(no subject)
I am at my computer desk, sitting here with a glass of wine; another feeling of needing to sit here and write something. No idea what to write.
I sit here too much. I stay home too much. But I have no clue what else there is to do, and I have the feeling that I'd like going out even less than staying here. But it's a pretty binary domain space, isn't it? You either go out or you stay home. I think it's time for me to start looking into martial arts schools.
Martial Arts have always been a strange concept for me. Here I am, a pacifist, drawn to the study of violent self-defense. In heaven, I'm sure there's no violence (or beer, as the song goes). But this is Earth, a place that has evil and darkness. I think that if the choice were forced upon me, I would defend friends and loved ones. And that's just because I live on Earth, and not in heaven. It seems selfish that people I love should suffer for my beliefs, especially if they do not share them. But, I'd like to think that if it were just me in danger that I would not fight back.
My best and oldest friend came home from Iraq carrying the pain of a world embroiled in suffering and in shadow. I don't know for sure, but I have the suspicion that he was made to bear witness to things so far from light and love that he struggles to believe that they exist, or at least that they suffice to heal the horror hiding in humanity's hatred. He once posted something in his myspace that I still think about. Essentially, it was a “why you sometimes have to fight back” chain-letter sort of thing.
Imagine that you’re talking to a friend that doesn’t believe in war, or fighting, or violence. As they’re explaining why they don’t believe in it, punch them in the face. When they get up, pissed off, ask them, “How do you feel about fighting back now?” Continue to punch them in the face until they realize that you are not going to stop until they hit you back. It’s a clever argument, but I don’t think it’ll produce the result that’s intended.
I love my best friend a lot. He is one of the very few people that I would trust with my life, and not think twice. And I’d like to think that if he, or anyone else, hated me so badly that I deserved to be punched in the face that I would continue to get up until 1) the hatred abated or, 2) I could no longer get up. And I think, too, that there’s an upper limit to the times a human being can cause harm to someone who continues to stand up, but will not fight back. Unless you’re not a human being, there has to come a point when you realize that you’re the monster, not the person you’ve been beating.
Now, more than ever, there seems to be a gap between what is right, and what is realistic. There are a lot of things we can point to: lack of education, wealth disparity, religious beliefs, culture, past history, etc. There’s a lot of disagreement on what is “right”, and I’m among the guilty who sometimes think they always know what “right” is.
The truth is that I don’t always know what “right” is. The truth is that I don’t know what answer I can make to lack of education, wealth disparity, or religious divide. But I think that until we’ve discovered the answers, and until we’ve discovered what is “right”, certainly it must be wiser to love than to loathe?
From the Wikipedia entry for Gandhi’s nonviolence:
Gandhi explains his philosophy and way of life in his autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth. He was quoted as saying:
"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall - think of it, always."
"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?"
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
"There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for."
In applying these principles, Gandhi did not balk from taking them to their most logical extremes. In 1940, when invasion of the British Isles by Nazi Germany looked imminent, Gandhi offered the following advice to the British people (Non-Violence in Peace and War):
"I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions.... If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them."
However, Gandhi was aware that this level of nonviolence required incredible faith and courage, which he realized not everyone possessed. He therefore advised that everyone need not keep to nonviolence, especially if it was used as a cover for cowardice:
"I do believe that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence."
"At every meeting I repeated the warning that unless they felt that in non-violence they had come into possession of a force infinitely superior to the one they had and in the use of which they were adept, they should have nothing to do with non-violence and resume the arms they possessed before. … Their bravery consisted not in being good marksmen but in defying death and being ever ready to bare their breasts to the bullets."
I sit here too much. I stay home too much. But I have no clue what else there is to do, and I have the feeling that I'd like going out even less than staying here. But it's a pretty binary domain space, isn't it? You either go out or you stay home. I think it's time for me to start looking into martial arts schools.
Martial Arts have always been a strange concept for me. Here I am, a pacifist, drawn to the study of violent self-defense. In heaven, I'm sure there's no violence (or beer, as the song goes). But this is Earth, a place that has evil and darkness. I think that if the choice were forced upon me, I would defend friends and loved ones. And that's just because I live on Earth, and not in heaven. It seems selfish that people I love should suffer for my beliefs, especially if they do not share them. But, I'd like to think that if it were just me in danger that I would not fight back.
My best and oldest friend came home from Iraq carrying the pain of a world embroiled in suffering and in shadow. I don't know for sure, but I have the suspicion that he was made to bear witness to things so far from light and love that he struggles to believe that they exist, or at least that they suffice to heal the horror hiding in humanity's hatred. He once posted something in his myspace that I still think about. Essentially, it was a “why you sometimes have to fight back” chain-letter sort of thing.
Imagine that you’re talking to a friend that doesn’t believe in war, or fighting, or violence. As they’re explaining why they don’t believe in it, punch them in the face. When they get up, pissed off, ask them, “How do you feel about fighting back now?” Continue to punch them in the face until they realize that you are not going to stop until they hit you back. It’s a clever argument, but I don’t think it’ll produce the result that’s intended.
I love my best friend a lot. He is one of the very few people that I would trust with my life, and not think twice. And I’d like to think that if he, or anyone else, hated me so badly that I deserved to be punched in the face that I would continue to get up until 1) the hatred abated or, 2) I could no longer get up. And I think, too, that there’s an upper limit to the times a human being can cause harm to someone who continues to stand up, but will not fight back. Unless you’re not a human being, there has to come a point when you realize that you’re the monster, not the person you’ve been beating.
Now, more than ever, there seems to be a gap between what is right, and what is realistic. There are a lot of things we can point to: lack of education, wealth disparity, religious beliefs, culture, past history, etc. There’s a lot of disagreement on what is “right”, and I’m among the guilty who sometimes think they always know what “right” is.
The truth is that I don’t always know what “right” is. The truth is that I don’t know what answer I can make to lack of education, wealth disparity, or religious divide. But I think that until we’ve discovered the answers, and until we’ve discovered what is “right”, certainly it must be wiser to love than to loathe?
From the Wikipedia entry for Gandhi’s nonviolence:
Gandhi explains his philosophy and way of life in his autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth. He was quoted as saying:
"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall - think of it, always."
"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?"
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
"There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for."
In applying these principles, Gandhi did not balk from taking them to their most logical extremes. In 1940, when invasion of the British Isles by Nazi Germany looked imminent, Gandhi offered the following advice to the British people (Non-Violence in Peace and War):
"I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions.... If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them."
However, Gandhi was aware that this level of nonviolence required incredible faith and courage, which he realized not everyone possessed. He therefore advised that everyone need not keep to nonviolence, especially if it was used as a cover for cowardice:
"I do believe that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence."
"At every meeting I repeated the warning that unless they felt that in non-violence they had come into possession of a force infinitely superior to the one they had and in the use of which they were adept, they should have nothing to do with non-violence and resume the arms they possessed before. … Their bravery consisted not in being good marksmen but in defying death and being ever ready to bare their breasts to the bullets."