I'm falling...
Falling...
Into the Nietzschean Abyss...
Quick...
Anybody have a trampoline...
A really, really long ladder...
A fire department...
A parachute...
Even a set of mountain gear...
Some shoes and gloves with spikes...
To grab onto the walls...
Perhaps a ledge...not that I've seen a ledge...
I can't see anything..
It just keeps getting darker, and darker, and darker...
I can barely see the light above me...
Does this abyss...
End in water?
Or hard rock ground...that is going to break all my bones...
And kill me...
Anybody got a super big, thick mattress...
That they can throw beneath me...
Perhaps this abyss...
Goes right through the earth...
To China...or Australia...or New Zealand...
Or more likely it ends in fire and rock...
Perhaps I will meet the Devil himself...
Did I do something wrong...
Go down a bad path...
Or make a wrong choice...
Make a whole bunch of bad choices...
To get me here....
Is this my 'Un-Divine Punishment'...
Or might I learn something down here...
Can I learn something about myself...
And turn myself into a better person...
My own personal Phoenix re-born...
Whatever doesn't kill you,
Makes you stronger....
How much deeper must I plunge?
And who or what am I going to meet down here?
Or is this going to end on a deathbed of cold rock...
Or burning lava...
Deep water maybe I can survive...
Although with my momentum,
I'll probably run out of air long before I resurface...
Assuming I resurface at all...
Is this a dream?
A myth?
A nightmare?
Please, be a nightmare!
And let me wake up!!
Now!! Before I have a heart attack!!
If I must be down here,
Let me at least walk around...
Not keep falling...
Man, did I ever miss The Nietzschean Bridge...
Even the Nietzschean Rope...
Anybody...give me a Nietschean Rope...
That I can once again feel some Nietzschean Hope...
Climbing is far better than falling...
Give me some mountain gear...
And I'll take on Mt. Everest...
Or let me land safely below...
And I will take on...
Narcissus...Dionysus...Even Satan himself...
The 'Unholy Trinity'...
No deals with The Devil...
Well, maybe some detoxified compromises...
(My bargaining power isn't very good right now...)
But I'm not going to sell my Soul...
Maybe I did already sell my Soul...
Maybe that is why I am down here...
I sold out on My Self...
I sold myself to The Devil...
Where did I go wrong?
What bad choice did I make?
Or was it a whole slew of them?
How did I sell myself to The Devil?
By failing my parents when they need me most?
By looking powerless and weak in front of my kids...
And in front of my long-time girlfriend?
Maybe I have become powerless and weak?
How did that happen?
By turning my back on corporate owners...
Who had already sold themselves out to The Devil?
Who every day re choosing Profit over People?
But in walking away...
I was making things worse for myself...
Throwing myself into this economic abyss?
Is a 'Personal Economic Abyss'
The same as a 'Nietzschean Abyss'?
Or are the two abysses just connected together?
Different holes down to the same landing pit?
Not enough money and you can't pay your bills properly...
Take your kids and/or your girlfriend out for dinner...
Help your parents out of their own Economic Abyss...
I feel weak inside...
I can't chase my existential dream...
Because I am too busy just trying to get out of...
My Economic Abyss...
'Recession' is too weak a word to describe...
The Personal Economic Hell that you feel going on inside you...
And all around you...
As you battle your personal demons...
And meet some of the people you need to meet...
To work your way out of your Economic Abyss...
And not the ones who want to keep you down there...
The psychology, economics, and politics
Of Insufficieny...and Deficiency...
For those who struggle with debt, taxes, lower work wages than what we were making ten years ago, inflation, rising food, gas, utility, and energy prices, insufficiency, and deficiency...
I take my hat off to those who are still doing well...
And its not all about money; it is also about health...
I have an ex-friend who I worked with for 11 years, and lived with briefly...
He has closed his condominium door to visitors, as he and his family deal with his impending death...terminal cancer, a virus...and/or whatever hit his body fast and hard...
It makes my complaints here sound pretty hollow...
And yet they are still real...
Just secondary to a devastating health plunge...
At least I can still fight another economic day...
And write about philosophy, psychology economics, and politics...
Lose your body, lose your mind...and you lose everything you have to fight with...
I struggle between economic, creative, professional, and personal battles...
But at least I can still write in Hegel's Hotel...
Write about Nietzsche and The 'Anti-Christ'...
Write about Jung and Mythology...
Write about Freud and Transference...
And still find a way to help my parents...
And take my kids and girlfriend out to dinner...
As long as we are living, breathing, and still have hope, energy, and willpower...
We can still climb our way out of Nietzsche's Abyss...
No Faustian deals with The Devil...
Are needed...
Just faith in ourselves, and what we can do...
Both individually...
And collectively...
In dialectic...
And pluralistic...
Union...
-- dgb, Nov. 12th, 2010,
-- David Gordon Bain
