Opinion/Editorial
AGAINST THE FALL OF THE NIGHT
Christmas is coming, and we need the meaning of that holiday’s intent to do our best in living our lives. Bliss is the word used by Joseph Campbell, the now dearly departed and famous anthropologist, to describe a state of being that is filled with inner warmth and a positive outer perspective about life itself. Campbell chose the word bliss over happiness to describe this state because he felt that the word happiness was too closely linked to the word happen. He believed that things happening, and the effect of things happening, implied external reasons for our self-feeling and outward projection. His presentation in teaching this important principle difference in responding to things occurring instead of radiating out from the very core of our interior was dramatic and could be overwhelmingly successful. This part of his body of work seemed to allow for human inner control over all conceivable manner of both human and non-human external forces and events.
As with most social theories, the teaching was both correct and somewhat inaccurate at the same time. We all know that there are some external events we humans cannot help responding to with devastatingly emotional responses no matter what our core resilience and values are. The impact of some things like a death in the family, being diagnosed with a terrible disease, being foreclosed out of one’s home, or even having a car repossessed can totally override any self-centered inner feeling or outward projection we may have attempted to hard-wire into our very core, at least temporarily.
These kinds of events, that touch us so severely that we must react with great grief, loss, or sadness inside and outside, I refer to as Life Impact Events. There are also lesser emotional stress forces I refer to as triggers, with respect to those other huge events. From accidents to combat the body of disciplines including psychology and psychiatry refers to such things as post-traumatic stress, and that is okay.
Christmas is coming and the event itself stretches out in real recognition over the course of almost four full months. The season is supported by our entire economic system as well as by most of our religious organizations. This holiday, our culture’s largest and most participated in, also serves as a trigger. So many of our people have had brutal harsh Christmas experiences during childhood. There are abandonment, punishment, alcohol, and drug-related issues. There are issues of extreme loneliness in the recollection of participants no longer living. There are Christmas trees erected across the lit, decorated, and waiting for no one to sing around or celebrate with.
For those people without family, with family long gone or those with only bitter memories of other people’s Christmas stories, the movies, the music, and the celebration itself becomes a hardship of continually triggered Life Impact Events. Where a great majority of the public is experiencing light, warmth, and joy, these people are fighting off awful feelings of slowly slipping and falling into a glittering and brightly lit dark night.
We must find and recognize these people. They will not come out and say who they are and, even if discovered, will not or cannot share what impact events caused them to turn away from bliss and face external and internal darkness. We must find these people and take them in. We take them in by radiating our love and care for them. We take them in by inviting them over for Christmas, or the days before or after. We take them in by giving them gifts and smilingly accepting the fact that they can’t or won’t give gifts in return.
Bliss is real and can be fashioned to make our core values shine with inner and outer warmth. Bliss is not a defense against our own Life Impact Events, as they can temporarily crush us back like they will any other sane human being. But having and recognizing bliss allows us to understand, recover and then pull back others from facing a brutal fall into that dark night. Merry Christmas can be more than an expression only shared during that holiday season. It can be the way in which we conduct life itself and affect others around us. Christmas seems far away, but it is coming, and so many of us in this culture can do such a great amount to hold others back from living on the edge of a fall into the night.
