Thursday, January 17, 2013

FINDING HOMES FOR OUR SQUARE PEGS


What I wrote about the fall may have been influence by the introduction a colleague of Tom Cowan’s, Sandra Ingraham, wrote for Yearning for the Wind.

“Once upon a time a spell was cast upon people across the land. The spell made people believe we are all separate beings with no connection to each other and no connection with nature or the rest of life. … Happiness only came from financial gain, collecting material objects, and having power over people, the animal world and all nature.”

How else can you explain the attitude that would turn this country into an armed camp? That our neighbors and the people around us are so dangerous we have to be armed to the teeth.

We don’t know what made the Connecticut shooter tick. But, who knows? A thousand years ago he might have been happy in an enclosed monastic order copying manuscripts. At the beginning of the age of exploration he might have been a well known map maker.Two hundred years ago he might have been a mountain man. Who knows? I do know that there are fewer and fewer places in our society for the square pegs. And more and more people who would have been productive members of society in the past are labeled “defective” and shoved to the margins.

There must be a better way. There has to be.  

2 comments:

Lisa :-] said...

...and there doesn't seem to be any type of "defective" personality that cannot be cured by some psych-active drug. Honestly? I wonder what kind of medication that boy in Connecticut was on or had been on in the past?

JACKIE said...

And I wonder about the interactions between drugs, the additives in our food, the chemicals leaching from containers and the crap in our environment. It can't be good.