi-polar disorder, or schizophrenia, the costs of mental health are estimated at $2-5 trillion per year, and expected to rise to over $6 trillion by 2030 (just five years away.)

Surely, such a crisis raises the question of: how did we come to this? How did our selves become so lost and confused that so many of us suffer these conditions? As Gabor Maté notes, ‘In the most health-obsessed society ever, all is not well.’¹

Quite simply, I would claim that this disjoint in our psyches is because we have come to perceive ourselves as being disconnected from nature and from each other. I recognise, of course, that this claim is highly simplistic, yet if you follow through the implications of each of these two disconnections the threads joining it all together become evident.

Disconnection from nature is tantamount to a loss of Earth as our collective home. Disconnection from each other isolates us from our community. Together, these two disconnections mean that we have lost contact with our human support systems and our place of identity, resulting in a psychic disruption that varies from person to person.

Is it any wonder then, that over the past few centuries, we have become more and more disconnected from our own selves? We are homeless and have little sense of belonging. Both these disconnections cannot fail but fill our psyches with a toxic concoction of conscious and unconscious thoughts, feelings, emotions, and worldviews that serve to disconnect us from who we are, from our true selves.

Our mental health statistics show this. Over the past 50 years mental health issues have been steadily worsening, with the most severe disorders being depression, specific phobias (extreme fears of objects or situations that pose little or no danger but make one feel anxious), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and alcohol abuse. Ominously, a 2023 study undertaken by researchers from Harvard Medical School and the University of Queensland involving respondents from 29 countries concluded that, ‘by age 75 approximately half the population can expect to develop one or more of 13 mental disorders.’² For both men and women major depressive disorder was one of the most prevalent disorders. The next most prevalent was alcohol abuse for men and specific phobias for women.

This is a serious disconnection within and from ourselves.

What has happened to our selves? Where did our selves go?

It is highly likely that we left our selves behind when we allowed ourselves to disconnect from nature. We left our selves behind in the forests, the mountains, the rivers, and the myriad other natural habitats.

If this is so, then it is no surprise that spending time in natural settings helps to reduce mental health problems and to restore balance in our lives.

Over the past 40 years a conscious practice of spending time in natural settings for health benefit has been spreading around the globe. Japan can be credited as the birthplace of this practice, where it is known as shinrin-yoku. The term shinrin-yoku (literally Forest Bathing) was coined in 1982 by Tomohide Akiyama, who was Director of the Japanese Forest Agency at the time. Since the beginning of the 21^st century the science of forest bathing has built an impressive research base.

Amongst the benefits of forest bathing that this research has shown are: Increased relaxation of the body due to increased activity of the parasympathetic nervous system; Reduced stress of the body due to reduction of sympathetic nervous system activity; Reduction in blood pressure; Lowering of pulse rate. These health benefits allow forest bathing participants to feel a sense of comfort, feel calm, feel refreshed, less anxious, and an improvement in their emotional state.³

If such health benefits can be experienced by just an hour or two of forest bathing, imagine the benefits that might ensure from reconnecting more completely with nature?

Another, associated, health practice has also been slowly spreading. Green prescriptions first began being prescribed by doctors in New Zealand in the late 1990s. Green prescriptions are a medical prescription to spend time in nature. In New Zealand it is now possible to self-refer to a green prescription. A number of countries, including Canada, the UK, Korea, Finland, the US, and of course Japan, are utilising this form of “medication” regularly as part of those nation’s healthcare services.

Sadly, at the very time we are starting to re-discover the benefits of spending time in nature we are also busy chopping down our forest, polluting our riverways, and mining the tops and sides of our mountains.

If we are going to find our selves again then we have to act with nature in a reciprocal manner. We must stop chopping, polluting, and mining.

Notes:

1. Gabor Maté, with Daniel Maté, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness &healing in a Toxic Culture, Vermillion, London, 2022

2. Prof John McGrath et al., Age of onset and cumulative risk of mental disorders, The Lancet Psychiatry, 2023. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(23)00193-1/abstract  accessed 23 April 2025

3. Yoshifumi Miyazaki, The Japanese Art of Shinrin-Yoku, Timber Press, Portland, Oregon, 2018

Are You Sick Of The Rain Yet?

We have had a lot of rain recently where I live. One day, after about a week’s worth of rainy days I was walking with my umbrella up and encountered a neighbour. After greeting one another, my neighbour asked, “Are you sick of the rain yet?”

Under the circumstances this may seem a logical and innocuous question to ask. It is also rhetorical; it seeks to find a common sense of experience, and a shared desire for sunshine and fine weather.

As I continued walking I pondered the question, and found that below the question lay some potentially troubling human psychology. I was reminded of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths.

Before continuing, a quick note about the word noble. We may often think of noble as pertaining to someone of the aristocracy, such as a Baron, Duke, Duchess, or Baroness. The Pali word ariya (translated as noble), however, suggests notions of valuable, precious, and not ordinary. With this sense in mind, it is possible to recognise something in the Four Noble Truths that is not normally considered and is a precious insight.

Back to the rain and the question.

The Buddha’s First Noble Truth tells us that suffering exists. It is a simple statement of how something is, a bit like a doctor making a diagnosis. Again, we must be careful with translations. The Pali word dukkha is often translated as suffering. However, the fuller meaning of the word encompasses such feelings as, dissatisfaction, un-ease, discomfort, disquiet. With this in mind it is possible to recognise that dukkha is not the same as pain. Pain is unavoidable, it is an aspect of life. Suffering (or discomfort, dissatisfaction etc) is our response to that pain.

The First Noble Truth was implicit in my neighbour’s question. A feeling of discomfort was embedded within the question, and a desire for that discomfort to be alleviated.

It is this desire for alleviation where the Buddha’s next three Noble Truths attain their preciousness. Many of us get no further than the First Noble Truth – viz. expressing discomfort, dissatisfaction, or un-ease. Then, once expressed, we might try to wish the discomfort away, or maybe want someone else to fix the problem, or pray for a miracle. Very rarely do any of these approaches work.

The next three Noble Truths, however, tell us that there are causes of our dukkha, that there is a remedy, and that there is a path (or medication if you like) we can take to relieve ourselves of the dukkha. I do not intend going into a complete explanation of these Noble Truths. I will simply make the following observation.

When we recognise that our suffering (not our pain) is a state of mind then we can see that suffering is caused by one of two prime states – aversion towards something, or grasping for something. Both cause us to suffer. And this suffering, declares the Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield is ‘like a rope burn. We need to let go.’¹

Easy said, much harder to do. It is a practice that takes time to learn. We westerners, attuned to wanting quick results, find this difficult.

The Buddha was aware of this also and prescribed a path (the Fourth Noble Truth) that, if one travelled upon it, would allow us to let go. But, let us not delude ourselves. Letting go does not mean that the pain will go away, nor does it mean there is an end to suffering.

It does mean, however, that suffering no longer has a power over us.

Back to the rain again. The rain might have meant I got wet (a minor irritation of pain) resulting in my feeling discomfort. Yet, once I let go my aversion to getting wet then discomfort has no power over me.

I am reminded of a lovely story that illustrates this concept well.

Two people are going down the road in the rain. One is skipping along with a smile upon their face. The other is slouched over looking grumpy. The lesson here is that no matter which of these two approaches is taken, both get wet!

Notes:

1. Jack Kornfield, The Wise Heart, Rider, London, Sydney, Auckland, Johannesburg, 2008

Domesticated Adults

Last week’s blogpiece asked whether our quality of life had improved as our quantity of life had increased. The answer suggested that it had not.

So, let us ask ourselves – why not?

The answer to that is not simply (as last weeks blog seemed to imply) that we now work longer than our hunter/gatherer days.

For years, psychology and the self-development movement were focussed on the human as an autonomous person responsible almost completely and solely for their thoughts, emotions, and behaviours. The human place in nature was largely missing from these endeavours.

Fortunately, this is changing. First, let us return to asking what happened that shifted us away from a greater quality of life.

For more than 95% of our (Homo sapiens) existence upon the Earth we lived in a manner intimately connected with and part of the natural world. Then, around 12,000 years ago, beginning in the Levant, Mesopotamia, and western Asia something began to dislodge us from that intimacy.

Many point to the Agricultural Revolution as that “something.” Although the advent, over many centuries, of agriculture was a significant factor, it wasn’t the only one. Whatever were the combination of factors, the outcomes of the disruption could be identified within the first few millennia. Today, 10,000 years later, the consequences are readily apparent, unless we have forgotten what happened and what went before.

Daniel Quinn calls this “The Great Forgetting.” Quinn claims that not only have we forgotten how our ancestors lived more than 12,000 years ago, but that we have also forgotten that we have forgotten. Hardly surprising, he notes, as it was not until a few thousand more years had passed before stories and memories got written down, and history was invented.

Unless we are willing to delve into this forgotten time, via archaeology, palaeontology, and pre-history, then we may be inclined to consider normality to be no different than it has been throughout recorded history, i.e. only the last 5,000 years or so.

But what is now “normal” is anything but “normal” when looked at over the course of 200,000 – 300,000 years. Even though the dislocation from nature took place over thousands of years, when viewed against our evolutionary journey the disruption was “sudden.”

As with many “sudden” disruptions the effects can be traumatic. “Traumatic” is how eco-psychologist. Chellis Glendinning, refers to the break from nature. ‘What could be more “distressing” than finding ourselves, out of short-term needs, locked into a cycle of abuse that insists we slash, dig, and burn the very Earth we have always respected and known ourselves to be made up of?’ she asks.¹

Drawing upon her work with post-traumatic stress disorder sufferers, Glendinning notes that culturally we suffer from PTSD collectively. And, as do individual sufferers, we collectively deny any trauma, and attempt to cover it up with addictions and justifications. In our westernised cultures we deny and cover up through addictions to technology, and the myth of progress. As with the individual, these addictions and myths only exacerbate the underlying problems.

The title of Glendinning’s book alludes to the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) introductory remarks in seeking recovery from addiction – My name is Chellis, and I’m in recovery from western civilization.

A person attending an AA programme will be offered a “sponsor” (or mentor) to assist them through the process and the recovery.

Who are the sponsors for those wishing to recover from western civilization? Who are the guides to facilitate the journey from childhood into healthy, nature-based adulthood and beyond?

Sadly, within westernised societies they are few and far between. Again, it is not surprising that there are so few guides. Our dislocation from nature had the flow on effect of also disrupting our “natural” succession from childhood, to adulthood, to elderhood. The deep ecologist and author, Paul Shepard, asserts that by ‘…spatially isolating the individual from the nonhumanized world, agriculture made it difficult for the developing person to approach the issues around which the crucial passages into fully mature adult life had been structured in the course of human existence.’²

The eco-psychologist and wilderness guide, Bill Plotkin, concurs. He declares that, ‘With the development of agriculture a new form of adolescent pathology became possible (in fact, inevitable), a pathology that begins with greed and eventuates in hoarding, domination, and violence.’  Furthermore, Plotkin claims that in modern societies ‘many people of adult age suffer from a variety of adolescent psychopathologies…’³

He then goes on to list examples of these psychopathologies: social insecurity, identity confusion, low self-esteem, few or no social skills, narcissism, relentless greed, arrested moral development, recurrent physical violence, materialistic obsessions, little or no capacity for intimacy or empathy, substance addictions, and emotional numbness. That’s quite a bit isn’t it?

What’s more, Plotkin notes that, ‘We see these psychopathologies most glaringly in leaders and celebrities of the Western world.’

It is a damning indictment, is it not?

Where are the guides and mentors then?

Just as humans have domesticated plants and animals, so agriculture has domesticated our adults.

Tame adults are never going to provide the necessary guidance for raising healthy humans in a healthy planet.

Notes:

1. Chellis Glendinning, My Name Is Chellis & I’m In Recovery From Western Civilization, Shambhala Publications, Boston, 1994

2. Paul Shepard, Nature and Madness, University of Georgia Press, Athens, Georgia, 1982

3. Bill Plotkin, Nature and the Human Soul, New World Library, Novato, California, 2008