(no subject)
this is the prompt I have for my honors homework:
No matter how mechanized and distant warfare has become, its primary method of achieving its goals remains the same: the destruction and mutilation of the bodies of the enemy. Respond to this story (and the author q&a that follows) with two or three paragraphs of your own thoughts about that destruction and mutilation. What causes, if any, should be pursued through this method? How can we respond to those who are affected directly by it?
ugh. to put this in perspective, over the weekend I watched In The Valley of Elah, *spoiler* about an iraqi war veteren who goes insane after running over a child with a tank (in full compliance with military procedure for this war) and is murdered upon his return home by some of his friends and fellow soldiers who also have PTSD. it's based on a true story, that of Richard Davis - his parents set up The Richard Davis Foundation for Peace, here is a statement from their website:
The War followed Richard home in the form of his own platoon members. No matter what their motives turn out to be, these men were so immune to violence they failed to distinguish between who was a friend or who was the enemy. As a result Richard was brutally stabbed to death and then set on fire by the very men he should have been able to consider his closest and dearest friends for life; his brothers in arms.
I followed it up by reviewing two things from my native american anthropology class, Little Big Man and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. seeing a baby's head explode because an american soldier shot it in the face twice in one night starts to wear on you.
I'm singing Radhe Jaya Jaya and...I just don't know. I met my conversation partner the other day, Ranger - it was really cool, we talked for several hours. international programs is cool...wonderful oppurtunity...I have a reason to stay in school. I talked to Bridget for hours today about this...and East Wind. I have two options, and I'm so bothered I can't hardly type them out coherently. I can stay here, finish my degree, and work as a counselor like I've planned. I have a suicidal friend. the more I talk to her the more I realize how strong a draw that has - she is a beautiful person, and I find very little as rewarding as seeing her go from depression to laughter - I see a lot of myself in her, when I was struggling with depression at the worst of it. I could help people like that professionally. that could be my life - it could be good.
option two. calling two. focus on ending, or at least minimalizing, my negative impact on the world before seeking out the positive. purification before action. mostly economic in nature - eliminating all of my debt, and then eliminating my reliance on the mainstream economy so as not to support the war through taxes, to say nothing of sweatshops and corporate hegemony. grow a garden at East Wind. answer that calling I felt first to walk out of my door and be when reading the Sermon on the Mount. radhe jaya jaya...that drumbeat mirrors the increasing tempo of that urge. madhava dayite...it's not a perfect community, but they're trying. I'm wondering if I find pot more annoying than patriotism. mama! I'm trying to listen...Hodgetria, open my eyes...*sigh* I don't know.
I have that Van Gogh painting on my wardrobe's door, the one of the skull smoking? here:
I kiss it periodically. I talk to it affectionately. on that note, my grandfather has had a few more mini-strokes, and my dog (who has liver cancer, I've argued with my dad a few times over whether it's right to put her down...which they would do largely because it's cheaper and less emotionally stressful for us than trying to treat her ailments) has stopped eating. Last night I prayed to Cerne...I don't even remember what I prayed. It was to the forest as a whole.
funny thing, apparently church revivals are talking about Indigo Children now. Sarah told me at an assemblies of god rally thing they were mentioned.
where are we going? when do lions lay down with lambs? in death? "what's this trampling down death by death" business? there's something terribly significant about it all. upon typing that I threw up my arms and whispered "brother, where are you?" - not out of character, I just usually don't write down such interjections. I miss you horribly, oh anonymous you. I swear - Jesus with antlers.
we talked more about a friend - someone who spontaneously hit on me two years ago, the grandson of a Candomblé priest of Oxum...I feel like I failed him - I was too timid to act on it, and he's since gone back into the closet and thrown himself head over heals into party politics - he just posted something on HCOL about how it's naive to assume politics can exist without corruption and more or less endorsed it as legitimate and something not worth criticizing. poor child could be eaten whole by corruption and power and wealth. is it arrogant to think I was supposed to "save" him somehow? nudge him in a healthier direction? how many people do I fail when I ignore that sort of prompting?
How do you love people? I have no idea how to treat someone simultaneously as a human being of cosmic significance and ask them to hold the pickles and give me a student discount. I'm not sure it can be done. service is an act of love - an act of worship. "service economy" - ugh. what is that? I fling the word "blasphemy" around a lot. help me, remake me. I don't know. perversion everywhere. they broke their backs lifting molech to heaven...control your impulses, boy! I get the impression my superego has been brainwashed and my id knows God. Ignite! I'm burning down your effigies...Kerouac and Chrysostom and Punk Rock Saints bouncing around in my empty mind. krishna krishna hare hare - the name is meaningless, no! it's full of meaning and meaning itself is empty in the presense of God. I shake my head back and forth until my hair is unbound. God...little drugged up fools looking for life like we've never seen it, like it's never flown through concrete veins. Chant "Ali" or "Shiva" or "Ave", but don't you dare try to use those strings of prayer to drown out the voice of conscience in your heart that says this is wrong. scream out "Ave" and flow but don't don't DON'T try to ward off your own convictions with it. it's not worshiping Christ if it's placating your own demons...instructional demons!
"how many people do I fail when I ignore that sort of prompting" I read that again and it welled up within me, "millions!", "yourself!", and "God" but the last without a word to it. I miss you, brother, and I don't know where to find you. the worst of it is that I suspect that last phrase was a lie.
it feels more and more like a college degree is just an institutional stamp, conditioning to subvert my every urge and bend it to the will of the machine. whenever I talk about "the machine" I feel like a walking cliché. I left high school in part because I said going to college was about making money and you can't learn anything about changing this world if you're "educated" by the people responsible for maintaining and furthering the status quo. at least, that was the justification on top of the depression and lack of motivation. the difference now is that I feel the same way without the depression and with quite a bit of motivation. is it too vague? what's my plan? I don't want to just drift if I were to leave. it could be very hard to come back inside if I don't find what I was looking for on the outside. who do I admire beyond reconning? Ammon Hennacy. Christ (I laugh, somehow I doubt Ammon would approve of my listing him first - these aren't in order, they're all the same idea really), those folks in the plowshares movement who have been in and out of prison for speaking the truth in love and standing up to the monster. thoreau. a life of comfortable mediocrity with a small measure of peace for my conscience is what college can offer me. I feel like I'm starting to create a potentially false dichotomy.
it's possible to be a moral giant, a hero, a saint, in spite of attending college.
it is not possible to be any of those things if I continually ignore my deepest urges, my passion to do anything they would. it's unrealistic to assume I would ever be one - but it's a huge failure, perhaps the most significant of all failures, to not even try.
you know, at some of these places people chose their names. I was thinking about Kyrie. only because I thought it meant "mercy", though. heh, eleison isn't quite as nice for a name. I like Nathan, I guess. did I ever write about it? I'm named for someone who publicly challenged the greatest king of the greatest kingdom in this culture's awareness for immorality. I don't know...I want to look at the story in more depth...who/what would Bathsheba be? Uriah? Absolom? Solomon? heh, maybe my name is my vocation. Thus says the LORD: ‘Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your own house'...a good name. at least I'm not a Joshua or a Caleb. a friend had me listen to Eric Whittacre's version of "When David Heard" two years ago, it made such an impression I just bought the album on itunes (...damn the machine) and it's absolutely stunning - amazing. O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son. I'm going to hope that it's relevant. it's now 6am and I haven't started my homework. I'll sleep on all of this and wonder what my plans are soon.