Hello World…

November 20, 2021
192 Comments

Greetings and salutations! Welcome to the inaugural blog post for Modern Chimera. It is named so because I have had a fractured life, and I very much identify with a “grotesque” Greek mythological creature that has the body of a goat, the head of a lion, and the tail of a serpent. (Sometimes it has wings, although not in classic art.)

Three heads! It is a creature made up of disparate parts. It is, “one of those creatures that ancient legends say used to exist… where many different kinds are said to grow into one.”


Here is a classic chimera:

Chimera of Arezzo, from alchetron.com/Chimera-of-Arezzo
Modern, interpretative Chimera From forgottenrealms.fandom.com
(Many modern depictions don’t just include wings—they include an entire dragon!)

Plato said for the sake of argument, (inventing a debate between his great teacher, Socrates, and an opposing rhetor Glaucon), that the soul has three qualities: a human, a lion, and “one of those creatures that ancient legends say used to exist … [such as] the Chimera, Scylla, Cerebus.” The ultimate injustice, Plato argued, was to feed the lion, feed the monster, and starve the human. Instead…

What will give the inner human being the greatest mastery over the human being, to get him to take care of the many-headed beast like a farmer, feeding and domesticating the gentle heads and preventing the savage ones from growing?

I see my soul before me as a beast. Unfortunately my creature has fully-formed heads. The human tries to remain in control. And after twenty years of therapy, I’ve made a bit of headway. The human aspect remains very active. Plato might be a little bit proud. He said (through Socrates):

“When someone claims… that doing what is just brings no advantage, lets tell him that he is saying nothing than that it profits him to feed well and strengthen the multifarious beast, as well as the lion and everything that pertains to the lion; to starve and weaken the human being, so that he is dragged along wherever either of the two leads; and not to accustom the two to one another or make them friends.

The human is sometimes dragged along; and sometimes the snake is fatter than the lion. Are we friends? At least we communicate. Part of me is scared of true unification, or the disappearance of any of the other heads. This is how I am now. As long as I nurture the human being and keep her strong, and as long as I don’t allow a dragon head to attack someone, I think I will have done well.

I don’t want to imply that I have dissociative identity disorder, by the way. My flavor of mental illness is quite different, although still very disruptive. You’ll get used to my metaphorical language use! (And my extra ‘u’s in words, betraying a British heritage.)

A little more about me:
I am at the bottom end of Gen-X, but I spend a lot of time in the skins of those of other generations, as well as those of other colours and classes. A self-proclaimed antiracist who is terrified of the existential threat the climate crisis brings, I watch, powerless, as politicians play games with the countries and people’s lives. To borrow a quote from Doctor Who, they are keeping busy with the washing-up while the entire house is burning down.

So yes, armchair-activist, antiracist, and in possession of a serious mental illness. That about sums me up, if you throw in menopausal and adult onset hip dysplasia. I’m sometimes a naturalist; sometimes a spiritualist; and sometimes religious. I do believe in science (aka natural philosophy), and I’m also very fond of nature. I write a lot. I’ve been physically disabled for long stretches of time in my adult life and am on the precipice of entering another multi-year surgery/recovery/rehabilitation routine, which scares me.

What will this blog be about?

Many say “Write what you know”; this blog will feature brain disorders/mental health—an area I know a slice of intimately. There is likely to be a substantial autobiographical element: because what is a blog for if not to unleash an inner narcissist in the guise of “providing entertaining content”?

I will undoubtedly write about politics and world events. There will be elucidated or debunked memes, quotations, and stories, short quips, and longer essays on obscure historical facts or resolving lexical ambiguity. Unfortunately for many of you, the blog might feature posts on leadership theory & technique—a particular passion of mine.

I will write using a mixture of footnotes, hyperlinks, and APA 7. One is supposed to pick a citation style and stick with it. I’m sticking three citation styles together. It’s important to source facts. (I’m a big fan of facts.) I don’t care how many realities or realms you dwell in, if you can’t find your way to the collectively-created peoples’ reality on Earth and recognize it for what it is, you might want to try a different antipsychotic. Or stop watching OAN. If one side says they are right, and the opposite side says they’re right, at least one side is wrong! America is truly divided. I’m pro-science, but that does not mean I’m not at all pro-faith. I actually am in possession of some religious beliefs.

Although the fact is, we are living in a post-truth world, aren’t we? Plenty of people can’t seem to find that collectively-created human reality, don’t even believe in careful reasoning, and don’t care to try. All they do is speak the “truth” of their own crackpot “reality”—the alternative narrative created because the real one is undesirable. The only reasoning accepted is instinctive reasoning, not careful reasoning. In other words, these people are unreliable sources for true information. (I feel so sorry for philosophers living in America today.)

Debating a post-truth person is pointless. When you ask about their ideas for resolving the fact that in 2019 there were 23,941 people who suicided by gun—that suicides account for 60% of firearm deaths—they answer “avocado!” Oh, they might waffle on about the second amendment or “it’s all about mental health”; but their wordy, incoherent non-answer to you might as well have been the word “avocado” for all the useful, relevant information it conveyed. They provide red herrings—fallacious arguments—not solutions.

There is the greater problem that there are too many people who, upon hearing this nonsensical “avocado,” interpret it to mean something that speaks to their cause. And since all they care about is their cause, avocado-man becomes a success even though he never answered the original question about guns and suicide. And there are a lot of avocado-men and women in politics at the moment. And way too many people who support them.

I’ll publish cute things, and short posts featuring facts and philosophy. (Did I mention that I like facts?) Why should you care about philosophy? It deepens the mind, allowing you to have even greater, more profound experiences. You understand in much greater depth the various connections on this blue, green, and plastic planet. If those aren’t enough reasons, how about that it’s the oldest academic subject, giving birth to science and the other disciplines? Philosophy means “love of wisdom”; Above all else philosophers seek out truth and well-reasoned arguments. I myself am not a trained philosopher, just a fan.

To close this post, who famously said the following well-known philosophical phrase?
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever”
(I’ll give you a head-start: it wasn’t Gandhi.)

Laters!

  • [1] Plato Republic, C.D.C. Reeve (ed). Hacket Publishing Company, Inc. p. 292.
  • [2] Ibid.
  • [3] Ibid.
  • [4] Plato Republic, C.D.C. Reeve (ed). Hacket Publishing Company, Inc. p. 293.
  • [5] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm