Ten Days In “Civilization”

Less than two weeks ago, I left the jungle for the capital city. That was the first stage. A few days later, I landed in Orlando. That was the second. Later that night, Austin. The third. With each step, my nervous system tightens. I can cut the tension with a knife. Life in the jungle has become but a fading dream. Each morning I feel a little more empty, cold, flat, dead inside. Waves of a dark tide rolling in, waves that have yet to roll back out.

I can’t quite yet put my finger on it. Anxiety, delusion, ignorance, performance, ego, hubris. With each stage, my heart rate increases, my breathing constricts. “What’s wrong with these people!?” I keep asking myself. “How did I live here just a year ago?” So many asleep. I keep wanting to grab strangers by the shoulders and shake them and scream, “Wake up!” This is insane.

To be clear, what I’m feeling is fear, and it’s the type I consider to be healthy and that I listen to and trust.

Have I changed this much? Has the population? Both? As I read the US headlines from the jungle over the last year, I remember them seeming like a thriller movie. Now, the jungle is the fantasy as I witness firsthand this zombie plague emanating from city centers, spreading through suburbs like wildfire, everyone pretending everything is normal. Don’t Look Up and Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die nail it.

With each stage of modernity, I can feel the population’s increasing trust in and obsession with artificial systems, processes, technology, longevity, Mars, media...their fading belief in humanity, connection, nature, play...subconsciously putting their faith in a glimmering mirage as part of a vain attempt to create security amidst the exponentially increasing threat of the inevitable. Like a substance addiction, offering only temporal relief by feeding off the true safety it promises, trading reality and love for illusions and transactions. Truth and beauty and free will for convenience and cleanliness and control.

Each morning, I look at my phone, and there are two distinct worlds. One in WhatsApp — “Hola Andy, buenos días, como amaneciste?” my mechanic left me an upbeat voice memo this morning...“Hey good morning Andy, how’s your day going?” And the other in my US inbox — “what time lunch.” a friend has written.

I never really understood the word “materialism” until now. It’s a religion whose worshippers are drowning in its seduction, aloof to its existence. “What the hell is water?” to quote David Foster Wallace, to which I only add — you too have a choice of how to live.

I keep hearing Rumi whisper to me, “Don’t go back to sleep.” It’s taking every ounce of strength I have to keep my head above water, and even more to do it with compassion, which I’m admittedly finding lacking. “Solo con amor”, maestra’s whisper is slowly fading into the background. Anger is my last defense.

But my compassion for my clients and those more intentionally on a path of awakening is growing — “How do you do it!?” I’m asking. “Is it even possible??” For the first time so clearly feeling the straitjacket forcing itself back around my torso, the pressure of the cold rubber boot choking down on my neck. I’m not sure it is possible. For me anyway.

The other day my therapist played If This Is The End for me. I wept.

I’m using voice-to-text to transcribe this as I drive through the desert of southeastern New Mexico at 3 am, following the visceral desire in my gut that overcame me late “yesterday” morning to speed out of the city. A friend from Taos had called me “randomly” as I was in the thick of it and reflected back to me, “you gotta get outta there.” Thanks man.

And just now, coming around a bend, there was no artificial light visible in any direction under the clear night sky of the new moon. Suddenly my headlights illuminated a giant brown hawk taking off from the road in front of me. I braked hard and swerved. I slowed to a stop and turned off the truck. Got out. Stood on the dusty gravel barefoot. Breathed in the cool, dry air. Gazed up at the stars under the Milky Way.

“Ahhh, yes...” I exhaled. The tide switched directions. The first wave began rolling back out…

Watching and experiencing the climate, political, and technological events of the last few years, I fear this is the part of the apocalypse movie when all the animals are losing their shit, and most people don’t know any different. For some time, I’ve practiced living as if I only have five years left. Enough to need to pay the bills, not so much to take things for granted.

How will you spend your time? Me? Hanging out with friends in the high desert in between coaching and looking at return tickets to the jungle.

An old friend recently asked what it is exactly that I do in my coaching. For years, I’ve struggled to come up with a good answer. When I ask my clients, they’re at a loss for words, too. Many have said things like, “I didn’t have any idea what I was getting into. And I’m really glad I’m doing this now.” Something about the last ten days and writing this article has helped me find some words…

I help successful people be genuinely happy. Most folks’ baseline involves a low-grade tension, bracing they’re not aware of. I’m sensitive enough that I consciously feel in my clients what they don’t, and then I have the practice and training to frame it back to them in a revealing, helpful way. Over time, I teach them how to feel and tend to their subtle and difficult feelings on their own. This brings true peace, freedom, self-love, joy.

I have space for one more client right now. Drop me a line if you’re interested.