In my imagination “The Internet” descended from the deep reaches of the universe and settled upon our planet like a mist. We began to interact with this powerful and mysterious entity without any real understanding of how it was going to effect us, or even if it was going to effect us. Most of us just assumed it was going to make things better, amplifying potential in a good, rather than harmful way.

However, it hasn’t exactly worked out that way. The astonishing gifts we’ve enjoyed have come with tremendous penalties, the primary of which might be a massive, unacknowledged mental health crisis.

I don’t know about you, but I have never seen as many declarations of anxiety and depression in my life as I now see on a regular basis online. It’s not at all uncommon for me to have multiple chat windows open at once, each one a conversation with a friend in crisis. This is highly subjective of course, and that people now have the means and social sanction to communicate their feelings might be something to celebrate, or, as my intuition suggests,  it could be something in the disembodied interactions we’ve been reducing ourselves to that’s causing this articulated spike in mental health problems.

It seems that the more we inhabit the abstracted realm of The Internet, the more certain we become of our beliefs. This is highly ironic to me, because we all know that amidst the spin and swirl of disinformation, fake news and uncanny algorithms, we should be as skeptical of claims to truth and certainty as we’ve ever been.

Take the White Power symbols that have been in the news.

As you may be aware, the symbol that you always thought meant “OK,” might now mean White Power.

This transition took place about a year ago on 4Chan, where it was conceived as a conscious lie. What I mean by that is that it wasn’t a White Power sign. The intent was to take an existing symbol and change it’s meaning, thus confusing the public and media and further eroding the idea of public trust.

Regardless, once this meme was in the blood stream there was no way to know what the use of the symbol meant. Did the person know it was a white power sign? Were they just saying “OK!?” Were they making a joke? Were they communicating racist ideology?

The first instance of this that I saw was of White House Advisor Zina Bash during a Supreme Court confirmation hearing.

Based on this image, people thought she was a White Supremacist.

Bash is of Mexican and Jewish heritage, and this photo that was widely circulated was a high resolution screen capture of a video, so she was in motion, not in a fixed, posed position. Claims that she was communicating a racist message seemed to me ambiguous at best. But people I know, like and respect saw this photograph, and others like it,

as crystal clear evidence of racist intent. Where I saw nothing but ambiguity, they saw none.

It felt like looking at the Neckar’s Cube, like some optical illusion was at play and the mechanics of our brains were prohibiting us from seeing the same thing.

There was simply no consensus on what was real. We were living two different stories when looking at the images. Where I was looking at what was directly in front of me, my friends were looking at circumstance, or perhaps subtext, seeing this single image as part of a much greater and evolving narrative.

Perhaps I am antique in my thinking, but when I see stories like these, I look for a kind of “courtroom proof.” If I have doubt, I am unwilling to prosecute the reputation and livelihood of the person being judged, even if they might still be suspicious to me. Maybe that makes me unwilling to act, and if so that is a sin I will one day have to answer for. Regardless, online a “thing” is true if it has momentum, if it supports the continuance of a passionately held belief, not if it meets some “clinical” standard of proof.

As our shared sense of truth and morality fall away– and disagreement leads to suspicion, if not flat-out contempt– we fearlessly share our certainties, but shamefully keep our uncertainties sheltered within, anxious that we’ll be attacked rather than supported by those whom we would love, and that, well that’s making us all feel a little jumpy and untethered.

What stunned my class most about the book was the casual attitude the characters had toward slavery. I mean, how could they not know that slavery was an evil? Nothing could have been more clear to us, nothing. Slavery was pretty much the most evil thing we could think of, and it was mind-blowing to imagine that this wasn’t vividly reflected in the experience of our ancestors.

And so we figured that people back then must have been hateful and stupid monsters, willfully acting in their own best interests at the cost of others. And so we judged everybody in the book, imagining ourselves morally superior to the louts, trolls and insane people who populated the past.

But this didn’t make any sense.

There was absolutely no reason for me to think I had a more finely developed sense of morality than anybody who came before me. There must have been some decent people who participated in slavery and had no idea that what they were doing was wrong, no? They were simply living in the world into which they were born, and to them slavery, like the weather or landscape, was an unexamined fact of life rather than a conscious act of moral will.

This seemed clear to me. I was not unique. I was like everybody else, and that, of course, is a very scary thing to admit to oneself.

Technology has accelerated and amplified our culture in ways that are inconceivable.  Every year it seems that the world has changed more than in all the previous millennia stacked before it. It’s dislocating, and I often think of technology, in particular our online lives, as an emergent dimension we don’t yet understand or know how to interact with. Whenever we’re uncomfortable or bored with our physical lives, however briefly, a smart phone serves as a magic wand we can wave to take us to this other realm, and put in that context, none of us should be surprised to find discontent, even anger there.

Our desire for social justice has far outstripped our ability to deliver it, and in many ways I see ideological conflicts as dimensional clashes rather than moral ones. By the standards of today, so much of what we as a society did just ten years ago seems appalling, but as we judge it’s worth remembering that ten years ago we had no idea what we were doing was wrong or unfair. We were just operating within the framework of time and place. So how then to police this if every generation, indeed, every person, is going to be witlessly complicit in ghastly acts ?

Of course, revolution is not about justice, it’s about change.

And as the future and the past battle for supremacy in a ruined present, it seems that the only way it can end, the only way it has always ended, is like in a Shakespearean tragedy—everybody on stage dies, and then, the world purified and laid bare, is seized by those, now done with watching, who had been waiting in the wings.

It was a cheap, addictive entertainment.

Like Netflix.
Like porn.
Like the buildup to the Super Bowl.

The big event, as far as most media was concerned, was the landfall in Florida. This, it seemed, was the point to which all of our lives were leading, the apocalypse that was sure to prove whatever it was we needed proved. Days, perhaps even weeks before this happened, there was wall to wall coverage promising cataclysm. I learned to fear the “Cone of Uncertainty” and “Life Threatening Winds,” I listened to talking heads as if they were debating some sport, and I watched relentless loops of footage of nature destroying any puny mortal concerns that stood in its path.

And as the hurricane carved out it’s terrible path, each demolished, little island a grim foreshadowing of what was about to happen to over-populated and under-prepared Florida, the hurricane was simultaneously a prophecy of doom and a trailer for a Hollywood disaster film. Almost giddy, each day the broadcasters revealed– in all its punitive majesty– another verse in this Book of Revelations.

The media, of course, profited from our obsessive fear, and turned the volume up as loud as they could. The more clicks the better, and if it was terror and anxiety that ushered in these clicks, so be it. At one point a rain-soaked reporter, bent and staggering against the elements, conducted an urgent interview with a man who had not evacuated. Clearly the reporter was hoping for some Florida Man archetype to emerge from the scrub, a guy who looked like Kid Rock and was armed with a crossbow and some alligator mace, and wasn’t going to let some “lady storm” tell him what to do.

Instead, the reporter got a genius cardiologist, who with astonishing knowledge, detail and reasoning, explained precisely why it was safe to be exactly where he was. He was calm, too, not a trace of panic to him, and he made the reporter look like the very bad actor he was.

That the media manipulates and distorts news events, or even creates disaster porn, is nothing new. When 9/11 took place I literally could not take my eyes off the tv.

It was the most riveting thing I had ever seen, and it was a rating’s sensation. Now, with all our various technologies even further entrenched, this sense of chaos and anxiety has become a permanent, immobilizing fixture of our lives. The media, desperate to make a buck, feed us all the worst case scenarios, whipping us into a frenzy of panicky, dependent consumption.

My level of excitement had reached such heights that when Hurricane Irma finally struck Florida, I was actually disappointed–like I would be if I saw a movie where the trailers were better than the actual product they were selling.

This is completely perverse and backwards, but there you have it.

It is instructive when you’re caught in the swift currents of one of these types of stories to look up beyond your computer screen and out the window.

Remind yourself that we are actually living in the safest time in history.

( https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-10-23/world-actually-safer-ever-and-heres-data-prove )

Go outside, for surely something beautiful will fall to you.

Well, the time has come!

Having experienced many medical crises in my lifetime, I know a thing or two about the chattering beast that is anxiety. However, my story is one of hope, as I was able to conquer my anxiety using a variety of techniques that I hope to share with the public.

This is a partial transcript of Anxiety Nation, my first podcast:

(Introductory music of Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie plays)

“Hi, I’m Michael Murray, host of Anxiety Nation!

It’s on this podcast where I hope to create a safe space for you, a place where we can openly share our experiences with anxiety and strategies to overcome it. Although I’ll be our guide on this journey, I want you to know that we’re all equal partners in this voyage, and that it will be always be a collaborative, team effort.

I just want to take a moment to identify our introductory music, the classic Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie. It’s just an amazing piece of music. Although its true the artists who brought us this great song both died before their time, and that we’ll all die much sooner than we expect, you shouldn’t let that cold, barren fact alter your mood! No, that would be NEGATIVE thinking, and we’re about positivity here!

“Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.”

Helen Keller said that.

She was deafblind.

Imagine that.

She couldn’t see or hear her enemies approaching.

Anyway, if Helen Keller could manage her anxiety, then so can we!

Okay, how’s everybody feeling? Good, I hope! Before we proceed with today’s lesson, I just want to remind you that you shouldn’t still be thinking or obsessing about how Freddie Mercury and David Bowie died.

It was from AIDS and cancer for those of you who might have forgotten, and it’s true, these diseases kill without prejudice– they just take you. Anyway, that should be out of your heads! DON’T FOCUS ON THE NEGATIVE, because by doing that you can start a cycle that’s nearly impossible to break.

Okay, let’s clear our heads of death and disease.

Let’s all close our eyes, take a deep breath and think about all the beauty that Freddie Mercury and David Bowie brought into our lives. Breathe in the good, exhale the bad, breathe in the good, exhale the bad.

Good. Feel better?

Yes, yes.

Okay, I’ve created a 21 day program that I’d like to share with you that should help alleviate any anxiety you might be suffering and put a little spring in your step.

Day 1

Drink eight glasses of FILTERED water each day. It’s very important to stay hydrated. Your mental health is directly tied to your physical health. They say Freddie Mercury weighed less than 100 pounds at his death. David Bowie probably did, too. People associate weight loss with health, but really, when most people die they’re at their thinnest. Just something to think about.

No tap water, by the way. Chemicals in there. Heavy metals and God knows what else. Tap water is VERY dangerous. Just look at Flint, Michigan.

You must drink FILTERED water. Eight glasses. Nine is too many, something could happen. Just drink eight.

(Beeping sound from a phone goes off)

Jesus! What the hell is that??!!

Does anyone else hear it?

(Something falls and a dog begins to bark hysterically, podcast ends.)

Heather:

When I was initially diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease I characterized it as an act of terror.  By doing that I abnegated any responsibility for my circumstance. I did nothing wrong—there was nothing I could do to have prevented the disease, it was like getting on a bus that just happened to have a bomb on it.  I did not feel weak.  I did not feel that I was to blame.  It was a random, utterly arbitrary occurrence that just happened to have victimized me.  It would not come back.

When it did come back, my sense of disease as terrorism intensified.  It became a manifestation of fear.  Cancer was the terrorist bomb that could explode within my body at any moment.  I became jittery and tentative—vigilant to anything out of the ordinary.  I lived in fear, and I lived quietly, unwilling to make commitments to people or things, I locked myself indoors for worry of the terrorist threat within my body.

I am trying to stop that.

As always,

Anderson

In all, I spent nearly a month in hospital, and a very long winter just became very much longer and stranger. I was on a staggering array of medications, drugs that served to lend an already dislocating and vulnerable experience a trippy, unreal quality, more dreamscape than actuality. To compound matters, I spent about half my time on the rehab wing of a Francophone hospital where all of the other patients were about 30 years older than I was. Separated from language and the tribal, cultural connections of people in your age group, I drifted about in a hazy, timeless limbo.

At any rate, I returned home to Toronto on April 5^th, and on Sunday Rachelle, my sister and I drove down Queen Street to Trinity Bellwoods Park, and as we were passing familiar landmarks, it felt like a million years since I had last been in Toronto. It wasn’t that things looked different, but rather distant, remote as if seen through a smudged lens, and the feeling extended to my own life, too. I felt like a lived in a different country, even from myself, and the best I could do was quietly watch those in the midst of their lives.

The park was full of hopeful people, all there to soak in the first hints of spring. However, the park was barren, an ugly, pre-spring absence of colour, and everybody was colder and less comfortable than they thought they’d be, but they were there all the same, and so was I, all of us waiting for the light to fill us once again, and that, that was the important thing.

In talking to a doctor about this, it was suggested that I try Mindful Meditation as a way to help ground this impulse, the idea being that I’d learn to live more attentively in the moment and bring some stillness to my life. I should state that that I am the opposite of a Mindful person, by which I mean I barely exist in the moment, possessing an analytic mind that almost exclusively inhabits the future or past, and that slowing down and not thinking—just “being”–is virtually impossible for me.

Before the classes began, I had an orientation session. The waiting room had rugs on the wall, constantly flowing water, plants and little statues of Buddha all over the place, emitting an aggressively, “mindfully” organic ambience. The woman who walked out her office to greet me had a creepy tranquility beaming from her eyes and looked at me with unnerving sincerity. She spoke in an even, robotic voice that never varied. It was creepy, like Nurse Ratched, and it made me nervous, and the more she talked in this manner, the more anxious, almost angry, I felt myself becoming.

Her: What are you doing?

Me: (Hastily putting away my iPhone.) Not being Mindful?

Her: What would a Mindful person be doing?

Me: Experiencing the fabric of the chair I’m sitting on?

Her: That’s good Michael, now follow me.

Me: You know, the music in the waiting room surprises me.

Her: That’s interesting, Michael. What is it about the music that causes you such anxiety?

Me: Well, it doesn’t make me anxious, it was just something I noticed.

Her: (Silently staring back at me, waiting for elaboration.)

Me: With the whole Buddhist thing going on here, all the fountains and enforced serenity, I did not expect AM radio to be playing.

Her: I see. What did you expect?

Me: Maybe Brian Eno, some gentle, distant gongs, perhaps, but certainly not somebody excitedly trying to sell me cars, you know?

Her: Have you started your Happiness Jar?

Me: No, I forgot. I’ve been really busy.

Her: You haven’t been Mindful.

Me: No.

Her; I want you to think of something you’re happy for, write it down on a piece of paper and put it in your Happiness Jar when you get home, okay? Michael, tell me, what are you happy for?

Me: My iPhone.

Her: How about this blue, shining day, this day that just is, are you happy for that?

Me: (An angry sigh, and words now tense) Yes. I am happy for this blue, shining day, dammit.

As we were waiting, two people inside the exhibit started to pound desperately on the wall. The security guards manning the installation jumped into action and opened the door, and amidst a spill of balloons a guy and girl emerged, each one in a panic, shaking and pawing at themselves as if covered in worms.

Rachelle looked over at me, “You’re going to freak-out, aren’t you?”

“No,” I said quietly.

“It says right there on the wall that people with claustrophobia shouldn’t go in. You can’t see at all in there. It’s nothing but black balloons, and if you’re prone to anxiety, it might not be the best experience for you.”

“I’m not prone to anxiety,” I whispered.

“Pickle,” Rachelle answered, “you have sweat on your upper lip and your left eye is twitching, just like when you have a good hand in cards. Are you sure you want to go in?”

I went in, dissolving into the balloons.

The acoustics were muffled and you really couldn’t see anything but the latex exterior of the black balloons. Dislocating rather than threatening, it was still an uncomfortable feeling. I moved slowly about fanning the balloons away as best I could, but they immediately reconstituted around me as if trying to attach and feed–an assembly of   jellyfish clustering. It was disorienting and as I inched along the perimeter the room became denser and hotter, the air feeling remote and less accessible. I had no idea how to get out or how large the room was and I was starting to feel a little anxious, and then  I heard somebody softly crying. I thought it might be part of the exhibit, but I wasn’t sure.

“Is somebody crying?” I asked.

“I’m fine, “ a woman said,  “sorry.”

I shuffled along the wall toward the voice, eventually coming into contact with somebody slumped to the floor.

“Do you need any help?”

“No,” she answered, “I’m okay, thanks. I’m not panicked or anything, just a little emotional. My mother died recently and whenever I was feeling lost, she was always there to help guide me, you know?  It’s a silly thing, but this just brought her right back to me. I’m really fine and sorry for the little scene.”

And then I heard her get up and move off into the balloons.