Ukraine and the Soul

Welcome to the age of the arbitrary

We are witnessing the destruction of our own inner Ukraine. It is a collective soul violence. We experience it no matter how conscious we are of what is going on. It is a disturbance, a confusion, a turbulence inside. The horror we feel is the violence to our own souls.

President Zelensky was correct when he said, “I am not iconic, Ukraine is iconic.” Indeed, Ukraine is iconic to us, for inside each of us lives our own Ukraine. It is that proud but shy place, the one filled with hope and vision for a better future. It is that place that is rooted in this ground, right here, right now. We know we belong, yet a neighboring, destructive, repressive force looms nearby — or worse, forces itself and its destruction upon us. Ukraine is intensely inside us here at home. We know the place. We project it as the place where those better angels of our nature reside. It is the place we defend at all costs and the place we will never give up.

It wasn’t always this way — it has become that because of the Russian attack. Evil transforms good men into great men. So people like Zelensky arise. But they also transform a place into a symbol in the soul. How can we avoid thinking of Ukraine differently from here on out? The part of us that wanted to be free, that applied to be part of the free world, but yet could not enter. Do we not know this? Haven’t we all been shut out from ourselves in some way? By capitalism’s cruel coercions? By bigotry? By parents? We know Ukraine by those experiences. Like Ukraine, so many of us were not defended by greater powers than us — and Ukraine did not get into NATO. What’s true in the military-political world is true in the soul. Ukraine is that vulnerability in ourselves, that great hope for freedom and prosperity, that creative little child within — all being obliterated. And we feel it within ourselves. We feel it within our souls. Something in us will never be the same again.

We are the city being bombed. We are the refugees fleeing. We are the scared people huddling in bomb shelters. The fear, the destruction, and the determination are theirs, but they are also happening within us. It’s in our own inner Mariupol. Our inner Kyiv. Arbitrary destruction can destroy all hope, all creativity, all development of the soul. And so, here we are. Anxiety floods in. Mortality and the susceptibility of life to senseless forces become obvious. It is all here and playing its power into global culture.

We fear the war will grow because we sense the energy is there for it. Some force arising from within Russia needs to do this. We say it is Putin, and it is, but Putin is also a creature of culture, just as Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini were. These men become the expressionists of the culture of that time. This is not to indict everyone who is there — not at all. But there is a bigger sweep of history in which the men are mired, and that is what we feel so much tension about. That sweep of history feels like a war that will go far beyond the current limitations of Russia and Ukraine.

So the war rages in our souls.

When the collective psyche gets ripped open, unexpected eruptions ensue. Whether you were for or against Trump, America’s collective psyche was torn open, and look what happened. Souls on all sides were deeply disturbed by that period of our recent history. Manifestations were public — Portland, OR, Kenosha, WI, Minneapolis, MN, and Washington DC on January 6, 2021 — but the disturbances deeper and more private. We could barely believe our eyes in the murder of George Floyd. We gasped at the fires and destruction that ensued. People raged at the perceived loss of liberty over masks and vaccines to fight COVID. How did a country born in the Enlightenment, the golden age of reason, come to this?

These are the petty rages of longer-term discontents. We all feel our lives constricted. Whatever we might say to others, the California fires disturb us. Hurricanes in Massachusetts strike us as “just not right.” Fifteen inches of rain in Houston and Tennessee catch our attention. An enormous undersea volcano explodes virtually burying a nation. We see these things and shrug our shoulders, but they affect us. So arbitrary. So strange. So unsettling.

And then, Ukraine is invaded. Unprovoked. Millions of lives upended. One man, in arrogant stupidity, makes one decision that disrupts the lives of millions.

This is the soul in the age of the arbitrary. The anxiety of the last century was generalized — nuclear annihilation, war, worry over money, and well-being. But now it is different. Events happen — specific arbitrary events. They seem to come from nowhere. Anything can happen at any time. One man, or a few men, can just decide.

Meanwhile, the climate is changing where there is no one man, arrogant and stupid or not, who could make any one decision to just change it all. The very source of our existence, ability to breathe, maintain the temperature, drink water — all of it is in question. Collectively, we all just continue careening down the path. There’s no telling where the change will hit. Or why. So we pray, but we don’t know how long we have. We aren’t even sure that our lives won’t end in a climate catastrophe. An arbitrary climate catastrophe. As if we were in Ukraine.

Events like these change the imagination. The soul is much more aware of the capriciousness in life, nature, world events, and even personal inspirations. We face so much craziness. Where once there was something very different, today here we are. We walk on… we walk on.

Ukraine is that place inside us we barely know, a name we heard in the news, a place we have never been. It is the ground upon which we stand, and it is the spirit rising above it all. There is something too precious… yes, it is the human tragedy, but the soul is about a place within ourselves that we barely recognize is there. Ukraine calls. Is what you are thinking about all there is? Ukraine calls. Is there something bigger than your next dollar, your next customer, your next inspiration? Ukraine calls. Have you done with your life what you must? Ukraine calls.

We live with the same arbitrary fears as the people in Ukraine, but we see it differently now. The seemingly arbitrary, the not knowing, the fear, and… the defiance. The refusal to accept invasion, the refusal to give in. And, we find ourselves called, and perhaps we will go.

Ukraine is this precious place within us that is being invaded, blown up, shelled, destroyed. It’s where the gentle and defenseless in us die. It is where they run to safety. And, it is where the inner men stand up and fight. Turbulence fills the vacuum. As in the world, it is reflected in our souls.

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Anthony Signorelli

Ideas, insights, and imagination to help you live better in a worsening world. Topics include Men, #MeToo, and Masculinity; Postcapitalism; Climate Change; Digitalization and Cryptocurrency; Green Energy; Retirement and financial planning… basically everything that addresses making life better in this challenging time of history.

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