The Myth of Normal 30

serene. “What’s this all about?” I shouted to my companion over the cacophony, shaking my head in exasperation. “Trauma,” he replied as he shrugged his shoulders. Ruppert meant, simply, that people were desperately seeking an escape from themselves. If trauma entails a disconnection from the self, then it makes sense to say that we are being collectively flooded with influences that both exploit and reinforce trauma. Work pressures, multitasking, social media, news updates, multiplicities of entertainment sources—these all induce us to become lost in thoughts, frantic activities, gadgets, meaningless conversations. We are caught up in pursuits of all kinds that draw us on not because they are necessary or inspiring or uplifting, or because they enrich or add meaning to our lives, but simply because they obliterate the present. In an absurd twist, we save up to buy the latest “time-saving” devices, the better to “kill” time. Awareness of the moment has become something to fear. Late-stage capitalism is expert in catering to this sense of present-moment dread—in fact, much of its success depends on the chasm between us and the present, our greatest gift, getting ever wider, the false products and artificial distractions of consumer culture designed to fill in the gap. What is lost is well described by the Polish-born writer [*] Eva Hoffman as “nothing more or less than the experience of experience itself. And what is that? Perhaps something like the capacity to enter into the textures or sensations of the moment; to relax enough so as to give oneself over to the rhythms of an episode or a personal encounter, to follow the thread of feeling or thought without knowing where it leads, or to pause long enough for reflection or contemplation.”[16] Ultimately, what we are distracted from is living. It Didn’t Start with You Helen Jennings, a sixty-seven-year-old resident of the B.C. Interior region, is caring for her two grandchildren, their father—her son—having died of an overdose. Her other son suffered the same fate. As I interviewed her, it occurred to me that Helen even being willing to speak with me was remarkable, knowing my view that addiction originates in childhood trauma,