November 11th - Remember?
It's 1:30 am, just the beginning of November 11th. We're at war. Again, another war, different kinds of wars, war. Man always at war. Always, a place and a time in conflict heavy enough, that we drop that heavy three letter label.
Has there ever been a time, in all of our history, mankind's history, when we were not engaged in some kind of war?
How can we not remember, how can we ever forget, when it's everywhere around us, not just today, but everyday.
War is not something that happens separate from us, it's something we create from inside of us. The dark part of our biology, that mean trick of evolution and psyche, that makes us aggressive, competitive, fearful. Our empathy, our compassion, our 'humanity' struggles with the horror of it. Yet we do it. Over and over and over again.
The wars that are fought around us, those fought far away from us, those fought within us. The wars fought between nations, between families, between couples or friends, the wars fought inside our own heads. There are people who go eagerly into war, with themselves, with others. There are those that go reluctantly out of a sense of duty. There are those who may go in some circumstances and not in others. There are those that approach it intellectually, removed, tacticians. There are those that have bloodlust. There are those who will do anything to avoid it. There are those who have all those parts of themselves.. all those elements of being a man, at war within them, while they themselves are at war externally. Even if you run from the war outside of you, you can never run from the war inside of you. Well you can... many go along pretending that particular part of our package doesn't exist as much as they possibly can. But we can't really escape it. We can't run from ourselves, as much as we try to stand separate from things.. as much as we will draw a line in the sand and say, here I am, here we are, this is us.. and that, that over there.. is them. The enemy.
I'm just rambling here. And I know I'm likely going to offend someone. But I'm just going to do it anyways... It's how I sort things out, how I process. Put my thoughts and feelings into these little awkward symbols.
The world is a paradox of horror and beauty. Of 'good' and 'evil'... it's a swirling blend of grays.. it's blacks and white, and colorless techno-colored, swirling masses of more than we can grasp in our hands, or in the gray matter that swims in the jelly of our skulls. Whether that matter is engaged in intellectual debate.. or is cracked open by the hands of another in rage, in fear.... in... in and out.
How does life go on, because life is what it is.. it has always gone on. As bombs drop, and blood flows, lovers lose themselves in one another's arms, babies are born, leaves fall from trees in golden torrents. We may laugh, we may weep. We may feel joy one moment, fear the next. Guilt, and confusion. Why apologize for it. Yet, how, how really do we come to terms with it.
I guess its a personal journey for everyone... like everything is.
Are we really all so different from one another, people, everywhere around the world, one baby like another, one mother like another... yet we are so very much the same and so very different. Can we point a finger at a nation and call it 'other' or 'evil' ? Perhaps, and the mother next door who abuses her own child, the horrors that happen in our neighbors back yards. Are we really the good guys? Who are the good guys? We all are.. and we're all the bad guys. We all have choices as individuals. Scary isn't it. Responsibility. and what does it mean. For some it has meant pick up a gun, for others it has meant cross the border and avoid a draft. Whose right? Well who the hell am I to judge.. the last thing I want to do is start pointing fingers myself... you know, it often all starts that way.
I don't wear poppies, I never have. I don't 'really' know why... I haven't been able to totally formulate my intellectual rational for it. I'm not sure why. Even as a small child... in school, in grade one, I realized I was very different. I did not want to stand and sing the national anthem, and I did not want to kneel and recite the lord's prayer, and on remembrance day, they would pass along the poppies, and I would pass them over. I didn't understand a lot at 5 years of age, about nationalism, about religion, about institutions.. like countries, religions, and wars. All I knew, is something about those little rituals in the gym, those assemblies, made me feel like there was a spider crawling on my arm, or like someone was trying to trick me somehow. Like someone was trying to take something that I could instinctively feel was a really very very enormous and complicated issue, and package it. Package it tight and small and pretty. Poetry and adornments, songs and celebrations, solemn things, with odd rituals, and that just felt.. wrong. I also had this theory, that if you didn't really understand it, why do it?... I couldn't embrace the whole concept, I still can't, You know.. I really don't think we know what the fuck we're doing.
If we're all going to jog merrily along, but we don't know where the hell we're going. Well kiddies.. I decided a long time ago, I was just going to sit on my but, and watch all the others jog merrily along until I could figure out if a) they knew where they were going b) they could explain it to me so I could understand and c) it was someplace I wanted to end up.
Some people look at that.. and don't like it much, they may see apathy, they may see lack of care.. but you know, that's not it, I care a great deal. I was, and still am, a very sensitive child. I knew a fair bit about death... There was a lot of losses in my families life, and my oldest sister, like a mother to me, died when I was seven. I had a lot of experience with seeing people have pain. I also had seen a lot of aggression. I knew that war was something like that, on this unimaginable scale. I knew about the people in the mental institution that my mother worked in the dietary for, that had gone to war, and that were damaged everywhere in connection with it, from it, or from the drugs they had taken to try to escape it. I was a child that fought my own personal wars.. nightmares every night until my teens, waking up screaming... I struggled with the world around me, and I still do.
It's not easy... to sit on your butt, watching the other kiddies jogging by. Sometimes you think, why? Why am I different, Why do I choose to question the world around me, the politics, the religion, the cultural customs, question my parents, my teachers, and question myself... I wasn't putting myself above anything or anyone else. I was as skeptical and unrelenting in my own self examination as that of the world around me.
I never felt like I was rejecting people when I rejected concepts. But that's another thing I learned early on... When you didn't agree with what a person believed, or thought... they seemed to think that you thought better than them somehow. And that you were rejecting them in some way. Not everyone, but many people, anyways. Those people.. they would dislike me, or reject me, because of what I believed, or didn't believe, and that always seemed very very bizarre to me. Are we supposed to all be the same? think the same?... Why do people think they were born with life's book of instructions, and their personal book of faith is the one true copy.
Well... There's a lot to remember, and some try very hard to forget a lot of it. My hearts goes out to those who will live their lives struggling to forget parts of what war means for them. I can't wear the poppy... but I will try to empathize, try to send my souls embrace out to those who struggle, who have made their choices, who have been hurt by them, or who are proud of them. Who am I to judge... What would I have done if I was that person, then, with their history... we all have a right to our choices. And we all have a right to be loved, to be forgiven, to be accepted. Because we all are what we are. We are all men, we are all human, we are all made up of parts that biology and spirit and who knows what else has combined to create a being that is as hostile and hard as it is compassionate and soft. I think of my own day, yesterday, my own battles with myself and my loved ones... I look back on yesterday, and on my whole life, and look at the violence, the grief, the pain, and the fighting I myself have engaged in. I look back and I look at the love, the joy, and the compassion too. The hurt I've been caused. The hurt I've caused. The love I've been given. the love I've given. And I make no apologies. Moments like the picture below, where I was smiling, and moments like now, where tears spill from my eyes. All those moments are okay.
XO
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