#systemcollapse

Yasmine Weiss - Art Brut

[yasmineweiss]

Longing for the Apocalypse Part II — Addiction Recovery and the End Time

A personal and global eschatology

[This text is the second of two parts. First part here]

The World

The funny thing about some types of recovery is that they open your eyes in a truly special way, and that was the case with me.

Because it took my whole universe to crash, because I had to experiment with a whole new way of living, of relating to myself and the world around, everything I had relied on in the past had been rendered useless for a while. Everything, or almost, was up for grabs. Only by realizing the extent of the damage, impending death, and above all, that I had no fucking idea what was good for me —or anyone else, for that matter— could I recover. Ego collapse at depth, as psychologist William James described it.

And with those fresh eyes, I started noticing the same patterns in the wider society which had informed my previous life —the ones I was, one by one, letting go of.

The patterns I’m referring to form a narrative which can be grossly summarized as follows:

Human beings are naturally bad (lazy, selfish, gluttonous, greedy —think Homer Simpson at best, Patrick Bateman at worst.) Our deepest instincts and desires are wrong and dangerous. We fear them in others, and above all we fear them in ourselves.

When something feels uncomfortable, we look for someone to blame. It must be “my fault”, or “their fault.”

So let’s control “them.”

Or let’s get a grip on ourselves.

Always, the solution is control, whether overt, insidious, or even well-intentioned.

Always, it is some kind of fix, quick and efficient if possible.

A substance, a pill, a doctor, a coach. More work, more studies, more education.

A trial, a sentence, a prison. More work, more sweat, more money.

An order, a penance, more guilt.

If that doesn’t work, more control, and a better fix. Provided we sweat it enough, provided “they” change/disappear/die, provided I “get it together,” we’ll be, at last, happy ever after.

That’s the gist of it. Like for myself in active addiction, that thinking barely reaches our consciousness, on good days —but it’s a way of life. Think of the political debate as a rule, the justice system, economic policies, the mental healthcare industry, the reflex of looking for the one at fault whenever there’s a problem… and individually, the self-blame, the New Year’s resolutions, diets, self-improvement programs, among literally countless examples.

It was masterfully described in the Ascent of Humanity, Charles Eisenstein’s magnum opus, and alluded to by an actual ton of other authors before him.

It’s the basic equation of our modern way of relating to discomfort: find problem, destroy cause, add fix. And incidentally, it doesn’t work at all —save, sometimes, for grocery shopping, I'll give you that.

Meanwhile, no need to have a third eye to notice that something is deeply wrong in our world. I’m talking generalized loss of meaning, escalating rates of suicide, depression, obesity, addiction, ADHD, breakdown of communities and massive loneliness, mounting dissatisfaction with work and marriage… not to mention the classic hungry children, wars and shitty industrial food systems —and the biggest baddie of ‘em all: ecological crisis. You know that song by heart, and it's reaching a crescendo.

No matter the numbing tricks we play on ourselves, a lot of us can’t shake the feeling that this here world is well on its way to hitting bottom. Meanwhile, our technologies are constantly raising the pace and scope of it all to vertiginous proportions. Add AI to that picture and have fun for a while.

And why? Because that’s the way humans are : greedy, selfish, lazy. Or it’s my fault, I should be happy/rich/beautiful/smart… I must be maladjusted.

Pushing against that goddamnn door …

… only to realize the sign reads : PULL.

A whole society based on addictive patterns, well on its way to hitting bottom.

Or in more soulful terms : a global apocalypse. That’s what I see happening.

You might have reached the same conclusions I have.

But maybe you haven’t, in which case, before you call me a crazy millenarian (not as bad as a millennial, but still) do hear me: I’m not saying that process will happen in the sexy-terrifying way depicted by Hollywood and the classic sci-fi of the genre. As the venerable Gandalf CG Jung has pointed out long ago, an archetypal image is rarely enacted in its full power and glory in the material world. But it does have the merit of uncovering an overarching pattern.

Also, that arch is cyclical and happens all the time, at micro- and macro-levels. Moreover, due to the complex and non-linear aspect of living systems, we have zero way of making solid predictions. But a global crash of existential scope seems barely avoidable to me —and probably to many of you.

And still…

What does that have to do with art?

For the longest time, my art practice and imaginary world were informed by individual suffering. More specifically, I focused on humans’ afflictions, and my work tried to invoke the light side of all that darkness – the beauty, and sometimes the humor of it. The cynicism I saw all around and inside. The feeling of having no future ahead of me. That’s the place most of my portrait work comes from, and it was healing to me.

(Diapsiquir's 180° record cover)

But for sure I had never even considered painting anything else than human beings.

And then this happened: three or four years before the end of my active addiction, I started having visions of sorts. That had never happened to me in the past – not that kind at least.

Visions of ruins and destruction. Empty streets and collapsed structures. Not a soul to be found. Complete silence.

And then those figures, not really human. Those beautiful, serene, faceless, deliberate figures. Who seemed to come after it was all over, after it was all lost. I still don’t really know what they’re doing there. But they seem to be initiating something. Some kind of process.

(The very first painting I made from those visions)

As my exes will tell you, I was never good at conclusions. I always feel embarrassed it took me so long to make my point, so by the time the end is in sight, I figure you guys aren’t stupid and get it already, so I stop abruptly. Call it TL;DR-shame.

But I now wonder if this is useful at all. If you feel you got a peek into how and why this work is profoundly magical to me. How it embodies deep grief, as well as sparkling hope, however nebulous that hope is. I wonder if you can see how poor a rendition of its muse’s message my work really is. I don’t feel worthy of this work, which is, paradoxically, the best feeling ever.

THE END

PS: You probably have no idea how grateful I am you exist, you who’s reading this. I wish you a beautiful day, night, or whatever’s relevant in your situation.

PPS: Uncle R., you’re a superhero.

For more on the topic of addiction and its archetypal dimensions, check this out.

For the most beautiful and sensible thing I’ve ever heard —or read— on our relationship to/longing for the Apocalypse, and how to navigate it, you could listen to this.

And of course, as previously referred to, the Ascent of Humanity by Charles Eisenstein. Or, if you don't want to struggle through a 600 pages behemoth, then this article will shed another light on the topic at hand.

[yasmineweiss]

Longing for the Apocalypse Part I : Addiction Recovery and the End Time

What is to give light must endure burning.

—Victor Frankl

A personal and global eschatology

I’m cold tonight.

Also I haven’t been (completely) honest.

I’ve never really told anyone what informs what I show to the world, what lies behind my work. I’ll try to amend that here.

I’m not used to writing, so to anyone reading : thank you, SO much, for your patience.

So. I’m an addict – that much has been made clear in the past (like here, and there.) A recovered addict, that is. A happy, saved, life-loving, people-loving recovered addict.

I also happen to be the spellbound, lifelong recipient of apocalyptic dreams.

Now, how are these two related? And more importantly, what does that have to do with anything? That’s pretty much the whole point of this text.

Apocalypse Sometimes

I'll start with the dreams. In truth, they’ve mostly been both apocalyptic and post-. Post-apocalyptic I mean.

I’ve had them throughout my life, and have written a bit about them here.

With a few notable exceptions, most of them haven’t been very original —except to me, for that powerful, numinous quality all dreams carry to their recipient. But as a rule, they’ve contained a lot of the same tropes found in the worst and sometimes best literature and cinema of the genre.

The storyline almost invariably goes like this :

1. A medium-long or swift disintegration, brought about by an environmental cataclysm, a pandemic (oh well), a nuclear/biological war, or an alien invasion, that kind of thing.

2. Followed by the death and destruction of most everything save for a few souls and the crust of the Earth (and a car or two, cuz hey!)

3. And generally ending with a glimpse into the rebuilding of very basic communal structures by the few survivors, who manage to find each other through guerilla tech communication and sheer chance.

Now here’s a first fun fact: timing and logistic details notwithstanding, that’s pretty much exactly what happened to me with regards to my addiction.

Purge is for Purgatory

My time in active addiction lasted 21 years, to be exact.

A year into that hell, I started trying to recover. I tried hard, and I tried everything : treatment centers, prescription drugs, all kinds of stuff starting with psy-, moving houses/boyfriends/friends/jobs/ideologies/habits/look, a strict regimen of AM-PM meditation practice... just to name a few.

I’ve already told you about the 21 years, so you know none of that worked. None, until the last thing I tried – the last thing I was able to try, really: by the time I found a solution, my body was breaking down enough that I didn’t believe I’d live to see another year. I had reached bottom, as they say, and got to greet the four horsemen : almost complete isolation, poverty, impeding death, full on despair and terror.

(Truly yours, close to bottom but not quite)

The way I see it, addiction is upside-down medicine : there's something demonic about it (I'm using this term in a technical/pragmatic sense, but you're welcome to replace it with "morbid" or "pathological" if it sounds too woo-woo for you.) You could call it a Faustian bargain : your soul in exchange for power. Your integrity for safety. Your dignity for a tiny shred of comfort. At the very least, it’s a cheating game. And as parents, teachers and the judge will tell you, it’s a losing game – but for some of us, it’s either that or suicide, so fuck ‘em for that time being, I guess.

Not that those 21 years were only the darkest hell. Although I did visit all of its circles at one point or another, many times were happy, fun or even almost normal.

Or were they? Barely. Under the adrenaline of a new relationship, a new self-help regimen or another change of scenery, lied the same old fear and despair, the same mad race for some kind of reassurance —any kind— as in my worst moments. I wasn’t even conscious I was terrified. I assumed my anger, my despair, my inconsistencies, my inability to stick to any kind of commitment to be my character, depressing as that thought was. I assumed my profound loneliness, alienation and heartache to be the sign that something central was deeply wrong with me.

For so long I thought I lacked willpower and that’s why nothing worked. But in truth, that wasn’t the issue. When I decided that being skinny was my solution, I dropped to skeletal proportions in a matter of months. When I thought I needed this or that to happen in the material world, I managed to obtain it, one way or another. When I was told I needed therapy, medication, a goal in life, I dutifully applied myself. Well, none of it ever fixed anything. It only made matters worse. And every morning the same deal:

Get up, bitch. We’re gonna starve today. We're gonna use tonight.

I thought maybe I was too stupid, hadn’t figured it out, and that’s why the recommended fixes didn’t work.

But every “solution” created problems more sophisticated than the previous ones. The more I struggled to break free, the deeper I sank. Every “fix” turned out to be at best another exhausting, pointless endeavor, but more often than not, each one added a whole new set of problems and dangers.

It was like being stuck alone in a dark room, trying to escape, pushing against that goddamn door… pushing harder, trying desperately, trying again, one more time, bumping my head against it…

OK, you get the picture. Now what I want to ask you is this :

Does this sound familiar?

Does this process, a mad race for some kind of solution, some kind of ease, some kind of —dare I say— redemption, does that sound like anything you know? Does that feeling of barely conscious terror, that feeling of life being deeply wrong, that sense of futility, remind of you of something?

I’ll contend that it might.

[This text is the first of two parts. Second part here]

[yasmineweiss]

In Your Eyes

... A little entry in homage to these luminous body parts we chase, long for, lock into and avoid, here's a selection of the many eyes I've drawn and painting over the years... and more to be seen here.

And as a companion gift, here's a beautiful podcast episode on the cosmic significance of eyes, on the one and only Emerald.

A little aperitif :

Eyes have always held sway over the human imagination — mesmerized us, scared us, inspired us. The windows to the soul, they’ve been called. They’ve been the subject of song and poetry, folklore and myth. Consciousness, in the Indian texts is repeatedly described in relation to eyes. These glorious visions of eyes and consciousness reach their culmination in the 8th century Netra Tantra, the Tantra of the Eye, which opens with a playful question about the nature of eyes and spirals into something far greater — cosmos and consciousness as one great, macrocosmic eye.

[yasmineweiss]

A (@#%!) GOOD ENOUGH preview of what's on the easel these days...

[yasmineweiss]

Swimming in bliss, working on this painting and listening to the wondrous Charles Eisenstein talking about gift economy and much more.

When I was a kid, my dad said I had received a gift, the gift of being an artist. He called it a gift ("un don" in French.) 

I remember taking it for granted as a child, and feeling a slight sense of responsibility. But later on, from puberty, in art school and later, I questioned that statement — for decades. Despite my resistance to asking hair-splitting, "how many angels can dance on the head of a needle" scholastic types of questions, the theme of gifting, of giving and receiving, of where the creative impulse comes from and how it's meant to be used and shared has been on my mind for a long time.

But those things aren't solved with the mind - however active. Can we trust ourselves with our gifts? Can we trust they will have a positive impact at all? I don't know. But I'm starting to suspect that art making, as a whole, is a gift activity by default, a natural expression of gratitude and care for all we're receiving.

It was always my first and favorite answer to the Sun, the Moon, the Beauty of the world. It's not a defensible answer. It's unjustifiable. People and the planet, the animals, the plants, the soil – everyone is suffering left and right. But we still make art and can’t justify it. Or maybe, in a way?

[yasmineweiss]

A Song of Longing

[yasmineweiss]

The Proper Task of Life: How Art Can Save the Soul of Humankind – Keith Gilmore

A beautiful little audio/article on what art's good for 🎶

Here's a long quote to set the scene:

"It doesn’t take a long hard look to see that our culture is in crisis. Or more accurately, that our culture is sick. This isn’t a judgment; what I mean is that the culture has a sickness. Yet every sickness has its symptoms, root causes, and avenues of treatment or amelioration. What then is the nature of the sickness that is afflicting culture?

What we live among is what we interface with daily. This goes without saying. In our current culture we live in cities with crowded high rises, in towns with soulless strip malls, surrounded by billboard advertisements. We live in homes filled with plastic trinkets and the omnipresent glow of screens. We walk on streets littered with garbage. We have to take a drive to become immersed in nature. This may not be everyone’s story, but it’s the predominant story of our time.

We work at factories producing meaningless plastic stuff—or in cubicles designing or selling it— all the while feeling that we’re wasting our time. We sit in front of the TV and are advertised to, relentlessly distracted, and told by newsreaders how terrible and dangerous life is. We sit behind computers and phones and are advertised to moreso, dazed by infinite algorithmic suggestions, and reminded how unattractive and miserable we are compared to contrived figments.

Is it any wonder that we ourselves are sick? We share in a cultural illusion that assures us, “Just find the right trinket to take up the right space and you will become whole. Just become the right cog inside the right machine and you’ll finally belong”.

In the face of it all, we know in our hearts that none of this is right. In our moments of clarity, when the clouds of our sick culture’s phantom disperse, and the sunlight shines on our true human selves, we understand that the situation we’re in is untenable and intolerable. Still, the scope of the situation is enormous. Are we afraid to ask what even can be done?"