It’s a gesture, dear, not a recipe.

I’ve been reviewing some ancient and prehistoric religious practices from an archeological perspective with the aid of Professor John Hale of the U. of Louisville. I’m especially struck by beliefs and practices concerning the dead. There are vast amounts of cultural differences, but the concerns are remarkably similar throughout time. Even Neanderthals appeared to mourn their dead and attempted to put their loved ones to rest rather than simply disposing of their lifeless bodies in an unfeeling way.

Many felt they were sending the dead on a journey and buried them with articles they thought they might need in the afterlife, such as the Egyptians. We still do that. Even now, people put things inside the caskets of loved ones. Do we literally believe our loved ones will wake up in another world with that teddy bear or photo? I don’t think so, but it gives us comfort for whatever reason.

Human sacrifice was sometimes involved. That is horrifying, but I guess we don’t like sending the dead into the afterlife alone. It might have been a cultural leap forward when that Chinese emperor was buried with a terracotta army. The emperor wasn’t sent into the great beyond by himself, but the sacrifices were symbolic. They didn’t actually kill an army of men when he died.

The ancient people who built the beautiful city of Petra wanted to celebrate their dead and keep their spirits alive, so beside their tombs, they built dining rooms. Friends and loved ones occasionally shared a meal with their dead. Others placed their dead right under the floors of their homes. Even now people sometimes picnic in cemeteries, and we still memorialize the dead with grave markers and the like, just as the ancients did.

Some were afraid the dead might come back, so they attempted to make it difficult for them to get out of their graves. This fear could be the reason we still bury our dead six feet under. And all of our stories about vampires and zombies stem from this basic fear. We know it’s irrational, but that doesn’t make the fear go away, so we tell scary tales and celebrate Halloween.

Throughout the ages, we have mourned the dead, created rituals to say goodbye, memorialized the dead, attempted to send them into the next world with creature comforts and tokens of our love, attempted to remember them and keep some aspect of their spirit alive, and feared them.

We are a strange species. Maybe our large brains have given us the capacity and the inescapable impulse to contemplate mysteries that can’t be solved. This might lead to practices that are sometimes irrational.  I think even ancient people might have realized burying someone with blankets and food is a little nutty, but they did it anyway. Is it so hard to understand? Is being dogmatically rational always a good thing? Doesn’t our impulse to contemplate the mystery of life lead to creativity and discovery? Isn’t it an indication that we’re aware of and curious about our predicament? Aren’t our rituals and practices rooted in empathy and concern?

Maybe taking such care to bury our dead is crazy. Maybe thinking about where we go after we die and why we came into being in the first place is crazy. Then again, maybe taking care of someone with a broken leg is crazy. If we were a purely intellectual and practical species, maybe we’d pitch our sick and disabled over a cliff so as to get on with the business of saving ourselves.

Nearly all of the practices and beliefs seem bizarre when you’re looking at them as an outsider, but humans keep doing these things no matter where they are or the nature of their culture. It’s part of being human. It’s the ones who concretize the symbolism and try to force others to accept their practices who ruin it for the rest of us.

There’s a great line from the movie Prick Up Your Ears (1987) about the playwright Joe Orton and his lover Kenneth Halliwell. After they died—Kenneth murdered Joe and then committed suicide—they decided to cremate their remains, mix some of their ashes and then scatter the ashes in a picturesque meadow. Joe’s sister was in charge of the mixing. Using a spoon, she scooped out some of the contents from one bag and then the other and added them to a communal can, but suddenly she stopped and said she feared she put in more of Joe than Kenneth. Peggy, Joe’s literary agent, said, “It’s a gesture, dear, not a recipe.”

Nightmares

A surprising number of “conservatives” are actually democratic socialists, only they just don’t know it. They’re all for tax money going to bail out large corporations when they fail. They’re all for huge public works projects like war and walls along the border. They’re all for regulating the private lives of “sinners” and for policing the disabled rather than banks which will be expecting a handout if they lose a hundred billion dollars.

I think government should be used to help the poor, provide education and training and to regulate business. I think the large banks should be broken up into smaller ones, so that if one fails, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. My father worked for a small, provincial bank for twenty years. It’s now owned by Chase, and the service the people in my hometown get from this bank sucks compared to what they got when people like my father were on the board of directors and making decisions locally.

I’m old enough to know better than to give my heart to any politician, and I doubt any Democrat would make all my dreams come true. Bernie Sanders would have a hard time getting most of his agenda through Congress, and I doubt Clinton would even try to shake things up very much. But I think a Republican might make my nightmares come true.

You can't simply look at someone and know what they're going through.

I have a huge amount of anxiety, especially in social situations. I avoid leaving the house, answering the door and talking on the telephone. I like it when the checkout person at the grocery store is polite but does not try to engage me in conversation. It is nothing personal. I just find the experience excruciatingly painful. And it’s not as if I don’t like people. I do. I’m often very lonely, and I enjoy being around people if I’m used to them and trust them. But it’s difficult to get to that stage when meeting people and getting to know them is so hard.

I also experience severe depression, sharp mood swings and vivid flashbacks.

When I was in my twenties, I tried very hard to lead a “normal” life. I went to school, had jobs, tried to socialize. And I went to therapists and doctors and tried a number of treatments. Some seem to think that all you need to do is “get some help” and all psychological problems can be fixed with a few sessions, and that quality help is available on every street corner. This is not the case. Some problems are intransigent, and sometimes it’s better to cope with who you are rather than trying to change who you are. Trying to fit in, and trying to do all those “normal” things when I was in my 20s, destabilized my condition. The stress was overwhelming. I was on the edge of oblivion most of the time. The best therapist I ever had gave me permission to stop trying so hard, and she probably saved my life by doing that.

When I was 31, a brain tumor knocked me on my ass for over a year. After the surgeries, I would often experience extreme head and ear pain when I moved around. Just getting out of a chair could cause pain. It was because of the change in blood pressure in my head. Even when I recovered from that, I still had Bell’s palsy, and I was hearing and balance impaired. And my surgeon warned me that I probably would never have a huge amount of energy.

A few years later, I started having strange pain in my lower abdomen. It turned out to be two hernias. One was repaired, and that helped a lot, but it still hurts if I strain or if I’m on my feet for long periods of time. Sometimes it hurts, and I don’t know what I did to make it hurt.

In recent years, arthritis has been causing me trouble. It’s still in an early stage, and I hope that it doesn’t progress, but aside form the pain and stiffness, there’s also mild fever and flu-like symptoms. That leaves me feeling tired. Many don’t know this, but depression and anxiety drain you of energy and strength. And the head surgeries took a lot of my energy, too. Now arthritis is taking even more. I’m limp as a rag doll half the time. Sometimes I’m so weak and tired, I fear I’m dying.

But I do the best I can. I try to make the most of my life. There are still many things that I enjoy, such as my online friends, finding and sharing beautiful images, movies and books, writing stories and yearly trips to nearby Yosemite.

Just from looking at me, you might not know that I’m struggling. If I come across as aloof, you might think I’m a snob. You might not know just how painfully anxious I am. You might not know that images of a traumatic or embarrassing event from thirty years ago are flooding my consciousness. You might not know that I’m about to have a panic attack, and I feel like I’m about to lose my mind. If you see me in the grocery store—that’s about the only place you would see me—and I’m slumped over my cart, you might think I’m lazy. Maybe the slack expression on my face might make you think I’m hung over. But I’m actually exhausted, and half my face is partially paralyzed. If you notice I have premium ice cream in my cart and other treats, you might think I have money to burn. But I don’t drink much alcohol because I don’t seem to get as much enjoyment from it as most people do, so I often use food to add just enough pleasure and distraction to help me get through the day.

You can’t simply look at me and know what I’m going through. And that’s the case with most people, especially those with disabilities. Often disabilities aren’t obvious.

Freedom, Baby

The working poor are often seduced by conservative rhetoric. They hear all that stuff about how government power needs to be held in check, or it will take your freedom, and you’ll become a slave of the state. They fall for all the high minded quotes about individualism and personal responsibility. They often lack the education to put those ideas into context. Yes, individualism is great, but government isn’t the only threat to individualism. The reason we have government is because there are other forces that could and often do threaten our freedom and even our lives. And no, I’m not talking about foreigners outside the country or minorities within. It escapes their attention that by consistently voting for so-called conservative politicians, they have helped shape a Supreme Court that has declared money is speech and corporations are people. When the Right feed them their freedom and liberty shtick, they’re talking about the wealthy elite having the freedom to do to the poor and the environment what they want without government interference.

The poor often try to boost their egos by imagining themselves as rugged people close to the land. They romanticize the past and like to imagine America reverting to its more rural, agrarian ways. But subsistence farming wasn’t all that wonderful, and given the growth in population and what we’ve done to the environment, living in a country where everybody gets their 40 acres just isn’t possible. Besides that, they forget that vast amounts of the land is now owned by the 1%. Do they think they’re just going to give them 40 acres? At best, they’ll be sharecroppers.

Little House on the Prairie was a fun show. I loved it when I was a kid. I’m sure it managed to portray some of the more idealized aspects of frontier life. But if you want a more accurate picture of what our society would be like without government regulation and programs, you should study up on the West Virginia coal camps of the early 20^th century. Work was hard and long and began early in life. Working conditions were dangerous. Workers weren’t out enjoying nature. They spent most of their days in a cold, dark hole in the ground that could collapse or explode at any moment. Workers were paid with scrip, so workers and their families had to buy everything they needed from the company they worked for. Workers and their families lived in cheap, company houses in coal camps. The postal clerk at the company store was a company employee, and even their mail was often censored. That’s not what I would call freedom.