CM Punk just came back to pro-wrestling after seven years away from the game.
Here is how the moment unfolds:
A sold out crowd at the United Center in his hometown of Chicago, IL loudly chants his name in anticipation of his arrival. The familiar riff of Living Colour’s Cult of Personality starts playing. The noise from the crowd, already loud, hits an impossible zenith. They know that the man they’re waiting for will make himself visible when the vocals come in.
Look in my eyes, what do you see?
The cult of personality.
When he finally steps out from behind the curtain the impossibly loud chanting erupts into something louder still; an ecstatic, primal scream of thousands of voices in unison.
Chicago Made Punk has come home.
Close up crowd shots reveal adults with tears in their eyes. Punk himself falls to his knees on the entrance ramp, overcome with emotion. It takes him almost five minutes to make his way to the ring, during which everyone in the audience- in-person and virtually- is glued into his every movement, expression and gesture.
It’s hardly a stretch to describe this scene as spiritual, even religious in nature. Punk and the crowd are participating in a heirophany, where the realm of the sacred intrudes on and suspends the rules of the profane world . We are brought closer to the mythic realm of heroes and deities and further from our ordinary workaday existence. We are treated here to what historian of religion Mircea Eliade described as a “manifestation of a wholly different order.” “Real” life is less real in some ways than the numinous spectacle we witness here.
Someone who isn’t a fan of pro-wrestling might have difficulty understanding just what the big deal is. After all, this “sport” isn’t even “real,” right?
Wrestling fans, on the other hand, just get it. Underneath this moment that Punk and the crowd have co-created, stands an enormous amount of history and subtext that bring richness to the experience for someone who is in on the joke. Even if you’re not privy to all the subtle callbacks, references and allusions that are happening in this moment, the power of it is hard to deny for someone who “just gets it.”
(It may be worth pointing out here, wrestling fans are for the most part also used to the fact that many of our peers simply don’t get it. At this point in my life I’m mostly over trying to convince people that pro-wrestling is worth their respect. You can go read Roland Barthes’ essay “The World of Wrestling” from his book Mythologies if you’re the type that needs that sort of sanction. The TDLR? Yes it is indeed escapist fantasy. Yes that is in service of a vital human need.)
Whether or not one is a fan of CM Punk’s (I’ll be honest, I’m not really) it’s hard to deny that he’s an exceptionally charismatic figure and a special performer. The magic he can conjure when he has a microphone in his hand ensures that his name belongs alongside the names of performers like Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Roddy Piper, and the Rock on the list of wrestling’s all-time greats.
Part of what makes his work so compelling is his ability to make the storylines and angles he’s working feel like there are real stakes involved and that this escapist fantasy is relevant to the lives of the people following along.
In this regard at least, it doesn’t appear that he’s lost a step. In his first in-ring promo in seven years Punk said something that struck me as relevant to my own life and what I’m seeing in the experiences of those I care for. Referencing his controversial departure from World Wrestling Entertainment years ago and subsequent long absence from the wrestling business, he said this:
“If any of the personal decisions that I made about my own life left you feeling disappointed or let down. I understand.
If you all try to understand, I was never going to get healthy- physically, mentally, spiritually or emotionally- in the place that got me sick in the first place.”
For Punk, getting away from the place that made him sick meant leaving a particular company, and taking some time away from the broader industry that company is a part of until he could reconnect with it in a way that feels healthier for him. If it’s your job that’s making you sick, sometimes finding an escape from that environment is all it takes to kickstart the healing process.
Sometimes though “the place that’s making us sick” is wider than any physical geography can account for.
Do you feel healthy? If not, what is the place making you sick?
Is it your job? The town you live in? A toxic home situation?
Is it the country whose flag you live under? Is it something bigger?
Is it neoliberal capitalism? The Patriarchy?
Is it Game A?
Is it the Black Iron Prison?
Is it the World after The Fall?
Obviously, some of these conditions are harder to leave than others, and some probably can’t be left at all. (If you’ve had any long-term success escaping the structure of reality itself, well, you know something I don’t. For anyone thinking of suggesting psychedelics in reply, the key phrase here is “long-term.)
Even the more mundane, less existential conditions that contribute to our ill health- physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually-can be extraordinarily challenging to leave behind totally.
It’s an interesting exercise though, to think about what it is in our power to just walk away from. If there’s a food that makes you not feel your best, could you stop eating it? If there are social media accounts or newsfeeds that leave you feeling confused, on-edge or anxious, could you unfollow or stop watching? Are there influences at work on you that always seem to leave you feeling drained and powerless? If so, can you sever their hold on you?
My friend Bob has been writing in his newsletter Society of the Self recently about his decision to delete his social media accounts and the effect it has had on him. Leaving behind “the place that made him sick in the first place” has presented challenges, but it’s starting to pay dividends. What change might make a similar difference in your life?
Like a lot of folks these days, I haven’t been feeling my best lately. The things and “places” that are making me sick are many and varied, and I’m not in a position to just walk away from all of them at the moment, but I’m finding it a useful theme for contemplation. It’s my contention that there are powerful forces invested heavily in keeping us from stepping into our true agency.
If enough of us were able to wield even a fraction of the dormant potential within, it would truly be “clobbering time” for those who don’t want us to know who and what we truly are.
The further we can get from the places that are making us sick, the better chance we have to start prioritize our own healing. There’s an old saying that goes “hurt people, hurt people.” The reverse may also be true; healed people heal people.
Extras
For more on the connection between spirituality and pro-wrestling check out this cool little post from a few years back that connects Barthes’ essay mentioned above with the Mystery of the Eucharist.
Last week I visited the Golden Shadow TWICE; once for the latest edition of the Dialectal Tarot series, this time considering the Emperor, and once for a really fun session discussing the symbolism in the recent film The Green Knight and in the poem it is based on. We barely scratched the surface of all that’s contained here, but it was a fun exploration. I also talk a little about it here.
Another one of wrestling’s great orators, Paul Heyman, had this to say about Professor Cornel West a few years back.
This recent interview from The Atlantic is a great example of why Dr. West is worth paying attention to, regardless of the degree to which you agree with him. (For my part, I agree with Dr. West on a great many things.)
On the subject of engaging with people and positions we disagree with, Peter Limberg from The Stoa has written an excellent and provocative newsletter on “Ontological Flooding” and how it can be helpful in arriving at a constructive synthesis from the highly divisive Covid-19 situation here in North America.
Currently reading:
Occult Features of Anarchism by Erica Lagalisse.
Blossoms and Bones: Drawing a Life Back Together by Kim Kranz (Creator of the Wild Unknown Tarot )
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading and for all the wonderful comments and replies you’ve been sending my way. It’s especially heartening when you share my writing with friends or recommend it to others. It’s truly appreciated.