“Hi, Ren” Examined (Pt. 3: The Psychology)
Some Psychological Lessons of “Hi, Ren” Through the Lens of Wetiko
Some Psychological Lessons of “Hi, Ren” Through the Lens of Wetiko
Note: This is Part III in a three-part series on musician Ren Gill, his musical and visual masterpiece “Hi, Ren,” and the impact he is having on people. Part I was an overview, Part II was focused on the Reaction Videos to “Hi, Ren,” and this, part III, examines the deeper psychological and spiritual meaning of “Hi, Ren” through the Native American concept of Wetiko.
An Overview of Wetiko and How “Hi, Ren” Is a Blueprint For Understanding It
I believe “Hi, Ren,” by British musician Ren Gill, is a musical and visual masterpiece that is breaking open the hearts of those who engage with it. Like any profound work of art, it can be approached from a multitude of perspectives. In this post, I’m focusing on the lyrics of the song to examine its psychological and spiritual meaning through the lens of Wetiko, a term drawn from Native American cultures and defined by author and shamanic healer Paul Levy as a “contagious psycho-spiritual disease of the soul.”
Levy has written three books and countless articles on Wetiko, and a fourth book is in the works, so narrowing it down is a huge challenge. However, humans around the world and throughout time have attempted to name it: the Devil of Christianity, Iblis in Islam, the Shadow of Carl G. Jung are just a few.
In my first “Hi, Ren” post, I wrote that “In some ways, it’s almost like Wetiko comes pre-packaged with the operating system of human consciousness” and that “when Ren does his Dark side voice, that is the voice of Wetiko. Its purpose is to take over our consciousness, to use humanity as a vehicle for destruction and chaos.”
In Levy’s article, “Wetiko in a Nutshell,” he writes,
Wetiko disease is, in its essence, to have fallen into a state of mistaken identity, and the best medicine for wetiko is to know who we are. (emphasis mine)
Our true nature, our true identity — who we really are — is impervious to wetiko’s pernicious influence. Wetiko can’t take over, possess or have any effect on our true nature, which is not an object that can be manipulated or possessed by Wetiko (or anything else, for that matter). For this reason, Wetiko’s strategy is to set up a substitute counterfeit version — a simulation — of ourselves. It then tricks us into identifying with this fraudulent version of ourselves. Wetiko cannot stand it when we identify with our true nature as creative beings, for then it has nothing to sink its roots — and fangs — into.
In this way, Wetiko is a master impersonator which latches onto our doubts and insecurities and gives them voice in an attempt to disempower who we truly are so that it, Wetiko, can manifest itself through us.
By creating a dialogue with Wetiko, “Hi, Ren” is one blueprint for us to face Wetiko inside of ourselves. When we don’t do this inner work, we often project it onto the Other through the age-old practice of scapegoating and this leads to many of our worst social maladies. For example, Levy writes “the human activity of war is a particularly virulent incarnation of the Wetiko bug writ large on the world stage” and with things heating up geopolitically I believe the more of us who courageously do this inner work, the less likely our species will spin out into another period of collective insanity known as a world war.
At its core, “Hi, Ren” shows an artist who has found the medicine for Wetiko. He does this by engaging in an archetypal battle to wrestle his identity from Wetiko’s grip and then proclaiming his creative, true nature as who he, Ren Gill, truly is. By sharing this with the world, Ren inspires listeners/viewers to consider taking a similar path.
The meat of this post uses the lyrics of “Hi, Ren” to dig into this archetypal dialogue with Wetiko. By doing so, I hope to bring Wetiko into greater awareness so that we all have a better chance to both stop it from turning us into destructive monsters under its control and to help us realize that engaging with Wetiko can lead us to our salvation.
Ren - Hi Ren
Instrumental]…genius.com
Examining the Lyrics of “Hi, Ren”
At the start of the music video for “Hi, Ren,” Ren is wheeled into what appears to be some kind of institution run by matter-of-fact humanoids wearing pig masks. We see nothing but the title of the song, “Hi Ren,” in all white letters on a black background before Ren opens the song by showing us his guitar and vocal chops. Then, after settling into a rhythm, Ren begins the main event by stepping into the voice of Wetiko in this first stanza:
Hi there Ren
It’s been a little while
Did you miss me?
You thought you’d buried me, didn’t you? Risky…
’Cause I always come back
Deep down you know that
Deep down you know I’m always in periphery
Ren, aren’t you pleased to see me?
It’s been weeks since we spoke, bro, I know you need me
You’re the sheep, I’m the shepherd
Not your place to lead me
Not your place to be biting off the hand that feeds me
Throughout “Hi, Ren” Wetiko proves itself a habitual liar. “I know you need me” is the first lie as we do not need Wetiko, it needs us. In fact, the final line “not your place to be biting off the hand that feeds me” speaks to Wetiko recognizing this — -we feed it, not vice versa.
Some reactors in reaction videos to “Hi, Ren” try to write off Ren’s artistic “battle with his subconscious” as mental illness, schizophrenia, or multiple personality disorder. While I certainly don’t want to downplay the serious nature of mental illness, or suggest this interpretation is completely incorrect, I believe Ren Gill is doing something deeper here.
By having this conversation out in the open, he shows psychological maturity, a recognition that by disassociating himself from Wetiko he can see clearly that Wetiko is not him, not Ren Gill in his fullness. And this process is what allows him to come to the understanding he shares in his monologue at the end of the song. Now, such a process is not for the faint of heart, but perhaps when mental health professionals pathologize those of us who chose creative ways of facing Wetiko, they may be making a mistake.
Stanza two is Ren’s first response:
Hi Ren, I’ve been taking some time to be distant
I’ve been taking some time to be still
I’vе been taking some time to be by mysеlf
since my therapist told me I’m ill
And I’ve been making some progress lately,
and I’ve learnt some new coping skills
So I haven’t really needed you much, man
I think we need to just step back and chill
There’s a lot going on here. First, this version of Ren is disempowered — he’s following the judgment of his therapist, who calls him ill, and he says that he’s making progress as a result of following the therapist. He then suggests that in the past he has needed Wetiko, but is now asking it to step aside.
However, this leaves a wide-open window for Wetiko to climb through and manipulate in the following stanza:
Ren, you sound more insane than I do
You think that those doctors are really there to guide you?
Been through this a million times
Your civilian mind is so perfect at always being lied to
Okay, take another pill, boy!
Drown yourself in the sound of white noise
Follow this ten-step program, rejoice!
All your problems will be gone! Fucking dumb boy!
Ren Gill has spoken about how his health issues have been misdiagnosed and his song “Sick Boi,” which he released several weeks after “Hi, Ren,” expresses some of the rage he has felt as a result. Wetiko — because it’s along for the ride inside of us — knows Ren has serious doubts about professional therapy, which is what he feeds off in this stanza. In addition, it then degrades Ren (“your civilian mind is so perfect at always being lied to”) before running through a list of steps Ren has taken and the promises they didn’t deliver before going harder with his first serious insult — “Fucking dumb boy!”
But Ren isn’t going to give in easily. He responds:
Nah, mate, this time it’s different man, trust me
I feel like things might be falling in place
And my music’s been kinda doing bits, too
Like I actually might do something great
And when I’m gone, maybe I’ll be remembered
For doing something special with myself
That’s why I don’t think that we should talk, man
’Cause when you’re with me, it never seems to help
I’ve noticed many reactors in reaction videos nodding along in appreciation of this part. Whether or not one has faced serious health challenges like Ren, I think most humans connect to this struggle inside ourselves between our doubt and our confidence. I know I do. And I think we all want to do something special with ourselves and so to hear an artist give voice to those hopes is inspiring, indeed.
However, this really pisses Wetiko off, so it really digs into its Big Lie in the next stanza, not even playing guitar to make sure Ren totally hears what it says:
You think that you can amputate me?
I am you, you are me, you are I, I am we
We are one, split in two, that makes one, so you see:
You got to kill you if you wanna kill me!
Now that Wetiko has Ren’s attention, it begins its aggressive strumming on the guitar and joyfully raps:
I’m not leftover dinner, I’m not scraps on the side
Oh, your music is thriving? Delusional guy!
Where’s your Top Ten hit?
Where’s your interview with Oprah?
Where are your Grammy’s Ren?
Nowhere!
In this stanza, Wetiko is appealing to our ego’s need for recognition and popularity. He links Ren’s musical success to that need, saying the lack of traditional measuring sticks for musical success proves Ren is a “delusional guy” when he says his music is thriving.
Ren Gill, though, clearly has had this conversation with himself outside of “Hi, Ren” and so he has a response ready:
Yeah, but, my music’s not commercial like that
I never chased numbers, statistics or stats
I never write hooks for the radio
They never even play me,
so why would I concern myself with that?
But my music is really connecting
And the people who find it respect it
And for me, that’s enough
’Cause this life’s been tough
so it gives me a purpose I can rest in
At the start, with the “yeah” — the first time Ren has affirmed something Wetiko said — we see that Wetiko is making some progress. Still, Ren finds it inside of himself to define success as making music that is “connecting” with others and that earns respect from those who find it, giving him a “purpose he can rest in.”
In a world and economic system where finding purpose that is in service to humanity can be extremely challenging, this alone shows that Ren Gill has won an important battle.
Wetiko is by no means done, however. It’s going to keep trying, so it responds with:
Man, you sound so pretentious!
Ren, your music is so self-centered
No one wants to hear another song about how much you hate yourself, trust me…
Considering that Ren has been speaking positively about himself, this might be Wetiko’s weakest attempt yet, though I think it is perhaps speaking to a former version of Ren, digging at old wounds. Still, Wetiko seems to realize its mistake and so it then goes for the argument about why Ren needs it:
You should be so lucky,
having me inside you to guide you,
remind you to manage expectations
Provide you perspective,
that thing you neglected, I get it
You wanna be a big deal…
Next Jimi Hendrix? Forget it
That’s right — you need Wetiko to keep your God complex in check, Ren! It’s both funny and frightening to see how this parasite of the mind so fluidly switches directions. Furthermore, it even tries to show it has empathy for Ren, offering a faked understanding with the “I get it” part. The only reason Wetiko suggest it gets it is not because it empathizes with us as humans but because it is a form of egoic consciousness which thrives on being put on a pedestal. In fact, before coming across the concept of Wetiko, Levy referred to it as ME — malignant egophrenia.
Now, Ren Gill is starting to sound desperate and the speed of the conflict picks up:
Man, it’s not like that
Wetiko comes back:
Man, it’s just like that, I’m inside you, you twat!
Ren tries again:
No, it’s not, man you’re wrong, when I write I belong
But Wetiko now has another trick in its pitchfork:
Let me break the fourth wall by acknowledging this song:
Ren sits down, has a stroke of genius
He wants to write a song that was not done previous
A battle with his subconscious…
Eminem did it
Ren interjects:
Played on guitar?
Wetiko is quick to respond…
Plan B did it!
…and then goes for another Big Lie, delivered in the most aggressive rap of the song:
Man you’re not original, you criminal, rip-off artist
The pinnacle of your success is stealing other people’s material
Ren, mate, we’ve heard it all before
Oh, “She sells sea shells on the sea shore”
Why is this a Big Lie? Well, because Wetiko itself is the real rip-off artist and its only “success” is stealing the consciousness of humanity, our material. It cannot and does not exist without our acquitting to its theft.
Also, it tries to twist the knife with the mocking, “Oh, ‘She sells sea shells on the sea shore,” a reference to an extremely creative, ingenious piece of Ren’s excellent “Money Game, Part 2,” where Ren uses the metaphor of selling sea shells to describe the many lies our economic system is based on. Wetiko knows Ren is very proud of this song and that it was a successful track for him (almost 8 million views on YouTube) and thus tries to take all of that away from Ren, saying it’s just another example of him being a rip-off artist.
Ren responds, and you can hear the hurt in his voice,
Fuck you! I don’t need you, I don’t need to hear this
’Cause I’m fine by myself, I’m a genius!
And I will be great,
and I will make waves,
and I’ll shake up the whole world beneath us
As Levy writes, this is just another side of Wetiko. It’s like Wetiko tricked Ren here, with how it “conjures up a stunted image of ourselves as being limited, wounded, (and) having problems,” leading Ren to move to “the opposite — being inflated and grandiose,” speaking about himself in almost god-like terms.
Not surprisingly, this pleases Wetiko, as he responds:
That’s right, speak your truth!
Your fucking god complex leaks out of you
It’s refreshing to actually hear you say it!
Instead of downplay it…
“Oh, music is all about the creative process and if people can find something to relate to within that, then that’s just a bonus”
Your truth? Nah, Wetiko, that’s what you want us to believe. But then before Ren even has a chance to ponder what it’s said it feeds off something Ren Gill has likely said in the past and it does it in a mocking voice, an attempt to both humiliate and kill any humility in Ren Gill the artist.
At this point, Ren has had enough; there’s no reasoning with Wetiko, so he says:
Fuck you! I’mma fucking kill you, Ren
Here, Wetiko seems to feel that at the very least, this battle will result in a draw, which is another way of saying it might lose Ren Gill as a host for its consciousness but Ren Gill won’t be able to cast it aside and step into his fullness as a human being. After all, it knows that Ren can’t kill him without killing himself as it stated earlier in the song. So it goads Ren:
Well, fucking kill me then! Let’s fucking have you, Ren
And so Ren talks himself into it:
I’mma do it, watch me prove it,
who are you to doubt my music?
’Cause I call the shots, I choose if you die
Yeah, I call the shots and so I choose who survives
I’ll tie you up in knots when I lock you inside
We see Ren act this out, appearing to suck the energy of Wetiko into himself…
….tensing his whole body and then, seconds later with the lights in the room flickering quickly, Wetiko returns, with absolutely no sign of Ren, for his grandiose proclamation:
News flash…
I was created at the dawn of creation
I am temptation
I am the snake in Eden
I am the reason for treason
Beheading all kings,
I am sin with no rhyme or reason
Sun of the morning, Lucifer, Antichrist
Father of Lies, Mestophales
Truth in a blender, deceitful pretender
The banished avenger, the righteous surrender
(A brief aside: Ren’s guitar playing throughout “Hi, Ren” does an amazing job adding to the mood of the story and this section, where he almost seems to relish galloping into a Primus-esque heavy metal ascent, is, for me, one of the highlights.)
When standing in front of my solar eclipse
My name, it is stitched to your lips, so you see
I won’t bow to the will of a mortal, feeble and normal
You wanna kill me? I’m eternal, immortal
I live in every decision that catalyzed chaos
That causes division
I live inside death, the beginning of ends
I am you, you are me, I am you, Ren!
There it is at the end, the Ultimate Lie: “I am you, Ren!” Fortunately, even after that destructive outburst, somehow the guitar quietly descends, and the real Ren Gill emerges:
Hi Ren…
I’ve been taking some time to be distant
I’ve been taking some time to be still
I’ve been taking some time to be by myself
and I’ve spent half my life ill
Notice the difference from the first stanza. Instead of his therapist telling him he’s ill, he takes responsibility for his illness. And that is key: we can’t step into our true power until we take full responsibility for our situation. As Ren says in the closing monologue, “As I got older, I realized there were no real winners and there were no real losers in psychological warfare. But there were victims and there were students.” In this stanza he suggests the movement from victim to student. Which is what allows him to share the following:
But just as sure as the tide starts turning
Just as sure as the night has dawn
Just as sure as the rainfall soon runs dry
when you stand in an eye of a storm
I was made to be tested and twisted
I was made to be broken and beat
I was made by His hand,
it’s all part of His plan
that I stand on my own two feet
For the first time in the song, Ren is identifying himself as being connected to something Greater, recognizing that his life path, his studies if you will, are “all part of His plan” and that plan includes that he overcome this struggle, that he stand up and proclaim:
And you know me, my will is eternal
And you know me, you’ve met me before
Face to face with a beast,
I will rise from the east
and I’ll settle on the ocean floor
And I go by many names also
Some people know me as hope
Some people know me
as the voice that you hear
when you loosen the noose on the rope
He’s touching something very deep here, this idea that when we reach a point of deciding to kill ourselves, there’s another voice, a voice that, unlike Wetiko, wants us to go on, to be empowered not by falsehood, but by recognizing that our challenges are what make us stronger. And so Ren says,
And you know how I know that I’ll prosper?
’Cause I stand here beside you today
I have stood in the flames
that cremated my brain
and I didn’t once flinch or shake
The forceful way he delivers that last stanza is one of the most powerful moments of the song and so, ever the artist, he realizes he’s got to move beyond his spoken voice and thus bursts into triumphant song with the final stanza:
So cower at the man I’ve become
When I sing from the top of my lungs
That I won’t retire, I’ll stand in your fire
Inspire the meek to be strong
And when I am gone, I will rise
In the music that I left behind
Ferocious, persistent, immortal like you
We’re a coin with two different sides
Here he speaks about the great gift that artists can share with the world: inspiration. And in this way, an artist can be immortal, by singing from the top of his lungs about his connection to the human Spirit. Thus, just as this psycho-spiritual malady known as Wetiko has been with us since the dawn of time and will exist long after our mortal bodies pass, so has and will the human Spirit.
Some Thoughts on the Final Monologue
We can’t finish without speaking to how Ren personalizes the story of “Hi, Ren” in his amazing, vulnerable, and wise spoken outro. He begins:
When I was seventeen years old,
I shouted out into an empty room,
into a blank canvas that I would defeat the forces of evil
And for the next ten years of my life I suffered the consequences…
With autoimmunity illness and psychosis
I’ve watched around fifty Reaction Videos to “Hi, Ren” and this part, I believe, is underappreciated. What Ren is saying here is that it was his psychological war with what he thought was himself but was really Wetiko that caused his body, his immune system, to turn on himself. I strongly believe that one of the real blind spots in our medical system is not understanding just how much of a role our psychology plays in determining our physical condition.
Ren goes on:
As I got older,
I realized there were no real winners
and there were no real losers in psychological warfare
But there were victims
and there were students
It wasn’t David versus Goliath,
it was a pendulum
Eternally swaying from the dark to the light
And the more intensely that the light shone,
the darker the shadow it cast
This is another key line — “The more intensely that the light shone, the darker the shadow it cast.” Levy writes, “It is an archetypal, universal dynamic that as we approach the light, the forces of darkness appear to get stronger and more menacing. Progress in our spiritual path is the very act that stirs up these adversarial forces to attack.” Fortunately, Ren understands the solution, as he finishes with:
It was never really a battle for me to win,
It was an eternal dance,
And like a dance,
the more rigid I became, the harder it got
The more I cursed my clumsy footsteps, the more I struggled
So I got older
And I learned to relax,
and I learned to soften,
and that dance got easier
We cannot defeat Wetiko through warfare. We must learn to dance with and integrate this force. But Ren doesn’t leave this just about him, as he ends with an extremely important, universalizing message:
It is this eternal dance
that separates human beings
from angels, from demons, from gods
And I must not forget,
we must not forget,
that we are human beings
Yes, we are not angels, demons or gods. We are human. And that is a joyous, wondrous thing to be, a gift not to be wasted and, the better we know this, the more we can share this gift through our unique creativity, lifting up others as they go through this human journey. Getting in touch with that creativity and using it from a place of Service is one of two cures for Wetiko.
The second cure? Well, I wrote about it in part two of this series, when I shared that watching reaction videos to “Hi, Ren” was “helping me fall (back) in love with humanity.” Wetiko wants us to feel small, to feel all alone, disconnected from the human family, to feel like we must depend on Wetiko to survive. But “Hi, Ren” shows the process of awakening, recognizing that this is Wetiko’s Big Lie, and finding his humanity as a result. As Levy said on this episode of the Higherside Chats podcast:
When you really tap into that deep awakening, you recognize, ‘Oh, my god, I’m all of it.’ Instead of identifying with the skin-encapsulated ego, with the separate self, you begin to have the realization that you’re not separate. … That’s why the medicine par excellence for Wetiko is compassion because compassion spontaneously is the expression of when we see through the separate self and recognize that we aren’t separate.”
Again, we are not angels, demons or gods. We are human. And that is a wondrous thing to be.
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