A Dear John Letter to Civilization

Posted on November 19, 2016 by

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Dear Modern Civilization,

I know you have felt this coming on, but it is clear to me that we need to spend some time apart. It’s not you, it’s me. Well, no, it’s almost totally you. It’s just that I can finally see you clearly.

I have developed the most wretched superpower: I can feel all your toxicity. It’s like becoming an X-man.  Legions of micro-organisms have mutated to adapt to the polluted environment. There are about 24% of humans who, like me, are genetically susceptible to biotoxins (lyme and its co-infections, mold, ciguatera and pfiesteria.) The biotoxins produced by micro-organisms are becoming more toxic in response to burgeoning chemicals in our environment. Anyone can get sick from them, it’s just that one in four of us struggle to heal. The biotoxin burden is in addition to the toxic burden from the chemicals themselves. One study found and average of 232 chemicals in the umbilical cord blood of newborn babies in the US.

So I’m so grateful that scientists have finally found a treatment that works for people like me who get really sick from biotoxins, but unfortunately a side effect of the treatment is an extreme sensitivity to chemicals that renders just about everywhere unsafe. I need to find somewhere that doesn’t have chemicals or mold, now that I am so hypersensitive. That’s why I need to leave you.

I have really always known something wasn’t right. But you are so cozy. Truth be told, I’m scared to death to leave you. I haven’t ever been on my own without hot showers and electricity for very long. I’m pretty rugged, as girls go. I have hiked the Himalayas, kayaked in fjords and camped by myself in super-remote locations. But I always got warm and clean afterwards. I always had a credit card and a plane ticket to somewhere.

I really love flush toilets. And the internet! OMG, I can’t even imagine going without that for very long. I have loved having my own private transportation vehicle that I can use day or night in all kinds of weather and the limitless ribbons of asphalt laid out for my travelling pleasure. I know it is only the tiniest sliver of evolutionary time that a single female human would be able to own one of these and hit the road.

I am aware that I am incredibly fortunate to have been born during this era and in this country, with all the luxuries that are considered normal. I really did enjoy it…even though I have always known there was something wrong with it. I have never really bought my own rationalizations and have despaired at my inability to live with integrity of what I knew to be true: living this way is unsustainable.

I have tried, really tried, to be more mainstream so that I could be happier with you. But I can’t rejoice in an expanding economy. I am horrified that humans are causing the sixth mass species extinction and that we are currently breezing right past the climate change tipping point. My meager attempts to mitigate the damage I cause just by being a modern American are inadequate. This I have always known. Recycling? CSA? Efficiency appliances? Come on now.

Yet I am still a human animal. I am fiercely and irrationally interested in the preservation of my son’s life, no matter what the cost. I am concerned with social justice because my fellow humans deserve dignity and safety and a fighting chance. But there are so many of us. I know. The non-humans deserve a shot too.

I have always known that indigenous people who live within an ecosystem without dominating it have a lot to teach us. What we are doing is clearly not going to continue for much longer. One hundred years, maybe? A blip. When I live my rural little life in coastal Maine, far away from malls and highways, I can almost forget that our clothing swaps and organic potlucks are not the norm.

When I come out into the mainstream, onto the interstate corridors lined with strip malls and franchises, I feel sick. Not only because I really am physically sick, but because the conventional opinion continues to be that this is ….progress. This is the progress of lemmings.

So here it is. There is always a leading edge, where the wave just starts to tip over and break. Likewise, canaries feel the toxic breeze first. Those of us with CIRS have developed the canary superpower of perceiving toxins that others can’t feel. What will follow in the coming decades is an avalanche of data to show that all of our major epidemics– Alzheimer’s Disease, Autism, Diabetes, Cancer and chronic illnesses–are being caused by or correlated with the complex toxicity in our modern environment.

Anyway, I need a break from you. Believe me, I have tried every option that would allow me to stay with you and with my son. Now I’m going to drive my personal transport vehicle to the very edge of you and see what the air feels like to breathe there. I found a place to camp in the high desert that has a flush toilet, a hot shower and wifi, but no mold and almost no chemicals. I hope it works to allow my system to calm down and become less sensitive. If it doesn’t work, (note from the future: it didn’t work,) and going the edge of you isn’t going far enough, I will have to figure out how to go feral out into the wilderness.

Holly

 

 

 

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One Comment on “A Dear John Letter to Civilization”

  1. Fine writing, Holly! I hope you’ll continue and keep us posted, too, on the “logistics” of this massive life change — tell us about your vehicle, your campsite, your daily processes, etc. I know you have a lot of people rooting for you! David sends along his hello, too.

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CIRS or ME/CFS

Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome, CIRS, is also known as “Biotoxin Illness” or “Mold Illness.” It is a relatively new illness that is emerging from the toxic response of some microorganisms to our modern, chemical-filled environment. Patients will often get a preliminary diagnosis of ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalomylitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) or CFIDS (Chronic Fatigue Immuno Deficiency Syndrome.) It is a harrowing illness to have financially, socially, psychologically and physically, but people can, and do, recover. This is how it all started: Ground Zero for CFS.

“Non-duality is the recognition that underlying the multiplicity and diversity of experience there is a single, infinite and indivisible reality, whose nature is pure consciousness, from which all objects and selves derive their apparently independent existence. The recognition of this reality is not only the source of lasting happiness within all people; it is the foundation of peace between individuals, communities and nations, and it must be the basis for any sustainable relationship with the environment.”

—Rupert Spira

“This isn’t at all about ‘revising’ the story you tell yourself about your life experiences. It’s about slipping into the space between the event and the story…. Nothing– no relationship, no phone call, no disaster or piece of good fortune– has meaning inherent to it. It waits for us to talk to ourselves about it.” — Jan Frazier 

CIRS or ME/CFS

Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome, CIRS, is also known as “Biotoxin Illness” or “Mold Illness.” It is a relatively new illness that is emerging from the toxic response of some microorganisms to our modern, chemical-filled environment. Patients will often get a preliminary diagnosis of ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalomylitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) or CFIDS (Chronic Fatigue Immuno Deficiency Syndrome.) It is a harrowing illness to have financially, socially, psychologically and physically, but people can, and do, recover. This is how it all started: Ground Zero for CFS.

“Non-duality is the recognition that underlying the multiplicity and diversity of experience there is a single, infinite and indivisible reality, whose nature is pure consciousness, from which all objects and selves derive their apparently independent existence. The recognition of this reality is not only the source of lasting happiness within all people; it is the foundation of peace between individuals, communities and nations, and it must be the basis for any sustainable relationship with the environment.”

—Rupert Spira

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“This isn’t at all about ‘revising’ the story you tell yourself about your life experiences. It’s about slipping into the space between the event and the story…. Nothing– no relationship, no phone call, no disaster or piece of good fortune– has meaning inherent to it. It waits for us to talk to ourselves about it.”

— Jan Frazier