Relaxation

As we approach the grand curve of new road which leads into the thoroughly pretentious mall called Melrose Arch in the frosty dark of a Winter's morning, we see the sign emblazoned right the way around the battlements which look down over the highway. Mercedes it says, and then some model number which I'm not interested enough to remember. And the badge. Don't forget the badge. It tells you all you need to know about the owner's taste and depth of integrity. That both are practically non-existent, in my opinion, doesn't make the three-story high advertisement any smaller or any less tacky.

But I notice something this morning about my reaction to the ubiquitous advertisements for cheap stopgaps that is different. I am relaxed.

I have almost gotten used, by now, to my body's reflexive reaction to this trash - the muscles tense, the stomach becomes acidified and the heart beats arrhythmically. I get anxious, in other words. Or angry, to look at it another way.

 In my first years of realising exactly the extent of the insane ecocide which industrial human culture is perpetrating upon the Earth, I would see the signs of madness all about me-the strident advertisements for more useless, lethal junk; the nouveau riche glitter and tinsel in clothing and adornment; the inculcated enthusiasm for the latest gadgetry...all the passions and artistry which should be going into living well upon and with the land misplaced into grotesqueries of marketing culture. The people who hunger after these sleek new machines, who work themselves silly to be able to own them, are reduced to pathetic little heaps of near-transparent souldom in my eyes. I have, to be absolutely honest, nothing but contempt for the people whose thoughts reach no higher or deeper than material wealth. Although, as I have just pointed out to my partner in another context altogether, there is always hope for human people.

I think the lack of anxiety signals from my body on confronting the lethal machine is a sign that I have truly taken onboard the fact that we live in a completely insane culture. My body no longer, in other words, has to get the attention of other parts of mySelf through histrionics.

And that's a good thing. It says to me that I am as deeply committed as ever to the principles of Deep Green Resistance - which state, inter alia, that industrial civilization is deadly to all life on the planet and that most human people brought up in it are, naturally, insane - but that I can stop trying to underline these facts to myself. I believe them fully, have integrated them into my deepest being, and have no body/mind/soul conflicts about them.

And that, of course, I would literally give my life to help bring about the downfall of this unholy mess.

Pic: from the poster for End:Civ