Carolyn Baker: No Longer a Lunatic

It’s the same with everyone I speak to who’s been watching the downward spiral of empire for any length of time: “I can’t believe how fast things are unraveling”, we all say to each other. The incessant mantra these days from people who haven’t been paying attention is that “things are going to get better”, but almost no one is denying that we are in uncharted waters beyond anything we’ve experienced since the Great Depression. The uninformed are traumatized, and traumatized people almost always revert to “it’s going to get better” thinking in order to cope with their current plight.

I continue receiving emails from former students and former readers of Truth To Power which essentially state, “We thought you were a raving lunatic when you were telling us this stuff five years ago, but everything you said would happen is happening.” Included in these comments are reports of foreclosures, bankruptcies, lost jobs, loss of student loan funding, medical bills that can never be paid off, applying for food stamps, regular trips to food banks, illnesses that cannot be treated because of lack of insurance or funds, depression, rage, profound ennui, and a sense of meaninglessness.


My reaction to this feedback is not “See, I told you so, stupid!” but rather deep feelings of compassion and sorrow. I’ve been a fringe person for most of my adult life, thinking outside the box, and generally living ahead of the curve. I don’t say that arrogantly because there’s always been a price to pay for living on the edge. Yes, I’ve been a prophet but a prophet among many other prophets who began their journey long before I did and learned a lot more, a lot faster.

It’s easy to point fingers at the perpetrators-and fingers definitely must be pointed, but then get lost in raging against “the New World Order” that orchestrated this nightmare. It’s easy to get caught up in egoic “I told you so’s”; it’s much harder to breathe deeply many times a day and take into the cells of one’s body the reality of what’s happening and how quickly. It’s more challenging to allow oneself to feel the pain of other humans, animals, and the ecosystem itself. For me, it very quickly becomes overwhelming, and I have to step back, breathe again, and think about what more I can do to help alleviate the suffering we’ve all participated in creating. Yes, we’ve all participated-we’ve all colluded. The word collusion simply means “co-illusion”, that is, the sharing of an illusion.

Speaking Truth To Power