Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
really fucking normal
sometimes the veneer of “really fucking normal” starts to wear a bit thin.
i seem to be having insomnia every sunday night, a precursor to re-entering the city for the week, and last night was no exception. awoke with a sense of forewarning i would like to chalk up to a sleep-deprived edginess that made me nervous in my darkened house as i got ready for the day.
stayed late in the city tonight as i had to go the public library to pick up a cartload of books i put on hold for the ecopsychology essay i’m hoping to get started on shortly. there is something about december in the city that always makes me just a little bit more hopeless with each passing season – the worn patina that washes over the urban, flaking like gold-plating from the cheap metal below.
as i walked up the great pathway into the library, (for those of you who don’t know vancouver – it was designed to look like a massive roman colosseum), i was seized with an almost overwhelming desire to stand on the stone steps and rant nonsensically at passers-by – about our nature as critters, as wild things -how cities are unnatural – how we don’t belong in these cages of concrete anymore than whales belong in tiny aquarium tanks performing tricks to get fed, or grizzly bears in limited enclosures poked at by human do-gooders on their way skiing for the day. i wanted to shake each person who walked by me and make them see – make them understand – make them confirm that it is not me who is crazy to hear those wild animals inside all of us, but our society for suppressing it.
but of course, i did no such thing, and like a normal person, which i am (so fucking normal) – entered the library, paid my fines and walked out with a stack of books on nature and the self. i went into a restaurant and ordered sushi, reached in the bag and pulled out a book at random, scanning it quickly for something that might be useful in that moment of self-subjugation.
this is the quote that came out at me as i leafed through the pages:
“If every individual had a better relationship to the animal within him, he would also set a higher value on life”
Carl Jung – from Civilization in Transition
exactly.
One Comment on “really fucking normal”
Red Cedar 
I wish you had done your rant. I wish that all of us who are watching the citification of nature could come up with something compelling to say.
Thanks for the post, and good luck!
mw