01/06/2014
by Chaya Grossberg
When I was 5, an author came to my elementary school in Brooklyn and my classmates and I sat on stage like good little yuppie puppies and listened to her read some of her book to us. Then there was a question/answer period and I asked, “How did you feel when you got your first book published?” I remember few details and conversations from that age in such vivid detail, but that stage and question are among them. I don’t remember who the author was or what she responded. It was a time before the internet, before self-publishing broke loose on a large scale, a time when your words basically had to be published by someone else, some important out of reach company, and your ideas had to be likely to sell.
I spent a long time writing poetry and publishing my own books on a very small scale before social media and blogs became options for sharing my words. I took my passion for language mostly into the ethereal, magical world of my imagination, since nothing I said had much possibility of making societal impact-only my chosen friends and people I encountered at open mics would hear them anyway. And there weren’t many open mics for short essays, or autobiographically influenced political commentary. The small audience I had, at times, felt so limited and frustrating compared with how much writing meant to me.
When I was 22 I told an older friend of mine, “I want to write about every single thing that has ever happened to me. I want to publish TONS.” He said, “Well you’d better get writing, you’re creating a huge backlog right now.” At this time, as well as the instance when I was 5, I had no idea what would be possible with blogs, social media and self publishing. No. Idea. I thought my dreams were far-fetched, yet something in me still dreamed them and knew they were real. They were possible.
They were also without a doubt what got me labeled psychotic and forced onto psychiatric drugs. If I’d been more “realistic” I never would have devoted my life to something impractical like writing. I never would have brought boxes of my handmade books too heavy for me to even lift on a train from Massachusetts to New York. I never would have devoted a season to living with my father and putting together books with a hole puncher and screws and snail mailing them to 30 of my closest friends. I never would have demanded, in my less lucid moments, that my dad try to get them on display at the Brooklyn Museum. I was, without realizing it, in withdrawal from a neuroleptic at the time, so at least I have that to blame, in part, for my display of delusional thinking.
At the same time I was daydreaming of writing everything and publishing TONS (and actually writing quite a bit), there were likely millions of people around the world fantasizing about creating media of some form and sharing it with the masses in various states of “delusion.” The structures in place at that time could never have supported all of us, but we all dreamed. Without most of us knowing each other, we dreamed new possibilities into being, and now they exist full force, anyone can publish anything and we’re just getting started. We’re just sensing, many of us, how much possibility there is. We’re just learning what it is to be this free and starting to even wonder what is the most responsible and effective way to use our power and voice. These aren’t concerns most of us were privileged to have a decade ago.
There is another dream individuals are having now, masses of us, and that is a dream of vibrant health. Just as there was a crisis of voice until this past decade, where mainstream media projected only a sliver of the many important voices in need of being heard, there is a crisis of health and health care that is reaching its peak now. Most people I know are quietly hoping for access to all the resources, circumstances, practitioners and methods they need to be healthy. They are all out there in abundance, in fact there are more underemployed health care practitioners and thrown away organic foods, herbs and natural medicines than we can imagine, with incredible capacity for healing our bodies and beings in integrative ways.
At the same time as my dreams of sharing my writing with the world widely were seen as unrealistic, my dreams about health were ridiculed too. I remember feeling very very alone in 2000 when I wanted to use non-conventional methods for healing my body and mind. I had some kindred spirits at my hippie college, but no practitioners who I trusted. I was seen and talked about as “not believing in science or ‘real’ medicine.” It took this ‘real medicine’ (psychiatric drugs) nearly killing me, for my family to begin to trust that maybe I knew what was best for me. Luckily my strong minded, dreamy nature prevailed (after being subdued for a couple of years with psych drugs) and I started to encounter many opportunities for the kind of medicine that felt healing to me.
I see this collective dream of health being the next one to surprise humanity. We will soon see it is actually possible for us to get massages and acupuncture as often as we’d like (just one example of a possible health care desire), have our choice of health care practitioners we actually resonate with, who speak our language and have things to teach us (not just us to them) about our health (not just our illness). Most of all we will have thriving communities that support health so well, we will rarely have to look outside of them for supplementary, anonymous “care.” We are already seeing some of this with free/donation based alternative health clinics of various types and many versions of health care bartering and trading. My massage therapist friend trades massages for dental care. Some forms of health care, especially mental health services are illegal to barter for, but people are thinking outside the box and finding ways to get around these laws. Peer counseling is one example, and most mental health approaches can be converted into forms that can be practiced peer to peer. (See wisdomnet.com for an example). Thinking outside the box is indeed the key to resolving the crisis of health we are experiencing.
The democratizations of media and health care are far from 2 separate issues. In many cases, having a voice and expressing oneself to masses is the best medicine fathomable. We are already seeing some steps taken toward health care accessibility and options for all. Many of them have been made possible through free media online. We now have access to information about any form of health care we choose, as well as abundant free advice and testimonials from nearly infinite others. Using social media, we can also quickly get information we trust from people we trust.
Lack of informed consent, one of the major pitfalls in Western medicine, is no longer a valid excuse in most cases (thought there’s still forced treatment, lack of access to alternatives and the expectation a doctor will give us all the info we need and wouldn’t prescribe something dangerous or addictive). Still, in many cases all we need to have true informed consent is the desire for such. Most of the issues currently blocking people are lack of access to alternatives, poverty, not enough time for self care, and lack of support. And the biggest one I see is all of those combined with already being on pharmaceuticals for such a long time that they are nearly impossible to safely come off of. Still, with all the resources we could have available to support those coming off addictive or dependency creating drugs, I believe it is more than possible in many cases.
There are related socio-economic and political discussions that are beyond the scope of this particular essay, but integral to the conversation of access. I recommend Charles Eisenstein‘s work for a discussion on how our economic system can improve to create a healthier world. The more we learn, the better (no, I didn’t listen to the doctor who told me not to read, it would “only confuse me”), yet right where we stand we can dream of the health care we’d like to have. Many people didn’t know anything about computer engineering and website development, and still don’t, despite how necessary these things are for our new media we are successfully utilizing.
Right now, a healthy society is a pipe dream, as publishing our media to the masses so easily and readily at any moment was just over 10 years ago. Soon we will see quality health care and abundant health for all or most of us will be easily accessible. Until then, keep dreaming and envisioning, knowing you are far, far from alone in your fantasies.
