High Anxiety in the Androgynous Age

What nervous times these are! It seems that the "War on Terror" has become a "War For Terror." On every level (global, national, local, interpersonal and intrapersonal), we are facing the mechanisms of our demise. Everywhere I look, I see victims. But, long before September 11th, 2001 (I know that seems like an eternity now!), there were advanced methods for social manipulation. September 11th is only a recent opus, a social sculpture that represents the completion of our vivid paranoia.

We live without sufficient modes of communication or role models for emotional security. So, either emotional instability is the actual norm or we are living in a world of emotionally insane individuals. It is likely that you were taught various repression strategies in your earliest years in order to fit in with the either/or-model of Male/Man/Masculine and Female/Woman/Feminine. We have learned that to "fit in" means that our thoughts have to fit nicely into mutually exclusive boxes (masculine/feminine). Originally, you were confused and compelled to generally conform to a preexisting social system and expectations as derived from the customary manipulations (conscious attempts to change YOUR behavior and perception) by family, friends, teachers, bosses, religious figures, etc. The payment for your conformity was money, food, sex, friends, job--to a large extent, your survival. However, in your experience, contradictions between your natural inclinations and socially correct inclinations arise and you are temporarily unsure of yourself: this is the origin of our current mass confusion. The cultural-brainwash usually reigns supreme and you are engaged in a violent inner struggle. Fear, doubt, shame, addiction, and depression are products of the overwhelming dischord between your natural-self and your social-self. This is hypocrisy. Repression appears like an answer in the guise of the Angel of Forgetting. But it merely cloaks the inclinations of your natural-self into secondary pain channels to mask the origin of your misery. It's messy, it's internal, and you are the master of your repression. As more repression accrues, the social-self inflates and the natural-self recedes into anonymity. When the natural-self is evoked, it often is expressed as overwhelming, uncontrollable, irrational, and insatiable; I imagine this is the origin of many neurotic or psychotic features.

Luckily, to deal with this organ of our self-imposed repression, we have invented anxiety as a biofeedback module for indicating this internal hypocrisy! Anxiety has become a standard facet (and trusted response to the WORLD) of our emotionally repressed condition. Anxiety is characterized by episodes of varied intensity (from mild discomfort to extreme PANIC). Anxiety is based squarely in and around our concept of the future. Anxiety portends of some undesired--yet personally compelling--future and elicits a strong resistance to this possible outcome. Anxiety, in its later stages, becomes self-perpetuating. One experiences an anxiety about confronting anxiety. In a sense, the repressed circuit becomes complete at this point; the actual issue is entirely obscured and the internal indication of this hypocrisy is totally avoided. Therefore, I also caution against using anti-anxiety medication as a general rule (however, I understand that there are times when nothing else works and a semblance of sanity is required before any personal work can be effective). We need to start a process for locating the source of the anxiety and bringing harmony back to our inner-selves if we hope to weed out the roots of our repression.

Astonishingly, the postmodern era has produced an increased sense of the social androgynous and I think there is hope in this motion. The highest form of revolution takes a concept and merges it with its opposite. Even the most rigid of social systems, man vs. woman, has had their exclusive discourses slowly eroded and eventually combined. Postmodernism signifies the end of mutually-exclusive living. We coexist at last! Only since the aftermath of World War II, have we started to integrate a new social exercise that can transform our tragedies into comedies and vice versa. Instead of fearing that life is chaotic and meaningless, we celebrate the truth of a contradictory world. Now, the more fundamental a thing becomes, the more volatile too. Every action is that much closer to a prayer! Every sin is sacred! Think about how Buddha laughs so heartily in the midst of so much suffering. That is truly compassionate! In this increasingly androgynous era, the kernal of repression is the seed of the sitcom.