20/20 – Virus Vision (2)

Obstacles
In my previous post, I described how the response to the Corona Virus had affected me. This post describes my opinion about what is keeping us from moving forward as a result of the change that is upon us.
According to documentary film maker Adam Curtis in his 2004 ‘Power of Nightmares’ trilogy, he believed that politicians had given up their role of visionaries of a better future.
Instead, they favoured the role of protector against enemies who are often difficult to detect.
The terminology used in recent weeks by the UK government has continued this theme, describing the Corona virus in such a way.
And this role becomes more effective if signals of fear are generated and amplified as they have been by the words and images used by the mass media.
As is well understood, our brains are designed to detect threats. It’s a key part of the design that has enabled humans to exist.
And when a threat is perceived, our adrenal system is engaged. Then, as Bessel van der Kolk explains in his seminal work about trauma ‘Your Body Keeps the Score’ the first of three levels of safety is sought:
1) Social help. In other words we look for help from others. If that is not possible (think isolation), then we move to:
2) Fight, flight or freeze. Again, if that is not possible (think Lockdown) then we go to
3) Withdrawal, helpless and hopeless (think the collapse and surrender of an antelope to a lioness)

This ‘keeping us safe’ design has enabled us to survive as a species but it was only designed to be employed in short bursts. But having certain thoughts stimulated by uncertainty then generate more frequent, even continuous feelings of anxiety, worry and fretting.
These in turn continue to produce adrenaline and cortisol in low levels which then affects our body sensations which we then interpret as anxiety. And so the loop continues.

What’s driving the fear?The fear of catching the virus and feeling ill is present but I’m detecting something more than that.
I believe it’s the ego’s fear of death. We have become used to paying attention to the ego’s strident, insistent tone which I think is a distraction.
As soon as our ego appears in our lives, it knows a dreadful truth; that its days are numbered.
And dread is what it experiences and spreads, for it knows that the one true certainty in life is that it will die along with our bodies but it does not know when or how.
As an attempt to convince us that it knows what path to tread with certainty, its voice is loud, familiar, relentless, yet beneath the bluster is a deeper truth which causes worry, anxiety, fear, concern.

So what has happened to our ability to trust and to have faith in that which is bigger, deeper, wiser than our ego?
We have been schooled out of our confidence to trust the signals from our bodies by constant repetition at the dependent stage of our development that parents, carers and teachers know better than us

From Polarisation to Integration
The big challenge and opportunity before us now is to move from Polarisation to Integration: from Dependence through Independence to Interdependence.
We seem stuck between the child like dependence and a teenage style independence.

The former relies upon obedience to what we have been conditioned to believe is a greater source of intelligence: other humans whose search for positions of power and influence are often egotistically driven.
This adds to a general distrust, scepticism and cynicism at worst.
Distrust follows, then unease, even disease – or at least to our susceptibility to illness as these factors weaken our sense of security and our physical immune system.
Most of our family, education, health, social care and work systems are built around this stage rooted by our conditioning.
This is like the baby elephant tethered to a post that when grown to an adult, it could easily uproot but its infant conditioning continues to prevail.
Or we become like the rebellious, disagreeable and disobedient teenager, saying no because we can, saying yes to the activities and experiences that carry risk. And through that ferocity we seek to achieve escape velocity from the ‘post’ that we believe has tethered us for all these years. After all, as Joseph Campbell reminds us, ‘we humans are born 13 years too early’.
And if we don’t do that, then what other path to pursue?
I’ll share my thoughts about what type of path we can take in my next and last post about this topic.