Psychonomic Civilisations

(continued) …For the teenagers, everything outside of the city was nothing but a cheap resource to be exploited, and their arrogance grew day by day as they descended into a spiral of addiction and mental illness, often exacerbated by the city itself.  Instead of abandoning their concrete fortress and returning to the village, they would choose to stay here, in this concrete hell, and somehow build their life upon, and around, their mounting addictions, obsessions, and psychoses.  In order to work around their mental turmoil, they would in fact end up creating a civilization where all of these psychoses were not only considered normal, but would eventually become useful skills.  They would become the bedrock of social and political organisation.  This would be a civilization where the most psychotic and unstable personalities were welcomed and, would in fact thrive and attain leadership positions.  They would be the most successful individuals, leading the way for humanity and enabling people to live not necessarily a happy, but at least a functional existence within these brutal, soul-destroying cities.  These highly psychotic, yet highly successful individuals, would keep the city going and ensure the growth and establishment of humanity’s economic system, the psychonomy: a place where almost any and every psychosis is a talent waiting to blossom.

But the problem with highly urbanized societies is that personal happiness was defined largely by comparison to the closest neighbour’s possessions and achievements.  There is absolutely nothing personal or “real” about this type of happiness.  There was always another neighbour who had more wealth, and who became yet another reason to feel unhappy.  The city’s residents would consequently sink into further unhappiness, which made them pursue more addictions and psychotic behaviours.  This of course made the psychonomy stronger, more diverse, more resilient.  It began to grow together with humanity’s escalating psychoses, forming an intricate and increasingly specialised economic web of mutual exploitation.  Civilisation became incredibly complex.

Today, humans have become resigned and adapted to the anxiety, depression, greed, schizophrenia and loneliness that they have largely brought upon themselves. They have successfully erected a civilization, economy and society which are almost exclusively powered by a wide assortment of mental illnesses, masterfully disguised and rebranded as skills, talents and inclinations.  This is why, although many people are successful, they still feel that something is missing: their long-gone sanity.  Our civilization has been built on the successful exploitation not only of our talents, but our psychoses too.  All of us to an extent have made a career out of the multiple psychoses that undoubtedly come with having such a huge brain.  

If at any point a citizen of the city wakes up and realizes that they are in fact mentally unstable, there are many painkillers which can help them go back to their “happy” sleep: drugs, alcohol, Netflix, and an endless, almost infinite assortment of consumer products which will distract them, and reward them for being such a good sport for taking all of this mentally-burdening urban abuse on the chin.  

George is an author, researcher, molecular biologist and food scientist. You can follow him on Twitter @99blackbaloons 

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