Before coping can be discussed, there exists an entire array of mechanisms we can employ to avoid the sense of any need to cope, chief among these being denial. There are many forms of denial as well, including willful and naïve, self-serving and, arguably, altruistic, as in, I can’t bear to think of those I love suffering these things and therefore I must deny their existence.

Our psychological health or lack thereof is a subject heavily implicated in the state of the world to day, in fact. We see many accusations abounding of psychopathologies, narcissism, addiction, and, at the root of all of these, perhaps, the loss of moral compass and a proper reverence for life and/or a properly optimistic approach to the living of life. Most mental health professionals seem to be in agreement that as a society we are experiencing a decline, overall. The question arises as to whether this is cause or effect. I suggest that it is both, and that we are caught up in a sort of snowball effect.

One wonders (or I do, anyway) if the apparent loss of care and concern for one’s neighbor that has crystalized into certifiable forms within certain political ideologies might be the ultimate cause of the forseeable demise of, not just some segments of the population that are viewed as deserving of rebuke and even death (if it should come to that and it clearly could as the result of policies being pushed where they are concerned), but of our entire species along with many others.

Jesus said ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’, and perhaps for reasons well beyond the hopeful ‘feel good’ effect or even entry into the kingdom of heaven after a life well lived. Jesus may have conveyed that message out of love for us as a species, knowing that, if we should fail to heed that advice, we might ultimately fail as a species. It seems entirely likely to me that Jesus was speaking to us from that vantage point as one of the main aspects of His love was that it was not a love for one, or even for a many, but for everyone.

Before you get the wrong impression that I am a ‘Jesus freak’, I am not, although I don’t have much argument with the statements attributed to Jesus and do believe that, whatever or whoever Jesus was, His intentions were beyond reproach. Some of the concepts as to who or what Jesus may have been that I entertain are way beyond a belief in Jesus as a Messiah. I seriously wonder if Jesus may have been an extraterrestrial (more on Ets later, but this theory dispenses with one big problem I’ve had – which is the so-called ‘virgin birth’) – that’s how far my mind has opened over the last decade plus.

So, I’m not concerned that the reader might think I’m ‘out there’. Know it, I am ‘out there’, because there is nowhere else to be when in search of answers to the big questions of any age and especially our’s today, I think, with all of the culminating events and their effects that we are forced to grapple with somehow. Hence ‘coping with madness’ is what I hope to accomplish. I’m not afraid to consider anything that might help me to make sense of this mess we are in today and believe that is what it will take to do so. There are no nice tidy answers or we’d have found them already.

I believe that the snowball effect may well have started when all of the norms and mores of our past were thrown into questionable service as a result of all of the easing of our need to stay connected with the earth for survival brought about by the ready availability of fossil fuels and continuing up to and through the technological advances that are on the brink of running away from us collectively if they haven’t already.

We aren’t, perhaps, able as a species to handle these break-throughs on a strictly physical plane of existence and we may not be ready, on the other planes of existence they require of us, to handle them, besides. This is not a novel idea, but presented here in the simplest of terms, because I think ‘keep it simple’ is a good motto on this course of inquiry. It’s already exceedingly complex enough. But, it’s true, I believe, that without solid mental health, including a reliably good moral compass, our technology might prove disasterous for us the same as it did, as lore goes, for Atlantis.

People say ‘technology got us into this and technology will have to get us out’, but I suggest that involves a belief in some sort of ‘ghost in the machine’; whereas, I believe that we must be the inhabitors of the machine and not some sort of ghost that might well be from hell. Most ghosts are not in a ‘happy place’ if you haven’t noticed.

Yes, I may be running amok with hard to follow metaphors, etc., but that’s appropriate enough, these days, what with the snowball bearing down on us and all, so I hope you will bear with me or at least enjoy some of the ride, as in “I may be going to hell in a bucket, but … at least I’m enjoying the ride” Bring on The Dead.

Which reminds me, Jim Morrison definitely seems to have a place in this story, what with his unending fascination with death and notable psychopathology – a true ‘God’ for our times. Just listened to The Doors boxed set and it really scratched an itch I wasn’t even aware of having – long live the Lizard King. He too may have died for all of us, although he bears no other ready resemblence to Jesus Christ, to be sure.

We can see our shadow selves through the journey he takes us on with his poetic lyrics. And, I have to agree with Jung, our failure to examine said shadows selves might be the cause of our ultimate downfall. Jung had a deathbed vision of our times which was none to pretty (add him to the list!) and to his mind it was due to this failure to examine our shadow selves. So, get out The Doors and take an enjoyable, if at times squirmy, listen.