The myth of dysfunction

Dysfunction. The word. Look at it. It's got that "y" in there, not an "i" like a normal word, like dislike or dissatisfaction - or diss, you know. It looks cutesty or European or foreign or made-up or something, like jargon, like a word we can write off, a word we can DISS because it's been somehow relegated to the fim-flam of "pop psychology" (so that the thing itself - dysfunction - is way popular, but pointing it out, much less labelling it, is NOT). Yes, it seems we may be so far gone we more often than not want to DISS function. Yes, the word "dysfunction" has taken on a life of its own, as a sloppily inclusive label for all sorts of behaviors that just aren't going right - meaning our own petty selves are not getting what we want. LIFE as vaccuous busy bodies, always "in touch" with so little to say while so out of touch and so snide about it, too. LIFE as a pissy sitcom or soap opera, more like it.

Just remember: a "myth" is not a lie but a broad generality based on truth, albeit usually stereotypic truth. So maybe we are seeing the Big Myth, the Big Trend, the Big Truth of Dys, here and now, just not quite up close and not too personal.

How could we, ourselves, as individuals, as partners, as families, as communities, as a nation, BE so "dysfunctional"? Surely all that dysfunction is a myth. We can't be perrrrrfect. We can't ALLLLLLL be so healthy.

Well, it doesn't mean we are UNfunctional. Boy heidi, we've got lots of FUNCTION going on here. I mean, we ARE functioning like mad, if you call churning and absorbing reality TV and shopping and yapping function - that's LOADS O' function.

But I'm giving that "function" with a small "f."

So I ask you, dear readers, is THIS what we want our functioning to look like? Are these the results we want to see, final or not? They're the selves we've GOT, the families we've GOT, the nation we've GOT.

Anybody for some higher learning out there? Anybody for some higher functioning out there?

And what would that look like?

Maybe the fact that a lot of us don't have a clear picture of what THAT would look like shows how DISSfunctional we really are.