Baggage- Confessions of a Globe-Trotting Hypochondriac, by Jeremy Leon Hance – A Review
Baggage- Confessions of a Globe-Trotting Hypochondriac, by Jeremy Leon Hance. Health Communications, Inc., Boca Raton, Florida. 300 pages, paperback, $22.95
Jeremy Hance writes brilliantly about his adventures around the world, which he travels in his role as an environmental journalist. By his own admission, he’s crazy. The medical profession has names for his specific types of craziness- obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression. Jeremy has his own names for these two voices in his head- Steve and Malachi.
When I commenced reading Baggage, I thought it would be primarily about Jeremy’s travels. It’s just as much about his battles with his demons, especially while travelling. Travel can be stressful enough when you don’t have a voice in your head telling you over and over, “You’re gonna die!” That Jeremy has been able to travel to 20-odd countries carrying this, well, baggage, is fairly astonishing.
Jeremy loves nature, which got him into journalism. He writes, “I love nature. That’s putting it lightly. When I’m in the woods, my breath feels like a prayer. A grove of old trees is a church. Animals are sanctified beings.
“I believe… that every human born is implanted with the seed to love nature. It’s an evolutionary, existential, almost metaphysical reality.”
He realizes that, “Sometimes life requires risk. …we all live in an ecotone, a transition state connecting two worlds. We live in the transition between our past and our present. A transition between who we are and who we wish to be. A transition between our private and public selves. Humans don’t so much inhabit places as we inhabit the tension, the transition between our various selves.”
This book is packed with similarly profound observations.
Since Jeremy is an environmental journalist, he has acquired a healthy dose of skepticism about promises made by governments and corporations. “Most of the time when one hears the word sustainable, it’s complete and total bullshit. It’s a corporation or a government trying to sell a lie. It has come to a point where, alas, the word is mostly meaningless.
“…it becomes quickly clear about who holds the real power, and it’s not the… …government democratically elected by the people. It’s the industry. Welcome to neoliberal economics, where corporations, like vampires, slowly suck out the power that had once been entrusted by the people to their elected governments.”
“I have always viewed the loss of nature as a wound, something that feels physically painful to my being. I see more and more that the world could be different. That this wasn’t the course we had to take. And that makes me sad. History need not be a spiral of repeating mistakes.” I feel this way myself.
There is hope in Baggage, too. “I experienced firsthand that with time, support, and love, I could heal and have good days again. And I knew that Nature, with its inborn resilience, a kind of love, could also heal again. Maybe I won’t be here to see it, but the possibility is always there…”
I was somewhat surprised to find that Jeremy and I had quite a bit in common. Our attitudes about Nature and the threats to it were very similar. We both love our wives and our children. We both know we didn’t make the rules but are doing our best to live meaningful lives within them.
A major difference is that Steve and Malachi don’t spend any time talking to me. I learned a lot about mental illness by reading Baggage. It’s something everyone should know about. There are lots of people out there who need love and support, who are hiding their true selves.
Baggage is a courageous book by an exceptionally courageous individual who has faced his demons and, for at least some of the time, has put them in their places. I think you’ll find the time spent reading Baggage will be time spent well. It’s an important, well-written book, with my highest recommendation.
Baggage- Confessions of a Globe-Trotting Hypochondriac
-John Kumiski
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