by Gabor Mate
Firstly and right off the bat, I haven’t read this book but before you dismiss me as a heathen, please do read on for I have many more reasons upcoming that will confirm your original assertion! Such as having listened to Gabor’s long, drawn out thoughts on humanity in his beautifully lazy Hungarian lilt on the Joe Rogan Podcast on a number of occasions. Gabor is a great listen, occasionally blackly and hilariously funny and always a forever churning mind, rearranging his next response or utterance whilst occasionally turning the table on the interviewer and asking for their views or life experiences. But in this upside down world that is so upside down it’s upside down squared, I’m probably cast as a heathen for listening to Joe Rogan, an American comedian. It’s a crazily inverted world, isn’t it?
Secondly or to be strictly accurate, thirdly, I listen to another of America’s finest comedians by the name of Jimmy Dore, and I guess that makes me a heathen too. Lefty, socialist comedian Jimmy Dore is now painted as some kind of right wing radical and I guess that sums me up too. The absolutism of free speech is so right wing darling!
A bird needs two wings to fly. There is no left or right wing in a One Party State and we all need to stop believing our lying eyes. We are our own saviours and we are our own worst enemies. The characters on our telescreens may wear a differing colour of rosette, they may even be strangely orange coloured with a funny name. But they all serve a single “rules based order”.
So I’m a heathen, a godless one too, but I watched the video linked below during the livestream in the week and more recently last night, and I felt it worthy of some pithily penned words here:
This was probably the third or fourth long form interview I’ve listened to over the years, and of Gabor’s distinctive eastern European linguistic twang. It remains a delight. Engaging, insightful, thoughtful, existential. Funny. Irreverent. All this and so much more. But what made me grab instantly for my dog eared notebook was that this conversation was speaking to me, and although I dislike that tired old cliché I’m using it as it’s true.
I can’t possibly do justice to such a huge book and a huge book, lest we forget, I haven’t read. But the interview linked above spoke to the person who’s taken up residence inside my head, and if any of the following rambling and random notes strike a chord with you, I highly recommend the interview above.
To condense such a vast range of topics into a paragraph or two is a test for a verbose writer such as myself, but here goes. As the title of the book (and video interview) suggests, it’s largely the recovery and healing from trauma in an inverted and upside down society. Gabor doesn’t overly go into specifics or conspiratorial tittle tattle, and the closest he gets to this is a long, thoughtful observation that both 2016 USA Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are dealing with their own past traumas, but on a world stage. On my singular stage, I’m dealing with a childhood trauma and hence the interview spoke to me. As Gabor meanders beautifully through the interview, he links the chains and dots that connected and resonated so thoroughly with me. He posits that traits such as people pleasing and fear of abandonment are key signs of a past trauma, alongside having a somewhat reactive mind, a sense of danger I’d argue, and being overly sensitive, dreading uncertainty and the most confirming of all for me is a need for authenticity.
That hit home most of all and was a theme Gabor returned to time and again, the need to be authentic. I’ve been talking with a counsellor now for over three years and after having sporadic counselling for over two decades and the word and nail on the proverbial head that my recent angel on my shoulders always comes back to during our Monday evening chats is: authenticity.
Gabor also posits, if he may allow me to mangle a few of his words together, that our experiences and traumas have become labels to be worn as a single identity by a toxic society demanding of more and more labels to further divide and conquer an already conquered populace. We’ve been “trained” to label ourselves and within this I’d argue is a learned helplessness and perhaps our people pleasing needs are exploited in an unspeakably evil way. Gabor touches on the “disease” of loneliness and depression whilst Jimmy Dore argues there’s a Jungian aspect and an unconsciousness universal mind. I’d argue the theories of projection are far more sinister, not merely the actions of an oppressor denouncing you of the actions they are taking, more an oppressor delighting in inverting their actions and their societal language of symbology, marvelling at their control whilst offering the freedom we were all born with.
Deeply and darkly humourous (Editor’s Note: This is spelt correctly and although deemed “non-standard English” apparently, I’m damned if I’m following those rules) at times, feel free to follow the words of a heathen and treat your ears to a rational listen on the plight of our human family.
I try to be authentic and the trying drives me insane. Jokingly monikered “The Explainer” by the second love of my life, this is the people pleasing me, explaining why I’m about to say what I’m about to say! The current angel on my shoulders says that I always start a sentence after a long considered pause followed by a self deprecating statement and then presumably a profound statement for the ages. Two of the above three observations are true. I’m not explaining, I’m awkwardly trying to people please and I’m tying myself in knots in the process. I’m recovering from my own trauma whilst hating and fearing change and the abandonment that skips hand in hand with the grief and loss of the centres of my world. I have to be me, I have a want to be wanted and I have an overwhelming desire to be front and centre of the party congratulating me on being me, whilst I cling like a wallflower looking shyly at my shoes at my own party.
I try to be authentic and the trying drives me insane.
The authentic me has written these words. The wannabe writer and creator and thinker of wistful thoughts. The happiest me has also written these words. I am sat across from my beautiful son. We are each lost in our own respective worlds but we are together. I hear his laughter and squeals of delight. I endeavour to entangle words in a digital Matrix as I try to make him laugh and fear the looks of embarrassment rather than huge smiles!
I’m people pleasing and I’m as authentically me as can be.
Thanks for reading. There’s over 500 articles now within the cave of wonders that is my archives. Here are my three most recently published musings and ramblings from within The Matrix:
Is this the last post for Twitter?
Twitter Watch Vol 13: Five days of madness from the madhousemedium.com
“Moon” revisited from the dark side of Sam Rockwell
Duncan Jones cinematic debut is still a disturbing joy.medium.com
Local boy in the photograph
The unreliability of memory and the stories we tell ourselves.medium.com