A Cosmology of Monsters by Shaun Hamill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Listen to Your Mother!

Life is a horror story straight out of H.P Lovecraft. Only hopeful delusions prevent us from recognising the terrible reality of those things we have been taught to respect, admire and desire - spouse, children, work, moderate suburban comfort. Only by inducing ourselves to believe that these things are inherently valuable and that they justify our lives can we bear to tolerate the triviality, dissatisfaction, and absence of any real affection.

Yet reality continues to impose itself. Unable to cope with one’s own defects not to mention the continuous rivalry with one’s siblings and parents, the unconscious mind objectifies them as monsters and demons which mean to destroy us - which of course is precisely what reality intends to do. The universe is indeed evil. The prevalence of defective genes, physical illness, and neuroses makes the point obvious even as we temporise and rationalise about them.

Parents only begin to understand this after years of marriage and child-rearing. Whatever the original reasons for pursuing family life, they are inadequate for sustaining it. People change. Experience generates suffering. Dreams of the future are never fulfilled. Life becomes tedious and full of resentment and pretence when it was supposed to be an adventure. And the reality of death becomes more real.

Yet none of this, of course, can be communicated to the children who are doomed to repeat the experience. Children think that the violence and pain and disappointment they experience are aberrations which can be avoided. They’re not. They are inevitable. All children believe in justice and have no concept of economics. This is what makes them vulnerable. They lack the skills to survive in an unjust, commercial world. And they know parents lie in any case.

Particularly apt for pre-marital counselling.

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