Will It End?
Forgive me, ALTE friends, but I am overcome by the tragic state of the world. I am terribly sad, and while there are a lot of things I might write this week, what I keep thinking about is people killing each other. How they keep killing children. It’s disgusting. I don’t care why they are doing it. I don’t care about the back story– who did what to whom, whose land, whose god, whose group, whose clan, whose religion, whose country, whose whatever. I do not care. Those are all abstract intellectual constructs, and I do not care. I am willing to be absolute about this. Killing is bad. Taking hostages is bad. Killing someone doesn’t solve anything unless someone is literally in the act of trying to take someone’s life, and my definition of literally trying to take someone’s life is extremely limited. I want the world to stop rationalizing murder and to stop murdering.
So many people spend time in blame assessment. Who didn’t take the dog out? Who did what or who didn’t do what? What’s the point? More murders will not change whatever happened or did not happen in the past. Nothing changes the past. Murders will not change the present in any positive way. Neither will kidnapping. Our time is better spent working on changing the present for the better. More love, more kindness, different people in power, more well-paying jobs, better healthcare. I am not being Pollyannaish here. Changing the present is hard work. It requires imagination and continuous effort.
I had hoped humanity would grow kinder during my lifetime, but I have grown old, and that did not happen. I was naive. The people who kill continue to rationalize and to murder. The rest of us lament. Some protest. Some write letters or make phone calls. I am tired, and I am discouraged. Maybe you have a different point of view or a more optimistic point of view. If so, I would love to hear them. Meantime, the murders continue, and another sad week ends.
Sometimes I think that since the main drive of any living species is to Live......and perhaps there is some tiny muddled clump of DNA in our reptilian brain that signals that it is time to Kill so as to survive...no checking in with the so-called higher brain functions and so ever since I can remember some peoples have been killing other peoples all the time. But what do I know of neuro-science.....do you think anyone has studied this ? All I know is that when this takes hold the species with collectively or individually goes into Kill mode. I no longer know what to do about it either collectively or individually. It seems that it's "sackcloth and ashes" for all of us for I don't know how long. I don't have a Plan B. anymore. But I do want to say that I grieve with the writer and all the commentators and strangely that makes me not feel so alone.
Oh Jessica, everything you said is EXACTLY how I am feeling. It's so sad and demoralizing. Would women leaders do it differently? I like to think so, but only if they were real feminists. Men could be feminists too. Killing is not the way.