What if Quebec were a person, what would be its deep suffering?
What would still hurt it? What would it be ashamed or afraid of? What would be its limiting beliefs? What would be its deepest aspirations? In what way would it be unique, inspiring, and all-powerful?
This might seem like a strange line of questioning, but at the same time, in the news, we often talk about countries, regions and various communities as if they were people.
We wonder what China thinks, we wait for Europe’s response, we say that Russia is crazy, and that the United States is going through an adolescent crisis.
We pass judgments on macro-systems of this kind all the time and everywhere. We personify everything around us, even hyper-complex systems that include several million different and unique people, without even realizing it.
We do this with countries, cultures, our skin colors, our social status, or even based on our last names.
We also do it with our social and economic systems. We pass judgments on technology and innovation, on our education system, on healthcare, or even on the government, using the same strategy of personification and judgment.
It is a dynamic we see everywhere and at all scales. We create hyper-complex aggregations and consider them as distinct, unified entities, but separate from the rest.
We play a not very fun game of asking what is right and what is wrong and why.
Simplifying Complexity
In an attempt to understand the diversity and complexity of this world, our brain has no choice but to do this. It needs to simplify the forms and systems around it to better utilize its energetic resources while processing large amounts of information.
Our brain makes aggregations of things and, by personalizing them into simpler systems, it can better construct its belief system in relation to what it considers acceptable or not. In today’s society, it is most often judgment based on right and wrong that leads the world.
When we personify hyper-complex systems, we use our personal judgment to express the essence of our inner morality. We think that our personal perspective is worth something to judge the complexity of entire populations.
The arrogance and ignorance of this process of simplifying human diversity are as sad as they are funny.
For example, when we say: what Russia does is wrong and what Ukraine does is right. This is a moral judgment that makes no sense if observed from a systemic and holistic point of view.
This aggregation and simplification of things is completely ridiculous and potentially even dangerous. We use the perspective of our personal judgment, polar, corrupt, and very limited, to evaluate and manage the Right and Wrong of populations of several million people whom we do not even know!
It is like looking at a rainbow and wondering if it is white or black. It makes no sense as a question. The rainbow has seven main colors and none of them is white or black. None of them is right or wrong.
How then, can we make this kind of polar, binary, and simple judgment for an entire country, with a culture, a history, and the complexity of a developed and multidimensional civilization?
If we look closely, we do this with everything. Not just with countries. We do this with companies and brands. With religions. With all kinds of secret and non-secret organizations.
Quebec as a Person
In short, today I am inspired to play this game with a province that I love and to use my own limited and corrupt judgment to try to feel Quebec itself with the same simplistic ignorance as we all do.
I will also talk about Quebec as if it were a person, but in a different way.
When visiting Canada, each province also has an opinion or judgment about Quebec as if it were a person. It's very amusing to observe in various conversations.
But, if we imagine one of the countries or provinces as people in such a conversation, I think that probably everyone in the group would need a good visit to the psychologist.
Because when we listen to ourselves, and if we imagine that we form a family of countries all living together in a house called Earth, we would have serious family problems and a lot of abuse and violence among us.
If ever there were a child protection service for baby countries on a macro level, I am not sure Earth would be a very safe and nurturing family at the moment. If we spoke to each other the way we speak about countries, we would be very violent beings and also very unaware.
So, let’s be even more imaginative at this point.
We have already seen what it looks like when we make the Grand Judgment without mercy in the public square towards various countries and impose our ways of thinking on them because we know better than they do what is right and wrong, and we use our very poor morality to abuse them for their own good.
We think our judgment is better than theirs in knowing if the rainbow is white or black, so we colonize them and educate them on what is good or not. Savage or civilized. Moral or not. Rational or illogical.
We know very well how to judge and condemn others. And, what if we tried to listen, to feel, and to transform instead of judging? What would that look like?
Let’s be curious and creative, why not.
Suppose we push this idea further that Quebec is like a person, but we change the setting a bit. It’s no longer journalists or activists judging what they think of Quebec, but simply another human trying to connect with the heart of another human being.
Let’s imagine that Quebec is tired of no one understanding it and everyone judging it for everything and nothing without reason, so it goes to see a 'life coach' to try to better understand what is going on in its head, its heart, and in its system.
What might such a coaching session look like? In this kind of context and situation, how would one speak to Quebec? What would it answer? What would its emotions and thoughts be? How could we welcome it with love and kindness?
Quebec's Childhood
Beginning of the completely fictitious but quite philosophical coaching session.
So, let's talk about your childhood a bit, Quebec. How were you born? How was your relationship with your mother, France?
How were your friendships with the children of England, who also went off to explore the unknown on the other side of the ocean, in the same uncertainties and spaces as you?
Were you well treated by the great host family that received you, the Indigenous Peoples? Were they kind to you or not too much?
How did you really live and experience your childhood and adolescence, my dear Quebec?
...
I was born from a grand dream, Quebec answers.
My mother, France, wanted to give me the opportunity to explore the world further, to learn new things, to blossom and evolve in unknown lands. She wanted to teach me to dream even bigger and to see more broadly.
I was so happy and grateful to be born and to open my heart to the unknown, to have the chance to live new experiences on the other side of the world.
At the beginning, we were rather well received by the families who were already there and who welcomed us.
It was really exciting and stimulating.
They taught us so many new things. They were very different from our original family, but they knew many things we did not. They showed us the richness of their forest and freely shared their collective wisdom. It was really special, inspiring, and intriguing to see how they interacted with Nature and with each other in the community.
But I also felt that the knowledge, tools, and resources that my mother, France, possessed might interest and benefit them.
It was a bit like a cultural exchange: we taught them things they did not know how to do, and in return, they shared their culture and traditions to make us experience something new and unique. We exchanged our cultural, technological, and natural innovations with each other. It was really fun and interesting.
My mother was actually very old, and she lived in Europe. Europe had already undertaken many expeditions and explorations before to learn new things in other territories and with other indigenous and multicultural families.
So, my mother already had access to many advanced and innovative things. We knew how to work metal and build beautiful big cities. We had universities, big ships, and plenty of libraries, which made the sharing of wisdom even more effective and powerful.
So, I think the Indigenous Families appreciated us at first too. We showed them interesting things, and our relationship seemed to be nourishing and evolving for both of us.
One of the things I noticed at my birth was that Nature is very abundant and diverse here. They had animals and plants we had never seen before.
They had an incredible number of beavers.
They taught us how to hunt them and all that we could do with beavers. At the time, I knew my mother loved fur a lot, so I thought it would please her if I sent her some beavers and, in exchange, she could give me something for my host family here, to thank them for their beavers.
My mother was very proud and satisfied with the quality and quantity of fur we were able to send her by boat. She loved the beavers so much that she always wanted more.
So, she thought that since she knew very well how to manufacture weapons and powerful innovations to be able to kill and get even more beavers, she could send that in return to thank them. This way, we would teach the Indigenous Families hunting and the efficiency of technology. They could use rifles and guns instead of their traditional methods of taking life, even that of animals, with honor, dignity, love, and respect.
Introduction of Religion and Science
In Europe, we had invented a very interesting concept called Religion.
By everyone believing what Religion said and writing it in a book, we could invent all sorts of new rules that allowed us to change our beliefs at will. And this also allowed us to create and propagate Science. The combination of Science and Religion meant that we could invent all sorts of new realities and even change our moral code and culture as we wished.
Here in the Americas, it seemed that the families were not yet advanced enough to invent Religion and Science, which would have allowed them to believe that man is superior to the animal and that Nature doesn’t really have a Spirit or a God. So, it was perfectly reasonable and correct to destroy it to help Man evolve and build our innovative and powerful civilizations all over the world.
Respect for Nature became secondary when Religion and Science came into play, because respect for the God we had created ourselves and our thirst for power allowed us to do pretty much anything we wanted with Nature, to create more objects and travel even further.
So, it’s clear and logical that my mother thought that the societal model we invented in Europe was so much better and more efficient than the one based on the wisdom of Nature and other somewhat pagan and somewhat savage traditions that the families seemed to practice here.
Cultural Assimilation Efforts
I thought that by teaching the workings of Science and Religion to the Indigenous Peoples, we could bring even more fur and other natural resources from here to Europe. It would be so much more efficient that way. And our mother would be so much prouder and happier.
But it was very difficult for me to explain our worldview and our innovations to them. They simply didn’t understand why our mother needed so much fur to be happy.
Here, they didn’t understand how revolutionary agriculture was in Europe and why it was necessary.
I couldn’t explain to them that if they changed their beliefs a little and started to glorify the imaginary God more than the Nature that already nourished them in abundance, they could evolve and grow so much faster. We could create great cities and civilizations with world power if only the Indigenous Peoples could see and accept all the advantages and benefits of the Religion and Science invented in Europe.
To them, it didn’t seem logical to destroy the forest that already nourished them abundantly to make large plantations of other plants to sell to others for more money and to build many roads and large buildings.
Sometimes, I thought they couldn’t understand the intelligence and strategy of my mother, because they hadn’t invented an education system either.
They didn’t seem to have large schools, libraries, and universities to teach them how to do it. Maybe that’s why their community seemed a bit more archaic.
So, maybe I should ask our mother to send us some good teachers and ‘spiritual’ masters to build schools and churches here in America, to eventually be able to teach our Indigenous friends how to quickly and efficiently change our beliefs and create an industrial revolution to create empires of human decadence and its progressive evolution over time.
How to use Religion and Science to disregard Nature and even Humanity and Life itself at times.
So, it’s logical, right? If we build schools and send Indigenous children to study there for a few years, they too will know how to innovate, make a lot of money, and accomplish great things in the future.
They will certainly be very grateful and thank us afterwards for giving them the chance to learn our culture and our super creative and avant-garde belief systems.
Complex Relations with England
Things indeed became much more complex with the arrival of the children of England on the same territory. Our relations with the Indigenous Peoples and our simple, joyful, and exciting life here were now a bit more tense and confused.
England was another somewhat strict mother in Europe. She too was very innovative and very powerful, but very different from my own mother, France.
Sometimes, for political reasons, my mother had no choice but to pretend to be a good friend of England and her children, but in reality, I know they didn’t like each other too much. France and England had their own differences of opinion and strategy for creating a better world, which meant they argued far too often, creating many wars everywhere to see who was stronger and more creative between the two.
So, when the children of England landed here, it was too weird.
On the one hand, they were like our cousins. Their vision, culture, strategy, and knowledge were much closer to those of our own mother than to those we were discovering with the Indigenous Peoples.
It’s true that compared to the English, the Indigenous Peoples were much further from the level of evolution we had known in Europe. We understood their traditions and language better too. Our philosophies of life were more similar, and we understood each other better on certain aspects of who we are internally.
Even though they hadn’t invented the same model of Religion as we had, we mostly agreed on Science and the power of education to better manipulate collective beliefs. Moreover, the English were really stronger in terms of another very cool systemic invention we liked in Europe, it’s called the Economy.
So, our friendship with the English was very natural at first and also very strategic to make our mothers happy and also to help us better educate our other friends, the Indigenous Peoples.
In theory, we could evolve even faster if we managed to combine Science, Religion, and the Economy into a powerful whole that made sense for everyone here. But on the other hand, the more we tried to be good friends, the stranger and more violent things became between us.
The Painful Consequences
Honestly, I couldn’t really say what happened next in my childhood, Quebec continues in his confidence to his life coach, and it’s very painful for me to talk about it right now.
It still hurts a lot and I have many emotions that I don’t understand. Everything happened so quickly, and it seems like nothing makes sense anymore. We started having many wars with each other everywhere and for all sorts of different reasons.
We killed each other mercilessly. We did horrible and inhumane things to one another.
Diving back into my memories, I feel shame and guilt, but I also have a lot of resentment and frustration about my childhood. I don’t know who is right or wrong. I don’t even know what is good or not anymore. It’s a lot to think about and feel.
I’m a bit lost, and it’s too difficult to know what the truth is and who we should really blame for all this suffering that still lives so deeply in my body and in my consciousness.
I don’t even know if I’m a victim, a savior, or the cruel heartless villain in this whole story of my very complex systemic childhood trauma.
Moreover, while my friendships were falling apart and we were playing war with each other, my mother didn’t seem to care much either. The fur, tobacco, and other resources from here were more important to her than the well-being of her own child, Quebec.
I felt a bit abandoned by my own mother when I needed her most. It felt like she started using me more as a tool of revenge against her rival friend than anything else. It seemed like both France and England were using their own children in America as proxy puppets to compare their acquired power and to enrich themselves further.
At the same time that I was being abused by my English cousins here, and while I was also abusing my new Indigenous friends for reasons I still don’t really understand, my own mother took pleasure in rejecting, humiliating, and completely abandoning me at the end of this whole story.
The Lingering Resentment
It's true that I understand I am an adult now and have been completely sovereign and independent of my mother for a very long time.
I am also a bit more mature to know that the English are not really evil either and have no power over me. After all, we are true cousins, and to be honest, we really love each other even if we don't say it too often.
But, there is a part of me that still holds a grudge against them. They were really mean to me and have never acknowledged it. They created companies and corporations that abused us for years and treated us as their slaves and inferiors.
They never asked for forgiveness. They never acknowledged their mistakes and all the suffering they inflicted on us somewhat gratuitously. I don’t know how to explain it, but even their language bothers me deeply to this day.
I hate it when people compare me to the English and say we are the same and made from the same source. It’s not true!
They abused me and no one sees it or wants to hear about it! And after that, I’m the evil separatist who doesn’t understand progress and technological innovation? It would be a total disrespect to my ancestors, their pain, and their history to collaborate with the children of England and start learning or speaking their language here.
Internal Conflict and Shame
At the same time that I feel this hatred, this resentment, this frustration and this confusion towards the English and even my own mother, France, I feel a deep shame that destroys me from within for all the atrocities I have committed against my new friends here, the Indigenous Peoples, in the past.
In an inexplicable way, I manipulated and abused them, and I also don’t know how to ask for forgiveness properly.
Moreover, I feel very foolish right now.
It seems to me that with all the climate, social, and economic challenges we are facing in the world today, their ways of doing things, their culture, and their wisdom would be very useful and relevant to help us out of the situation we have collectively put ourselves in.
They knew how to co-create with Nature in a coherent way to ensure that future generations would have as much fun and abundance living on this Earth as they themselves had.
They knew how to regenerate instead of destroying.
But with the help of my mother and my cousins, I also taught them how to destroy things instead of regenerating them. How to use the resources of Nature, the community, or even their own connection with the Spirit for their own benefit, out of their own unconsciousness and identity confusion.
Because of me, they have forgotten their own wisdom. Because of me, they still suffer deeply today. Because of my own ignorance and my personal trauma with my own European family, I still don’t know how to fix that.
Seeking Reconciliation and Healing
How to say, I’m sorry. I regret it. I was foolish.
How to ask for forgiveness for something as systemic and complex as the genocide of a collective ancestral wisdom.
How can I reconcile my own conscience with the acts committed by my own ancestors? How can I become friends with the Indigenous Peoples today? Is it possible to dream that one day we will all live in harmony and coherence with Nature and our inner God, whatever name it bears?
How can we heal and learn to regenerate our Earth together?
How can I help them remember what I destroyed in the past? How to rebuild their wisdom in harmony with our current reality?
How to co-create a future based on peace, love, and respect rather than on the traumas of our undigested collective past and our still very immature power dynamics today?
Seeking Guidance and Redemption
"That's quite a complex and fascinating story you’re telling me, my dear Quebec. Thank you for your trust and vulnerability," responds the life coach calmly and with a lot of compassion to this very interesting monologue that Quebec had the courage to share with her.
It’s certainly very emotionally charged. It’s also very mentally and energetically polluted.
What you experienced as collective trauma in your childhood is very difficult and also very complex. There were several very intense power games, many physical, emotional, mental and even spiritual abuses, and far too many different players with incompatible visions of what is right or wrong.
What you are experiencing today, the state of your mental health, the availability of your natural resources, or any other form of systemic inconsistency, is entirely logical given the past you have lived!
But, one must never lose faith and hope.
You can learn to forgive, and you can also learn how to sincerely ask others for forgiveness.
We can heal, and we can regenerate anything if we know how to do it.
If we have really evolved, matured, and are conscious enough as humanity to heal ourselves from our personal childhood traumas, logically, that would also mean that if Quebec were a person, they too would be able to do it one day, right?
The Challenge of Collective Healing
Logically yes.
But, rationally speaking, Quebec is not a person; it is a hypercomplex system with far too much diversity, creativity, and many other things within its collective consciousness and wisdom.
So, how exactly do we heal systemic trauma and carefully listen to its silent suffering and confusion that is still so alive and painful today?
How do we really and collectively create this famous ‘collective life coach’ who will help Quebec integrate the wisdom of its own buried past? A history so fascinating and rich in wisdom, experience, and deep love.
How will we talk about Quebec in public and in international news once the post-traumatic learning of its conception, childhood, and adolescence is truly integrated into our collective consciousness?
