As I go to bed....

[Occulus]

I have a couple thoughts.

We are living in a world in which the gentle, the good, the truly righteous, the truly moral, are ridiculed, subjugated, and destroyed. We are living in a world in which that which is thoughtful, and yes, even meek, is shoved, almost violently, into the dirt.

We live in a world in which money alone guarantees power, in which wealth equals worth, in which prestige is above logic, or even common sense.

We cannot continue to exist like this.

The old saying still holds truth: what if we held a war, and nobody came to fight? What if we all, on all sides, laid down our arms, and in the face of the screams of "unpatriotism" on both sides, still refused to spill our blood?

Suppose, for a moment, that we could not fight wars. Suppose, for a second, that we did NOT have bombs, or nukes, or napalm; that we lacked the capacity across the globe to fight with more than clubs, and perhaps bows and arrows. What would our world be like if we lacked the capacity to indiscriminately kill?

Long, long ago, I took a personal vow to never ever take another human life. I've modified that vow as I became an adult to include the concept of self-defense- a concept unknown to me for most of my life.

Imagine that- a man so abhorred to violence and death that he will not kill. At all, ever, excepting defense of his own life.

That, I have concluded, is an untenable position. Defensive warfare can, sadly, sometimes become necessary for a society's survival.

I've always been "different". I've always had to watch my own back; nobody, including my own family, was willing to watch it for me. It's taken me, quite literally, twice as long to grow up as it has seemed to me to take the people around me. I'm almost thirty; emotionally, I feel like I'm eighteen or twenty. It's taken me that long to realize the value of my own life.

Why is that?

It begins with people around a child, convincing that child completely of his own self-worthlessness. It begins when the five-year-old on the kindergarten playground gets picked on with no adult in sight. It continues with that same kid, as a fifth grader, being thrown headfirst into a garbage can by a dozen or so other kids while the playground monitor watches and laughs. It continues, and it grows, until the man who results just doesn't want anything to do with the rest of humanity.

I haven't- quite- lost faith in my fellow man, by I'm getting there. I lose a little more faith in humanity to redeem itself every day, reading bits and pieces of violence and hatred of "different" people all over the world. I'm quickly coming to the conclusion that there is nothing at all I can do about this.

That deeply saddens me.

The motivation to crush the people around us begins at home, as a child. It begins with the idea that, if Billy hits you, hit him back, just as hard. I never learned that. But I also never learned from the people who mattered that Billy was wrong for doing so; what I "learned" was that he did it because I was different, and if I didn't like it, I would have to change.

That's just as destructive, and more than a little cruel.

We all are the sum of our experiences, of our lives. We all, each of us, are no more nor less than what people and events around us have made us to be. None of us exist in a vacuum; we ALL are part of this grand clockwork mechanism we call "society". And yet, it's not nearly so simple.

What if kindness and generosity did not exist? What if we all, each of us, were in the game only for ourselves, and nobody else? We'd very quickly wither and die, individually and collectively, but too many people both here and abroad do not understand that.

I've tried to be a good man all my adult life. Even as a child, where other kids would squish that big worm and eew and gross over its innards, I was the kid who felt bad for the worm. That big, colorful worm, had it lived, would have been a Monarch butterfly, but too many of us, emotionally children all, simply do. Not. Care. About. Beauty.

Where are we going? Can our collective death of the soul be stopped?

Parents, pay attention to what your children say. Learn, or try to, from their innocent wisdom. Teach them as well as you can for as long as you can. Teach them about how precious life is. Teach them how unique and diverse our world is and has been. Teach them that each of us are different, that that difference is good, and even necessary. After all, our children are our only true hope for a better future for this world.

Sorry if this seems confused, but I'm tired, and now I'm going to bed. Goodnight.

[NJCher]

1. goodnight, kfgnally

I'm up, awakened by horrors like Bernard Kerik being named head of "homeland" security. The new horrible photos of abuse in Iraq. I awoke with the same thoughts as you, however: we cannot go on like this.


Cher

[xchrom]

2. buck up, it can get worse before it gets better

we haven't begun to feel all the heat from conservative christians -- they have more to dish out, and kerik hasn't even begun his tenure.

my more moderate friends keep telling me it will be fine -- except it keeps getting worse.

just take care of your self -- a neighbor became so obsessed with the election fraud that she lost it and the cops had to take her to psych lock up.

let it roll off like rain off a duck -- and survive -- that's all that anyone can ask for now.

be good to your self and your friends and fuck all else for the time being. the world will still be there.

bushco will come and go -- but we will endure.
that's all we can do.