DROWNING

People need Ordering Principles, 

and Chaos otherwise beckons.

- Peterson

I hate it when They drown me....

— Buffy, The Vampire Slayer

LUTHOR :

Krrrrrryptonite..!!

You're asking yourself, "How?"

Didn't your dad ever teach you to look before you leap?

Crystals. They're amazing, aren't they?

They inherit The Traits of The Minerals around them... 

kind of like — A Son 

inheriting The Traits 

of His FATHER !

Look buddy, we sent you there 

to die, but ya' had to come back . . . 

Oh yeah. All those photos? 

Those stories about 

Krypton still existing? 

It was me. 

And him.

Lex looks toward Stanford. 

Thankfully, 

The Press doesn't check Facts like they used to.

 

Hey,  you took away five years of my life. 

I just returned the favor.

SUPERMAN :

I'm still Superman!

SUPERMAN REVENGE SQUAD :

Get up! Come on!

Now, fly.

•STABS HIM WITH A KRYPTONITE SHIV AND SNAPS OFF THE BLADE•

LUTHOR:

So long, Superman.

“We require RULES, STANDARDS, VALUES 

— alone AND together. 

We’re pack animals, 

Beasts of burden. 

We must Bear a Load, 

to justify our miserable existence. 

We require Routine and Tradition. 

That’s Order. 

Order can become excessive, 

and that’s Not Good, 

But Chaos can swamp us, so we drown — 

and that is also Not Good. 

We need to stay on 

The Straight and Narrow path. 

[I seek,] Therefore [to] 

Provide A Guide to Being There. 

“There” is The Dividing Line 

between Order and Chaos. 

That’s where we are simultaneously 
Stable ENOUGH, 

Exploring ENOUGH, 

Transforming ENOUGH, 

Repairing ENOUGH, 

and 

Cooperating ENOUGH. 

It’s there we find The Meaning that justifies 
Life and its inevitable Suffering. 

Perhaps, if we lived •properly•, we would be able to tolerate the weight of our own self-consciousness. 

Perhaps, if we lived •properly•, we could withstand the knowledge of our own fragility and mortality, without the sense of aggrieved victimhood that produces, first, 

Resentment, then Envy, 

and then 

The Desire for 

Vengeance and Destruction. 

Perhaps, if we lived •properly•, we wouldn’t have to turn to totalitarian certainty to shield ourselves from the knowledge of our own Insufficiency and Ignorance. 

Perhaps we could come to avoid those pathways to Hell — 

and we have seen in the terrible Twentieth Century 

just how real Hell can be.

Humanity, in toto, 

and those who compose it 

as identifiable people 

deserve some sympathy 

for the appalling burden 

under which 

The Human Individual 

genuinely staggers; 

Some sympathy for subjugation to 

Mortal Vulnerability, 

Tyranny of The State, and 

The Depredations of Nature. 

It is an Existential Situation that 

no mere animal encounters or endures, 

and one of severity such 

that it would take a God to fully bear it. 

It is this sympathy 

that should be the proper medicament 

for self-conscious self-contempt, 

which has its justification, 

but is only half The Full and Proper story. 

Hatred for Self and Mankind 

must be balanced with 

Gratefulness for Tradition and The State and 

Astonishment at what Normal, 

Everyday People accomplish —

to say nothing of 

The Staggering Achievements 

of the Truly Remarkable. 

We Deserve some respect. 

You Deserve some respect. 

You are important to Other People, 

as much as to yourself. 

You have some vital role to play in 
The Unfolding Destiny of The World. 

You are, therefore, morally obliged 

to take care of yourself. 

You should take care of, 

help and be good to yourself 

the same way you would take care of, help and be good to someone you loved and valued. 

You may therefore 

have to conduct yourself habitually 

in a manner that allows you 

some respect for your own Being — 

and fair enough. 

But every person is deeply flawed. 
Everyone falls short of the glory of God. 

If that stark fact meant, however, that we had no responsibility to care, for ourselves as much as others, everyone would be brutally punished all the time. 

That would not be good. 

That would make the shortcomings of the world, which can make everyone who thinks honestly question the very propriety of the world, worse in every way. 

That simply cannot be the proper path forward. 

To treat yourself as if you were someone you are responsible for helping is, instead, to consider what would be truly good for you. 

THIS IS •NOT•  

“What You WANT.” 

It is also NOR “What Would Make You HAPPY.” 

Every time you give a child something sweet, you make that child happy. 

That does NOT mean that you should do nothing for children except feed them candy. 

“Happy” is by no means synonymous with “Good.” 


You must get children to brush their teeth.

They must put on their snowsuits when they go outside in the cold, even though they might object strenuously. 

You must help a child become a virtuous, responsible, awake being, capable of full reciprocity—
Able to take care of himself and others, and to thrive while doing so. 

Why would you think it acceptable to do anything less for yourself? 

You need to consider The Future and think, 

“What might my life look like if I were caring for myself •properly•?"

"What career would challenge me and render me productive and helpful, 
so that I could shoulder my share of the load, 
and enjoy the consequences?"

"What should I be doing, when I have some freedom, to improve my health, expand my knowledge, and strengthen my body?”

You need to know where you are, so you can start to chart your course. 

You need to know who you are, so that you understand your armament and bolster yourself in respect to your limitations. 

You need to know where you are going, so that you can limit the extent of chaos in your life, restructure order, and bring the divine force of Hope to bear on The World. 

You must determine where you are going, so that you can bargain for yourself, so that you don’t end up resentful, vengeful and cruel. 

You have to articulate your own principles, so that you can defend yourself against others’ taking inappropriate advantage of you, and so that you are secure and safe while you work and play. 

You must discipline yourself carefully. 

You must keep the promises you make to yourself, and reward yourself, so that you can trust and motivate yourself. 

You need to determine how to act toward yourself so that you are most likely to become and to stay a good person. 
It would be good to make The World a better place. 

Heaven, after all, will not arrive of its own accord. 

We will have to work to bring it about, and strengthen ourselves, so that we can withstand the deadly angels and flaming sword of judgment that God used to bar its entrance. 

Don’t underestimate the power of vision and direction. 

These are irresistible forces, able to transform what might appear to be unconquerable obstacles into traversable pathways and expanding opportunities. 

Strengthen the individual. 

Start with yourself. 

Take care with yourself. 

Define who you are. 

Refine your personality. 

Choose your destination and articulate your Being. 

As the great nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche so brilliantly noted,

 “He whose life has a why can bear almost any how.” 

You could help direct The World, on its careening trajectory, a bit more toward Heaven and a bit more away from Hell. 

Once having understood Hell, researched it, so to speak—particularly your own individual Hell—you could decide against going there or creating that. 

You could aim elsewhere. 

You could, in fact, devote your life to this. 

That would give you a Meaning, with a capital M. 

That would justify your miserable existence. 

That would atone for your sinful nature, and replace your shame and self-consciousness with the natural pride and forthright confidence of someone who has learned once again to walk with God in the Garden. 

You could begin by treating yourself as if you were someone you were responsible for helping.

PAY ATTENTION

The Mesopotamian Emperor  
acted out Marduk. 

He was ALLOWED to be Emperor 
insofar as he was 
A Good Marduk. 

That meant that,
He had eyes all the way around his head, 
and
He could speak magick.

He could speak properly.

Conan: 
What gods do you pray to?

Subotai:
I pray to the four winds... and you?

Conan: 
To Crom...
but I seldom pray to Him -- 

He doesn't listen.

Subotai: 
[chuckles] 
What good is he then?
Ah, it's just as I've always said.

Conan:
He is strong!
If I die, I have to go before him, and he will ask me,
   "What is the riddle of steel?"
If I don't know it, he will cast me out of Valhalla and laugh at me.

That's Crom — 

Strong on his mountain!

Subotai:
Ah, my god is greater.

Conan: 
[chuckles]
Crom laughs at your Four Winds.
He laughs from his mountain.

Subotai:
My God is Stronger.
He is  
The Everlasting Sky!
Your god lives underneath him.

[Conan shoots Subotai a skeptical look. Subotai laughs]

" The ancient Mesopotamians and the ancient Egyptians had some very interesting, dramatic ideas about that. 

For example
—Very Briefly—
There was a deity known as Marduk. 

Marduk was a Mesopotamian deity, and imagine this is sort of what happened. 
As an empire grew out of the post-ice age

—15,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago—

All these tribes came together. 

These tribes each had their own deity—their own image of the ideal. 
But then they started to occupy the same territory.

!! THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE !!

 One tribe had God A, and one tribe had God B,
and one could wipe the other one out, 
and then it would just be God A, who wins. 

That’s not so good, because maybe you want to trade with those people, or maybe you don’t want to lose half your population in a war. 

So then you have to have an argument about whose God is going to take priority—which ideal is going to take priority. 

What seems to happen is represented in mythology as a battle of the gods in celestial space. 

From a practical perspective, it’s more like an ongoing dialog :

' You believe this; I believe this. 
You believe that; I believe this. 
How are we going to meld that together? '

You take God A, and you take God B, and maybe what you do is extract God C from them, and you say,
 ‘God C now has the attributes of A and B.’ 

And then some other tribes come in, and C takes them over, too. 

Take Marduk, for example. 

He has 50 different names, at least in part, of the subordinate gods—that represented the tribes that came together to make the civilization. 

That’s part of the process by which that abstracted ideal is abstracted. 

You think, 
‘This is important, and it works, because your tribe is alive -

And so we’ll take the best of both, if we can manage it, 
and extract out something, that’s even more abstract, 
that covers both of us.’ 

I’ll give you a couple of Marduk’s interesting features. 

He has eyes all the way around his head. 

He’s elected by all the other gods to be King God. 

That’s the first thing. 
That’s quite cool. 

They elect him because they’re facing a terrible threat—sort of like a flood and a monster combined. 

Marduk basically says that, 

if they elect him top God,
he’ll go out and stop the flood monster, 
and they won’t all get wiped out. 

It’s a serious threat. 

It’s Chaos itself making its comeback. 

SALTWATER 

All the gods agree, 
and Marduk is the new manifestation. 

He’s got eyes all the way around His head, 
and
He speaks magic words. 

When he fights, he fights this deity called Tiamat. 

We need to know that, because the word 
‘Tiamat’ is associated with the word 'tehom.' 

Tehom is the Chaos that God makes Order out of at The Beginning of Time in Genesis, 
so it’s linked very tightly to this story. 

Marduk, with His eyes 
and 
His capacity to speak magic words, 
goes out and confronts Tiamat, 
who’s like this watery sea dragon. 

It’s a classic Saint George story: 
Go out and Wreak Havoc on The Dragon. 

He cuts Her into pieces, 
and 
He makes The World out of Her pieces. 

That’s The World that human beings live in. 

The Mesopotamian Emperor acted out Marduk. 

He was ALLOWED to be Emperor 
insofar as he was 
A Good Marduk. 

That meant that he had eyes all the way around his head, and he could speak magick; 
He could speak properly. 

We are starting to understand, at that point, 
The Essence of Leadership.

Because what’s Leadership? 
It’s the capacity to see what the hell’s in front of your face, and maybe in every direction, and maybe 

The Capacity to Use Your Language Properly to Transform Chaos into Order. 

God only knows how long it took the Mesopotamians to figure that out....

The best they could do was dramatize it, but it’s staggeringly brilliant. 

It’s by no means obvious, 
and this Chaos is a very strange thing. 

This is a Chaos that God wrestled with 
at The Beginning of Time. 

Chaos is Half-Psychological 
and 
Half-Real. 

There’s no other way to really describe it. 

Chaos is what you encounter when you’re blown into pieces and thrown into deep confusion—when your world falls apart, when your dreams die, when you’re betrayed. 

It’s The Chaos that emerges, 
and 
The Chaos is everything it wants, 
and 
It’s too much for you. 

That’s for sure. 

It pulls you down into 
The Underworld, 
and 
That’s Where The Dragons Are. 

All you’ve got at that point is your capacity to bloody well keep your eyes open, 
and 
To speak as carefully and as clearly as you can. 

Maybe, if you’re lucky, 
You’ll get through it that way 
and 
Come Out The Other Side. 

It’s taken people a very long time to figure that out, and it looks, to me, that the idea is erected on the platform of our ancient ancestors, maybe tens of millions of years ago, because we seem to represent that which disturbs us deeply  
using the same system that we used to represent  
Serpentile, or other, Carnivorous Predators. 

We’re biological creatures. 

When we formulated our strange capacity to abstract and use language, we still had all those underlying systems that were there when we were only animals. 

We have to use those systems that are there. 

Part of the emotional and motivational architecture of our thinking, part of the reason why we can
Demonize our Enemies 
who upset our axioms, 

Is Because We Perceive Them as if They’re Carnivorous Predators. 

We do it with the same system. 

That’s Chaos itself, 
The Thing That Always Threatens Us—

The Snakes That Came to The Trees 
 when we lived in them, like 60 million years ago. 

It’s the same damned systems. 

The Marduk Story 
is partly 
The Story of Using Attention and Language to Confront Those Things That Most Threaten Us. 

Some of those things are Real World threats, but some of them are Psychological Threats, 
which are just as profound but far more abstract. 

But we use the same system to represent them.

 That’s why you freeze, if you're frightened. 

You’re a prey animal. 
You’re like a rabbit, and you’ve seen something that's going to eat you. 

You freeze, and you’re paralyzed. 

You’re turned to stone, which is what you do when you see a Medusa with a head full of snakes. 

You turn to stone. 
You’re paralyzed, and the reason you do that is because you’re using the predator detector system to protect yourself. 

Your Heart Rate Goes Way Up, 
and 
You Get Ready to Move. 

Things that upset us rely on that system. 

The Marduk Story, 
for example, is the idea that, 
 If there are 
 Things That Upset You

 —chaotic, terrible, serpentine, monstrous, underworld things that threaten you—

The Best Thing to Do 
is 
Open Your Eyes, 
Keep Your Speech Organized, 
and go out, 
Confront The Thing, 
and 
Make The World Out of It. 

It’s staggering. 
When I read that story and started to understand it, it just blew me away. 

It’s such a profound idea, and we know it’s true, too, because we know, in psychotherapy, that 
you’re much better off to confront your fears head-on than you are to wait and let them find you.

Partly what you do, 
if you’re a psychotherapist, 
is you help people 
Break Their Fears into Little Pieces
—The Things That Upset Them—
and then 
To Encounter Them One by One 
and Master Them. 

You’re teaching this process of 
Internal Mastery Over The Strange 
and 
Chaotic World.

Conan's Father:

Fire and Wind come from The Sky, 

from The Gods of The Sky. 

But Crom is Your God - 

Crom and he lives in The Earth. 

Once, Giants lived in The Earth, Conan. 

And in The Darkness of Chaos, They fooled Crom,

and They took from Him The Enigma of Steel.

Crom was angered. And The Earth shook. 

Fire and Wind struck down these Giants, 

and They threw Their bodies into The Waters, 

But in Their Rage, The Gods Forgot The Secret of Steel and left it on The Battlefield.

We who found it are just Men. 

Not Gods. Not Giants. Just Men.

The Secret of Steel has always carried with it a Mystery. 

You must learn its Riddle, Conan. 

You must learn its discipline. 

For No-One - No-One in This World can you trust. Not Men, Not Women, Not Beasts.

[Points to sword]

This You Can Trust.