Daddy Issues: Lost in the Realm of the Damned

Painting in large, metaphorical brushstrokes here.  Use any interpretation you like.  This story has been told many times, over many millennia, in so many ways.  The way I understand it is this:

We were created.  We had no personal hand in that.  However it all happened, we were not involved.

It doesn't matter which god we attribute with creation, be it a deity or a physical process.  What matters is the fact - we know it to be fact these days - that life here began, and was made possible, by processes and events "out there," or subjectively, "up there," in the heavens, of the Universe, of stardust.  Our world, our experience here, our existence, is what feels to us as the "end result" of creation, though we rationally know there's more, and sometimes remember it, and sometimes conveniently forget.  And, like an unborn child, we were not involved.

We have, however, also like a child born to this world, evolved.  We were born to our Mother, the Earth, this beautiful planet, this "pale blue dot," which gave us sustenance, gave us room to grow, provided for us, appetitive parasites, and hid us from the processes to which she, too, is a slave, a cog in the machine, a vessel.  Yet, like children, we also need our Father, want to know him, to understand him, to matter to him, be he unmoved mover or big bang.  We've explored the world, work, study and strive to learn what makes it all tick, we study the skies, we discover - we evolve, changing now and then, searching for our heavenly, universal, perhaps metaphorical father, for the seed that made all this possible, for the force that gave us form.

We do this through religion, through philosophy, through science, we try to see our father, to know or understand our father, through inquiry and prayer we're pounding on his door, calling, begging for the keys, but when we think we've found them through our telescopes, our microscopes, spectrometers and colliders and we cross the threshold, we find only another locked door on which to pound and beg.  Still, our father doesn't answer.

Perhaps he isn't there?  Perhaps we've upset him?  Perhaps he's ashamed of us?  And now we look less to the father and more at ourselves, and we make a choice.

I'm not saying it's an easy choice.

Some of us take faith that our father lives within us, acts through us, exists in some way whether we know him personally or not, and find some measure of peace in the faith that evolution is a process of becoming, of discovering and unfolding the product of creation (in which we were not involved).  We learn, we explore, we tell stories of what we find, we tell them to the lost, dejected, tormented.  We are driven to this by kinship, by love for our brothers and sisters, that all may find this moment of refuge, this scrap of peace.

Some of us continue banging on that door, and seek the secret formula to convince our father to accept us, imperfect as we are - we worship, we create and follow rules, we guess at what he wants, and come to hate ourselves a bit (and sometimes those around us) for what we are, because as long as that door remains unanswered whatever we are must surely not be good enough, not ready.

And some of us get angry, and turn away from the father we take to have rejected us.  "The hell with you," we say, "who needs you anyway?  We'll get on just find without you," and we set about becoming what we believe a father should be, we make ourselves the centre of our own Universe.  A father is the seed of creation, and we take the role upon ourselves, and strive to create our own reality, strive to manipulate, rape our Earthly Mother, explore that we may exploit.  We convince ourselves that it's our role to get involved.

Here we become our own false idols, assume a false throne at the height of creation.  We obscure the meanings of words to announce that childhood has passed and the time has come to be our own Masters.  We create a language to tell a different story, one to entice, to persuade, to explain this new reality, to rewrite and cloud our memory, and to confuse.

Oh yes, we need a language to confuse.  Because a father carries an unintelligible authority, inaccessible to the uninitiated.  The seemingly unattainable wisdom of the father is what gives him power over his children.  The harder the subjects of this earthly kingdom work to understand, the less they'll realize their capacity to question.

Here we reject our universal father, lose faith, forget that we were created and rewrite the narrative to focus it on ourselves, and here we fall, and there will be no peace in the chaos we create, and there will be no true love where the meaning of the word is redefined and clouded, and there will be no transcendental joy in a world reduced to power struggles and politics, and there will be no sublime, painful beauty without utility, guilt and shame, and the paths we follow, seeking Truth, won't lead us there, but instead will start and end with only us.  We'll search in all the wrong directions and come full circle ravenously hungry, tired, ever unsatisfied by what we've seen, and create ourselves some frivolous purpose to keep our hands busy, unsettled by the cowardice by which we force ourselves to endure another empty night, another empty dawn, another empty day.

(You say you hate me, but I love you,
and I worry about you, and I 
want you to be happy.  You say
you're here to save me, to protect 
me, but that makes me sad, and 
I won't let myself stand and be counted.
It's not your fault.  I can't save you 
either.  I took awhile getting here.  I'm 
not a warrior, not a doctor, not a 
preacher, not a prophet.  I tell stories.)

So we follow a path of our own choosing, and here we are, a world of 7 billion trying, in our own ways, to play our roles and make it work.  If it sounds depressing or pointless, it needn't be.  There's a tiny silver lining in a world of pain and fear and cruelty and crisis, and it's that what is cowardice in some manifests as hope in others, and where there's hope lives a measure of faith in the forces beyond our control, a subconscious message buried deep within ourselves, speaking of a truth that exists with or without our acknowledgment.  The message is a promise that reality existed before us, will exist beyond our time, and that any way we look at it, we were created.  The message is an open door, inviting us back to a place of childlike wonder and exploration and discovery.  The message tells us we all fall off the path sometimes, and that there are ways to find ourselves, to orient and right ourselves when we get lost.

This hope is our lifeline.  Does that seem flimsy?  Irrational?  Unscientific?  Spooky, maybe?  Look beyond the words.  Don't just read them, try to feel them.  The open-minded, the open-hearted, the curious and the unafraid, the unbound and unaffiliated, the truest children-at-heart are guided by a constant taught by religions, mythologies, philosophy and yes, even science, and that constant, stapled across the canons, is that we, mere mortal humans, are incapable of certainty, and this for the better.  If we had certainty there would be nothing to live for, nothing to fight for, nothing to look for, no stories to tell, and nothing to do.

Nat Tries Real Yoga Instead of Fake Yoga and Can't Figure Out What She Thinks

I went to a hatha yoga retreat last weekend with my mother.  Since then, I've been asked about it by a number of people.  I've tried dodging that question, because I'd like to do it justice, but also because a week later I'm still trying to figure it out.  Here are my preliminary thoughts & impressions:

My mother invited me because she had always wanted to go, but wanted company.  This particular retreat was so important to her because it would include a banquet celebrating the yoga teacher's 50th anniversary of teaching yoga.  Think about that for a minute - it's a big deal.  Though she won't give an exact number for how long she's been his student, I can triangulate that if my mother started taking his classes shortly after her wedding, and well before I was born, she's been going to this particular yoga class for 35-38 years.  Thinking about that for a minute, that's a pretty impressive number, too.
Why did I go?  Because I'm insatiably curious.

The questions I was asked most over the course of the weekend:
Q:  How long have you been his student?
A:  I'm not.

Q:  Have you practiced yoga elsewhere?
A:  [stammer]

Why the stammer?
Because there are a few things I absolutely knew going into this.  I knew, for instance, that the teacher is a 'purist,' and disapproves of the novelty yoga that gets mass marketed these days (Mom: "You shouldn't do hot yoga. My yoga teacher says it's bad for the heart").  I knew that, for instance, where I go into a hot yoga class in fluorescent gear and as close to naked as decency allows, that just wouldn't fly here.  I knew that vegetarianism and sobriety would be important to the spirit of the weekend (Mom: "My yoga teacher doesn't eat any meat at all").  I also knew that Mom wanted me to be discreet about some of my daily vices (Mom: "I hope you won't get too offended by anything he says about smokers").  I also knew that the teacher leans toward actual teaching - I have a few books on my shelf that Mom's given me over the years because "my yoga teacher recommended them."  They are about love, communication, mindfulness, and diet, and yes, I've read them and made use of them.  They are mostly Buddhist, and I expected to hear more of the same.
So, back to the stammer - Have I practiced yoga elsewhere?  I have.  It is not the pure and disciplined hatha yoga these people are talking about.  It's hot yoga and power yoga, the kind of self-centered yoga that comes without any significant spiritual aspect but makes me flexible enough to survive flying over the handlebars of my mountain bike without killing myself (so far) at best, and lets me spend time in an over-heated room, which I love, at worst.  I'm not oblivious to the more traditional spiritual aspect - I just don't look for it from a yoga instructor who got a teaching certificate in a handful of weekends after a year or two of practice.

The answers I gave most over the course of the weekend:
A: It's interesting.
A: I was curious.
(as it turns out, people don't like these answers)

Into the classroom.
I expected that the pace of the classes would be slower than what I was used to.  It was, and I was okay with that, since it had been awhile since I've done anything active at all.  It was reassuring to not be run through poses like a game of high octane Twister.  What I did not expect was that a more conservative pace would be just as effective as a workout.  Further, I was right about the gear: Not too bright, not too tight, not too white.
I expected there to be a certain degree of teaching.  I did not know what the nature of the teaching would be.
To illustrate the contrast, in the course of a run-of-the-mill yoga class I can generally expect the following (in a pixie-esque cadence & timbre): "Thank yourself for making this time for yourself today;" "Thank yourself for all the energy you've created in the last hour;" "Feel all the weight of your day and all of your daily responsibilities drift off as you focus on your breath;" "Carry this light and energy with you out into the world"... and more of the same.
Not here (Thankfully!).
The teaching in these classes went along more "real-world" lines.  Awareness is important (mindfulness).  If you want to live a long, healthy life, you need to be serious about making choices that lead to a long, healthy life.  Don't smoke.  Don't eat irresponsibly.  Take care of your body.  Get exercise.  If you don't do these things, you aren't going to enjoy a long, healthy life.  Proper Relaxation.  Proper exercise.  Proper Breathing.  Proper Diet.  Positive thinking and meditation.
The practice was simple, straight out of the Sivananda prescription, no surprises, no shortness of breath, anyone could do this, and comfortably.  The teacher intertwined his lecture with the poses seamlessly, and it definitely put a very cool vibe to the experience.  I had never known yoga to be this holistic, but here in this room it made sense.
And then the class took a turn I hadn't expected:  The teacher opened the floor to questions from the class.  That was completely new to me.  Who asks questions in the middle of a yoga class?  As it turns out, everybody.  Not about the practice, either, but real, personal questions: difficulties recovering from injuries, difficulties communicating with relatives, difficulties adjusting to life changes, difficulties with holding onto personal beliefs in the face of obstacles and adversity, difficulty with taking care of oneself when too much energy gets spent taking care of others, trouble adapting the precepts of the teaching.  And there were practical, if brief, answers to each, like a balm.  This wasn't just a yoga class - this was a community, looking for direction from the teacher, who gives full credit to his guru.

So I understand why so many people at the retreat, like my mother, are completely dedicated to their weekly yoga class and so devoted to their teacher. To get a quick overview, there were 100 participants at this retreat, mostly middle aged women (but most if not all of the advanced students there were men).  The oldest was in her mid-80's, and has been this teacher's student for 44 years.  There were 4 women there who had been 40+ year students.  Very few in the room had been students for less than a decade.  At the vegetarian banquet dinner, an anniversary "tribute" video was screened, wherein a whole slew of students told about what a huge difference this teacher has made in their lives. The most popular statement, apparently, was that he "taught them patience," and helped them through some of the scarier or more difficult times in their lives.  The love these students have for their teacher is absolutely real. All I could really think about in hearing all these accounts was:  this teacher knew my mother when my parents had no money.  He knew my mother when she was having kids, when she was butting heads with her daughter, when her parents died, when she was fighting breast cancer, when she was retiring. In a sense, I was meeting someone my mother called a yoga teacher, but was more practically an older, wiser friend who came just short of therapist, in a room of a hundred people with a similar story.  It was extremely touching.

BUT. There's this nagging asterisk poking the back of my mind.  False Buddha?  (Someone I used to know wrote a great song about this kind of thing.)
I don't think so.  It would be easy to look at someone who has a lot of charisma, who appears wise (or at least, wise enough), who people flock to and throw money at for direction and advice, and begrudge the guy for 'preying on the impressionable' or something to that tune.  Here's the thing:  I think this teacher honestly believes every word he speaks.  I believe he is exactly what he claims to be.  His fees notwithstanding, he's delivering a message of peace and strength to people who desperately want to hear it.  He's helping people who want the help.  I have trouble begrudging that.  I would've liked some of the discussion to be more philosophical rather than dogmatic, more 'here's what suffering is and why it's a problem', and less 'the keys to life are a, b, and c, but I can understand why it wasn't (I think the answer involves the term Vinaya).

I got plenty of opportunities to talk to some of his students over the course of the weekend, too.  Has Nat finally drank the kool-aid? I woke up in the morning on the second day of the retreat and walked the resort in my sweatpants and insanely comfortable shoes on a ravenous hunt for coffee (I can hear Mom in my head, saying "My yoga teacher doesn't drink any coffee at all").  Finding it took awhile. At breakfast mom and I sat with a group of women who spoke at length about the difficulties of vegetarianism and how their families are keeping them from going vegan.  They spoke at length about their careful, conscientious food choices, complete with the spiritual slogans that come with them, until someone (not me) mentioned that she just can't give up her half-glass of wine with dinner.  And then everyone else at the table agreed.  An incredible guilt crossed the brave faces at the table, like watching keeping-up-with-the-Joneses-on-Facebook play itself out in real life, and it kind of made me sad.  I looked at all of them and declared, "this is my third cup of coffee this morning, and I'm not sorry.  This coffee is delicious."  They would have been within their rights, in my opinion, to throw bread at me at that, but what I got instead was the sincerest gratitude.  And then came the flood of honesty - everyday fears, everyday difficulties and day to day stuff, and some element of comfort, some element of sorority and common ground in knowing that the problems that plague you in your solitude are the same as those that plague others. Real connection, real compassion.  Ordinary people, trying to get from today to tomorrow, and all of them blushing as they tell each other they hear their teacher's voice in their heads whenever they're grocery shopping, cooking, or are presented with 'problematic' ideas.

The weekend wasn't all feel-good-ness, though.  The teacher stressed, "this isn't a yoga party.  It's a yoga retreat."  Some things didn't sit entirely well with me.  I don't care for dogma, and I found some of the teachings bordering on the passive aggressive.  My guard goes up when I'm told what to do or how to think, rather than being shown the argument and told to work it out.  The official answer to that, I believe, would be that my ego is designed to dissuade me from seeing uncomfortable truths, or that I'm simply not ready to take the path seriously, and there's probably a strong argument to be made for both.  There was some talk of past lives, but I'm neither Hindu nor Buddhist, and taking this idea literally rather than conceptually isn't worked into any metaphysical cosmology I'd bet on right now.  And in general, I found this was not a very warm place for objectivity.  I should have expected that - I've come across the 'just start practicing, the details will come later' approach to Eastern principles before.  That said, I can agree to disagree, and I did find it curious that I genuinely looked forward to the next lecture, the next class, genuinely wanted to hear the man speak.

Sunday evening came along, the retreat came to an end, and when Mom asked what I thought of it, I didn't want to tell her I found it bittersweet, so I said as little as I could.  Give it a few days, I thought, get back into work and routine and dirty laundry, get some perspective, but closer to the mark would be that I lost my objectivity.  It was insidious.  Over the course of the week, I found myself craving ayurvedic cooking and doing backward bends and stretches in the elevators, breathing exercises in the car.  I caught a hot yoga class several days later, and found myself annoyed that so much was missing.  Creepiest of all, I found myself hearing the yoga teacher's voice in my head and feeling guilty when, tired, I ordered a pizza for dinner, or every time I lit a cigarette or (believe it!) poured my third cup of coffee in the morning or walked through a store.  Do I find myself believing in everything presented to me?  Certainly not enough to pray, but maybe enough to throw some money at it.  That I was affected, despite myself, is something worth considering.

Is this style of hatha yoga for you?  Maybe, but I can't stress enough how different it is from mainstream fitness-oriented yoga.  It really depends on what you want from it, and each offers things the other doesn't deliver.  You won't work up a crazy sweat or be told to "find your own flow," but you'll come out of it with much more than your usual yoga-buzz.  In a society where religion is quickly becoming a dirty word, the masses scramble for the ideology with which to hypocritically replace it and social identity groups and sub-classes clamber over each other pressing us to stand up and be counted, you could do worse than with a more natural practice based in the relative simplicity of human experience and human nature.

...And those are my thoughts for now.


more details?  the parts I left out?  email:
enoughtopray@gmail.com

My Thoughts at Day 2, Ghomeshi Trial

I'd like to preface this by clarifying that I have nothing at stake in the outcome of the Jian Ghomeshi trial.  Neither verdict will offend me, I have no hopes or expectations.  I am not threatened by Mr. Ghomeshi, or those like him, and my sense of ethics is entirely dependent on whether the actions I take today allow me to look in the mirror tomorrow morning - and little else.  I'm not anti-social-justice, but I tend more toward the anti-hysteria, anti-hypocrisy camp.
When the news about Mr. Ghomeshi broke, it meant nothing for my weekend.  I wasn't a disappointed fan, and felt that too much of the case had to do with private exchanges, was plainly aware that we weren't being told the whole story by anyone, and frankly a complete stranger's *hm* preferences are none of my business.  I had no opinion, and continue to have no opinion on the facts of the case.  It's not my place to have an opinion. Quite honestly, who am I to judge?
But I spend a lot of time waiting in line in court offices all over southern Ontario, a lot of time on the road listening to the news (traffic on the ones!), and Twitter makes a good time-killer, so I looked up the trial and started following.

It's much more colourful than I thought it would be.
My impressions so far:

1.  I serve legal documents for a living, and later wait around for hours at a time to file them at the courts.  I've read hundreds of Statements of Claim, Defences, Motion Records, Facta, Divorce documents, small claims documents, etc.  I've seen how nasty people can be to each other, and I hear, on a daily basis, how upset and frustrated litigants can get when the procedure gets confusing or when the consequences of missing a step or failing to comply creates hardship or inconvenience.  I've stood next to vengeful people, telling anyone within earshot about the punishment they intend to exact.  I've knocked on strangers' doors in the poorest and richest neighbourhoods, had people physically run from me, squared off in case the angry guy behind the door should start swinging, served in hospitals, detention centres, psych wards, and staked out fraudsters.  I've seen people pursued by so many creditors they're afraid of their shadows, and I've seen people completely blindsided by being sued.  I've seen families brutally biting into each other over pennies, had people cry on my shoulder on their doorstep in the dark, been invited into homes to hear about their most recent ventures.  I've seen people I've served in other cities parked outside of my Mississauga mailbox.
When you see a lot of antagonism, you learn pretty quickly to reserve your judgment and not take anything personally or get too involved.  A versus B, the truth is almost always somewhere in between, and more often than not, neither party is completely innocent.  It's not victim-blaming, it's humanity.
So here I am watching this trial play out, and I'm aware - very aware - that there's plenty within the facts of the case I don't know.  I don't count on the media to tell an objective truth, and for all the circus, it won't be over until the judge releases his decision.  I'm okay with that.  Knowing that nothing I think is going to impact the situation is refreshing.  It gives me the leisure of sitting back and watching.

2.  The tacks the Crown and Defense are taking are interesting to me because I haven't dealt with much criminal law.  This is a learning experience. It's like watching a tennis or chess match.  I find the commentary online by other lawyers useful.  The more insight, the better.  I wonder about what each side is concerned about at any given time, what everyone in the courtroom might be thinking, what the intended outcomes of their strategies might be.

3.  I specify that I appreciate the online commentary of lawyers, because almost all of the other commentary is coming from third wave feminists.  Yes, I know, it's Twitter and we can pretty much say anything we want (I repeat: pretty much!).  But seeing the rabble rousing out there is dizzying, particularly when it's so entirely out of touch.  See, when I think of the art of persuasion, I'm thinking of things like ameliorating oneself to the target, appearing agreeable and respectful, allowing everyone involved to save face, knowing when to cede, remaining non-hysterical, and offering space for positive, solution-oriented brainstorming, with a desired outcome mutually beneficial to all parties.  Like an effective sales pitch.  It's nothing new.  (As a side-note, how is Dale Carnegie not mandatory reading in elementary schools?).  But the popular trend I'm seeing is rather the opposite, which is also nothing new.  There is significant outrage out there over the thought that accusers may need to answer painful questions.  That's what happens when you effectively are the evidence.  The hatred being spouted for defense lawyer, Marie Henein, and also for defense lawyers in general, is impressive, but misplaced.  The general call is to lower the barriers for conviction in sexual assault cases, and never question the verity of victim statements.  It's like the masses have all decided to turn off their intellect and let their mouths (and fingers) keep going.  That's sad, because the procedure really isn't that complicated.
Complicated, however, is not the point for these warriors.  They're not interested in justice - they're out for blood, and are bitter that anyone should need to sing for that supper.  They're watching for any and every questionable turn of phrase, any comments that strike them as "other" than their own point of view, they're complaining about being triggered (which is ironic, because they are actually seeking out their triggers.  Like masochists), and they're crying.  What do they want?  They want a man to spend the foreseeable future in jail, on claims that should be believed by virtue of the gender of the claimants alone.  (Can you imagine the witch hunts that would follow if we gave anyone that much power?  Yeesh!)
Don't get me wrong.  I have no genuine hatred.  What I'm seeing here is a lot of people hurting. It's easy to feel insignificant when the powers that be appear utterly uninterested in you.  It's easy to lose touch when there's a cozy community not too far out of reach telling you there's a purpose to this fight and you're invited.  Some of us spend a long time finding our place in the world.  Others are happy to belong anywhere at all.

4.  A note on language:  words like "victim" and "survivor" seem prejudiced against the defendant in a situation where the accuser, again is the evidence.  The spirit in which they have been used suggests (a) innocence (on which I have already opined), and (b) having risked or faced death in the ordeal (which remains to be demonstrated, to my mind).  Using these words insinuates a situation in the same sense as when I say I was violently attacked by my kitchen to describe being scalded by spilled boiling water or getting in the way of a falling blade.
Correct me if I'm wrong.  This is a learning experience for me.

5.  Marie Henein is absolutely fascinating.  I wonder how many community leaders are secretly jealous of her.  Under different circumstances, she is exactly the woman we'd be celebrating.  She's climbed to the top of a difficult and unsavoury profession that requires a hell of a backbone. Her intellect and skill are the cornerstone of her reputation.  She has enough charisma to control a room by her mere presence (that charisma may have everything to do with being able to inspire fear, but truth be told, I don't think too many would actually be offended by the way that kind of power plays out).  She is notably the "lawyer that lawyers call."  Mother. Wife. Ambitious.  Accomplished.  Rich. Unaffected. And I'm just going to say it - smoking hot.  Isn't this sort of the feminist dream?
I had never heard of Ms. Henein before yesterday, when a specific demographic of online gawkers suddenly got triggered and mass hysteria set in. I'm glad I looked up what the fuss was about.  Marie Henein is absolutely fascinating.  I'm fascinated.

Death by Cabbage

I kind of feel like making a giant barrel of sauerkraut - the recipe calls for 1lb salt:40 lbs cabbage - and storing it in my Mom's basement to ferment for 4 weeks, just to see how she'd react.
If I wagered a guess, she'd kill me, but not right away. You see, I wouldn't ask - I'd just sneak it in while she's at yoga one day. She wouldn't know a thing until the smell kicks in. At that point, she'd panic, but not enough to change the locks on the doors. She'd check up on it every few days, as if it were orphaned and about to grow legs and crawl across the room. Whenever she'd ask about it (and she would. Frequently.), I'd make her a cocktail and tell her not to worry. At the 3-week point she'd get antsy, and I'd make a big show of being too busy to come by anytime soon. I'd show up on the last day of week 4, and tell her my kitchen isn't big enough to deal with 40 lbs of cabbage. That's when the real anxiety would start kicking in. I'd ask to use her kitchen (and she'd let me out of guilt - I'm the only daughter), which historically triggers this instinct in her that makes her follow me around the room, hover and micromanage, sometimes while holding sharp utensils. When I finished processing and packaging the sauerkraut, I'd give her the entire batch and tell her I don't like cabbage.
That's when she'd kill me.

A Thought on Fear

I lie,  and tell you I'm not scared, you lie and tell me you're not either, and we lock ourselves into the lines we've drawn in the sand and pull the covers over our heads, and the world moves on without us and our secret fears pound on the door, and we lose our grip on reality, lose touch, and grow to silently resent each other for not being the people we pretended to be.

I tell you I'm afraid, you tell me not to be, and I don't feel much better but I trust you to protect me and you try, but you grow anxious wondering if you're good enough, strong enough, brave enough for a job no one can possibly do, and when you disappoint me I grow angry and make you feel small, a fleeting attempt to make myself feel bigger, better, stronger than I am.

I tell you I'm afraid, you tell me you're afraid as well.  You understand.  We share our thoughts, our spectres, our demons, and though what scares us doesn't go away, life seems easier to swallow, in this moment our world is just a slight less lonely, and with nothing to prove we can carry on, a light for each other in the darkness.

A Haunting Story

This is someone else's story.  I met Ron, a middle aged veteran, in a barroom in 2006.  I was 23 years old, in my fourth year of university, talking to strangers and listening to their stories. Not all of them caught my attention, but some of them really made me think.  Ron's was one of them, so much so that I wrote it down in a journal.
Ron got pretty emotional as he told me his story, and who could blame him?  I knew we were going into the darkness when he started calling me by my name - almost nobody does - and by the end of the night he was crying on my shoulder.  All he knew about me was that I wanted to write a war novel.  I never saw him again.  His story still haunts me.  So, from my old journal:

____________________________________________________________________________


"You'll never learn the truth about war from a textbook.  You listen to me, little girl.  There is nothing glorious about war.  You wanna know what goes through a soldier's head?  It's 'Get me the fuck out of here.'  And if it's a higher ranking officer, it's 'Get my men the fuck out of here.'  Glory?  It's fucking propaganda.  That's the truth.

"And you know something?  There is no worse feeling than bombing the shit out of a town, and then going into that town and seeing for yourself what you did.  I once had to see the damage I did to a town.  Our orders were to blow the town to smithereens, and we did.  Then they told us to go into the town and finish the job.  I followed my orders.  I went into the town, and saw all the buildings destroyed, bodies lying in the street with their skin burned off, blood everywhere.  And do you know what it was that made me cry?  A dog.  A dog, who had lost one of its legs.  In the army, they teach you only how to kill.  They train you not to care.  But here was a crippled dog in a destroyed city, and it was all my fault.  You know what I did?  I followed my orders and finished my job.

"Now, sweetheart, I never said I killed anyone.

"You want the truth, Natalie, I'll tell you the truth.  And you can spread the word.  I don't like talking about these things.  That war was thirty years ago, and I still get nightmares when I think about it.  You try to move on with your life, but how can you?

"You know something?  I was in a POW camp in Vietnam. I was in a POW camp, and I escaped.  I escaped on foot, with a razorblade.  How do you think I escaped with just a razorblade?  What do you think I had to do?  Natalie, not a day goes by when I don't think about it.  I remember each one of their faces.  It was one thing to shoot weapons from far away, but how do you kill a man face to face?  And I had to!  It was all I could do!  I watched as my friends had the shit shot out of them!  I saw what happened to the people in the POW camp, and all I could think was 'It's not happening to me,' and I got my hands on a razorblade and did what I had to do.

"They sent us out there to kill, and we killed.  I think about it everyday.  And when we got back, they didn't want us.  The only job I could get when I came back was as a cook!  They wouldn't let us into the Legions because we'd lost the war.  We didn't lose the war!  We shouldn't have been there!  They never wanted us there!  I don't want pity.  I was a soldier doing what I had to do to survive.  But you know, the circumstances don't matter.  The war doesn't matter, and the danger doesn't matter.  There's only one word for what happened, and it's Murder.

"At the Legion, we never talk about what we've been through.  We go there for a drink, for a laugh.  We ignore the rest of it.  Nobody wants to think about fighting in a war.  They know the truth.

"I look at what's going on these days in the Middle East.  All these kids they're sending out, sending home in coffins.  It's such a waste.  A buddy of mine asked me how long it would take me to take down a town out there, and I told him twenty minutes - and I'd flatten everything in the way.  They're sending kids out there who don't know what they're doing.  They should send us old guys.  I mean, I know I can't fit into a tank like I used to, but damnit, we've done it before!  We'd get the job done quicker!

"This world's a mess, and us old guys should clean up the mess for you young people.  You shouldn't be out there, learning how to kill from scratch.  People your age should be studying and partying and making love -"

"...And writing books," I interrupted.  For the first time in awhile, Ron smiled.  He cupped my face with his hands and then hugged me.

"God Bless you," he said.  "You put this in your book."


(2006)

"Fragile" (painting by Rick Hicks, Toronto, ON)

"The name of the painting is inspired by the Yes album of the same name. The colours I used are similar to those of the artist who did that cover, Roger Dean. My style is loosely based on Jackson Pollock and the French Canadian painter, Jean Paul Riopelle. Back in 2013, I did over 120 paintings on paper boards, which were inspired by them."
Rick Hicks
Toronto, ON

The Radio Says There's a Storm Coming

The radio says there’s a storm coming.  Catherine can’t believe it.  “The day after tomorrow,” they say, but the skies are big and blue and the ocean ebbs and flows.  Another wave, another breath, another minute, another day.  “Run away,” they say, but Catherine can’t run.  How do you run from home?  Where do you go?  Catherine doesn’t know.  She doesn’t believe it.

She sits on the beach all day, the sun kissing her skin, a warm breeze cooing in her ear and flirting with the hair on her arms.  She lies on the beach, her toes pushing sand around here and back, digging in, digging up.  She smiles at the sun.  The sun smiles back.  You wouldn’t let me down, would you?

Everybody’s gone.  They ran away.  Fled.  The beach is quieter than usual, littered here and there by other solitary souls with nowhere to go, sitting, lying in the sand, ruminating, meditating,  Ommmm...  The radio says a storm is coming.  These souls don’t believe it.  She strolls along the seashore.  She sells sea shells...  Alone but not alone among the solitary souls, and it could all be over the day after tomorrow, but Catherine doesn’t believe it.  Her mind is empty.  Blank.  Ebb, flow, ebb, flow, life affords plenty of time for self-talk, and we complain of not having enough.  This is not a moment for self-talk.  This is a moment of silence, a moment of peace.  When we shut up, we give the planet a chance to speak.

What does the world say to Catherine, mind blank, alone but not alone, solitary soul in a moment not afforded to self-talk?  The sea gulls protest.  They fly not far too high and scream and scream.  The surf washes in, washes out.  Always moving to a rhythm all its own, in a quiet, subtle, unimposing, inoffensive melody and timbre.  (Have you listened to the water sing?  Oh, please tell me you have listened to the water sing!)  A soft ripple chimes with each step Catherine wades into the sea.  She looks down and watches the fish in the ocean, thrown about by the waves in the shallow water.  If the storm comes, will they all be washed ashore?  Catherine doesn’t believe it.  The wind flies through her hair as she stands in the shallow water, watching the fish.  This is the way we wash our feet, wash our feet, wash our feet...

Who will tell the story, after all is said and done?  Is there anything to tell? This story doesn’t start with Once upon a time because it didn’t happen Once upon a time. It’s rather the ending of many other Once upon a times. Each solitary soul here carries a story, carries a reason.  There are reasons all these solitary souls won’t run away, run away.  Do any of them matter, Catherine wonders, knowing the ultimate answer.  People come.  They live, they love, they suffer, they redeem, and each one goes away when the time comes.  Everybody wants to think their story matters.  Everybody wants to think that there’s a reason, an important reason.  Everybody wants to matter.  So tragic to think of how many people will live and die without ever telling their Once upon a times.  Everybody’s special.  Of course they are, thinks Catherine.  Of course they are.

Once upon a time a child looked for signs everywhere she could.  She gazed at stars and into fires and rivers and knew there had to be a point.  Twinkle, twinkle little star...  To the dismay of the imagination of a five-year-old girl, Nature never returned her calls.  All children need to grow up sometime.

Afraid?  Of course she’s afraid.  Who can tell what tomorrow will bring?  The storm is coming the day after tomorrow.  She can run.  She can flee north, like so many others.  She can make a life for herself, start over, and who wouldn’t love a fresh start, the tabula rasa, a chance to try again.  She can be who she wants to be, live how she wants to live, if only she would flee.  And yet, there is no running.  She is who she is.  She could try to be different, but what point is there in denying herself?  It would all come back to this.  She can never erase that Once upon a time she stood on a beach, listening to the surf and the gulls, playing in the sand, feeling the water ebb and flow over her feet, waiting for this storm to come.  Her past will always be her past.  There’s no running from that.

The locals board up their windows and lock their doors.  They cover their treasures with plastic, hoping for the best.  They fill their homes with candles and canned beans, flashlights and batteries, towels and blankets, lighters and propane tanks, raincoats and umbrellas.  They make plans, seek places of refuge up the road.  They write to their loved ones and take photographs and collect drinkable water.  They fuel up their engines and gas cans.  They make plans, arrange exit strategies.  They don’t hear the gulls scream, or the surf wash up onto the shore.

Once upon a time a little girl sat on a rocky ledge by the water, watching the sun go down.  Overwhelmed by the majesty of the sunset and all alone, she daydreamed of the life she wanted to have, a life by the water, a certain someone to sit with in the evenings and watch the sun go down.  A certain someone to hold her hand -  her knight in shining armour.  Didn’t every girl want a hero?  When she grew up, she would travel.  She would run through jungles, climb the highest peaks, jump from cliffs and swim in mountain lakes, and she’d be brave and strong, and just in case it wasn’t enough for her to be brave and strong... she would need a hero, a guardian angel, a big, strong man to catch her if she fell.  He never came.  There must be more, Catherine thinks, and it can’t end like this.  Run for your lives, the radio said, but Catherine isn’t running.

We used to get it, she tells herself.  Silence, but for the sound of the breeze, the screaming gulls.  The Universe speaks in subtle voices.  The messages are simple.  We hear them when we all stop talking, when we all turn off our televisions and our radios, when we stop seeking creative ways to fill silent voids.  We used to get it.  Hundreds, thousands of years ago, we understood.  We knew we could stand atop mountains without being kings of the castle.  We knew we weren’t the final word.  We were aware of something bigger.  We could strive to understand without needing to dominate and control.  Wonder without weakness.  Power without omnipotence.  Reason with humility.  We knew to stand, our knowledge on our shoulders but our hearts in awe.  

And then the magic died.

Good enough was no longer good enough.  We needed to be better, faster, stronger, louder.  We needed to understand things, to manipulate things, to control things, and then to master things.  We became afraid of the things we couldn’t master.  Humans continue to get sick, to ail, to suffer.  The heavenly bodies still revolve around not us, but the sun.  The earth still cracks open every now and then, cyclones still wipe away buildings and tidal waves wash us into the sea, because we couldn’t quite master the weather.  And the radio says there’s a storm coming the day after tomorrow, and Catherine doesn’t believe it.

It’s coming tomorrow, the radio says, and Catherine starts to believe.  She knows why she’s started to believe, but she can’t bring herself to say it.  It’s silly, she thinks.  Nobody would believe it.  Just say it, Catherine.  I can’t. You can.  I can’t find the words.  Just try.  I won’t.  The writer’s block that haunts us all. Some questions can’t be asked, some stories can’t be told, opportunities wasted, souls silenced, all because we can’t find the words.  Is there a meaning?  No.  Will it change anything?  No.  Then Catherine, what is on your mind?

Well, Once upon a time...

Once upon a time I had a dream that felt so real.  Then I had it again.  And again.  I dreamed that I was on a boat, not large, not small, sailing friendly waters.  Suddenly, very suddenly, the winds picked up, clouds rolled in, it started to rain, the waves grew, and the boat began to sway.  I was afraid.  The waves kept growing, first by feet, then by yards, then by storeys.  The boat just rode the waves, up, down, up, down.  It never made sense to me.  The boat wasn’t made to ride waves this high.  It should tip and capsize.  I should fall in, should drown. There was never anywhere to swim to.  And for all my anxiety, I steered the boat.  It would rise and rise, and tumble down the wave, sometimes it would downright fall, but it never tipped.  The water was always not warm, not cold, but comfortable, and I always woke up, alive.  Shaken, but alive.  As I grew older, the storms of my dreams grew stronger, more violent, more uncertain.  Each time, I simply steered the boat.  Over the years, the anxiety left me, and I was no longer afraid of the waves, afraid of the storms.  I started to enjoy them, the adventure, uncertainty, thrill.  The world became engulfed in water, ritual flooding, and I rode out the storm, arriving awake and alive on the other side every time.  I carried the motion of the waves into my waking life, not on purpose.  I couldn’t always shake the edge, but carried on and on and on.  My steps weren’t always steady, my head not always straight.  What worried me most was that one night, I’d lose control.  One night, the boat will capsize.  When it does, will I still wake up, alive, on the other side?  And now there’s a storm coming.  Run for our lives, we’re all going to die, and No, I can’t just leave, and I can’t quite explain why I need to stay, need to be here, need to see it.  And no, I may not make it out awake, alive on the other side, but I just can’t turn away.  I wish I could tell you everything.  I wish I could make you understand.  I just don’t have the words.

The storm comes tomorrow, the radio says.  Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream...

This is a Love Song

It might have been so much easier.

In another life we’d buy what we’re sold, do as we’re told and complacently grow old but never a day wiser, sensitive to changes and arrangements that estrange us from some ill-begotten dearly held conceptions of good and bad and right and wrong and truth and deception, the first to yell “Not Fair,” but never dare to dwell in the supposed hell on which we blame subliminal despair.  Our days would fade on our own pedestal, never to hear the winds of change as they call out to us, and if the tree in the forest were to fall, it wouldn’t make a sound to us if we’re not there to hear it.

It might have been so much easier.

The distant past isn’t always so distant, its shadow ever just a step or two behind me when I wandered, always wondering if the willows I passed would wisp away my worries.  I hope they have.  I fear they haven’t.  And so I went about my days with dark and silent reservations, locked within my contemplation, praying that the end is truly the end.

 I looked up to you and asked for help, for some direction.  I didn’t notice just how much you speak, all words, words, words, so many words I didn’t notice how they kept me weak.  I was distracted by all the pretty words.

I didn’t see there was no soul behind those eyes, the leeches sucked me dry before I woke, and I had not yet learned to fear the Siren’s Song.  There I was, face down in the mud, couldn’t break free from the weeds and that ooze would take forever to wash out, and yet, for the moment, it felt so warm there in the mud.

I had only asked you for directions, but for all the pretty words I began to sing a love song.  Would you like to hear a love song?

This is a love song.

Philosophers philosophize, ideas studied and memorized, ages after their authors die.  When have you last seen the world through truly open eyes?  Some people need to bleed to know that they’re alive.

I wanted to see what you saw, be where you are, breathe that air, so clear and unobstructed.  Instead I traveled day to day, sheltered and protected, wishing I could fly. 

You told me I wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t fast enough, couldn’t do it, shouldn’t want it, that I just needed sleep.  Then you turned and cried in a corner where you thought I couldn’t see you weep.

I couldn’t bear to watch you bare, weak and whimpering, couldn’t muster up the sentiment to pity.  This is a love song in a different key.

I pulled out of the mud and tore at the weeds.  Some people need to march in chains before they wander free.  You’d pointed right instead of left and falsely called it “Truth,” told me there was nothing without proof, and wouldn’t let me speak. 

I wrested free, not easily, stood on the riverbank, one foot on the shore, and I wanted to step, I really wanted to step.  Why couldn’t I step?  Just how many hits and bruises, cuts and lacerations and just how much degradation would it take to be heard?  Some people need to live mute to put thoughts into words.

And I tried to leave it all behind, but was it too soon?  This is a love song set to a different tune, and I Hate you!  Dear God, you scare me and I Hate you!  Why are you still here?  Why do I still hear your Devil’s whisper in my ear, telling me to slow the fuck down?

When did you get so strange?  This is a love song in a different fucking range!  Some people must be torn to shreds and cleansed before they’re born again.

Philosophers philosophize, but all your words, my friend, were lies, and I want to see something else, be somewhere else, breathe cleaner air, water running cold over my feet.

I do not pretend that after hearing hours of my desperate explanations you’ll begin to understand.

That’s quite alright.

On The Elusive Insidious Intentions of Foliage

In one of my mother’s earlier attempts at feminizing me she gave me a spider plant.  I took it gladly, thinking that greenery might help ward off the Seasonal Affective Disorder that haunts me from October to March each year.  Stab the Frost of Winter’s space in my psyche with mementos of spring and life and colour and such.  It didn’t work, but that’s a different story. 

I wasn’t sure this small, innocent plant would survive in my care.  I’m not a gardener, not a plant person.  Watering plants is the thing I forget for weeks at a time.  I’ve been surrounded by women in the height of summer, in endless lineups (again, another story), talking to each other about their backyard gardens, and I just couldn’t understand.  My grandmother spent much of her later life bent over in her garden, preening, weeding, harvesting, and when she lost the ability to keep up with it, it became overgrown, fruits and berries gushing out of everything, rotting, mushing beneath her feet.  How do people devote so much time to gardens? Plants are so high maintenance!  And these people live on a constant ongoing mission to improve and expand them.  At what point is enough, enough?  How does anyone find time to just sit in the garden and enjoy the beauty they’ve brought about?  It’s not me.  It’s never been me.  I asked my boyfriends to never bring me flowers, and I married the one who never tried.  There was good reason to believe a plant in my care was doomed. 

But here I have this spider plant.  Every so often it decides to take another run at life and gets all green and leafy.  I thought I was failing for letting the soil get so dry between waterings, but the Internet people told me spider plants like to let their soil get uncomfortably dry.  My spider plant, it seems, is “happy.”

A lot of internet people really take their spider plants seriously.

We all need hobbies.

My living history with foliage thickened when a friend gave me an aloe plant as a token of humanitarian aid in my ongoing war with the kitchen.  The kitchen is full of sharp falling objects, hot metal, grease spitting out of pans, and I learned the hard way that my skin is categorically not impervious to boiling water.  The gifted aloe plant was a much appreciated gift of mercy, and I have butchered it on several occasions (the war wages on), and it just keeps growing.  I’m no better at caring for this aloe than I am for the spider plant.  This thing keeps its own water.  Keeps growing, snaking its tentacles into any open space it can find.

I don’t quite trust my two plants.  They’ve proven that they don’t need me, and yet out of sympathy for life I try to keep them “happy,” like a forced prostration to my wicked wives. 

I’m not the greatest wife, myself.  I must be doing it wrong.

And then these two insidious creatures have gone and created their own progeny!  My one spider plant is now two, and my one aloe plant has become an overpopulated colony in the midst of a civil war for livingspace on my windowsill.  I used to believe immaculate conception was a lovely fairy tale giving us a nice Christian reason to brighten up our homes, drink a lot of sherry, spoil our kids and gain 15 lbs over the darkest month of the year.  Now I’m searching the green thumb version of mommy-blogs trying to do right by all these plant babies!  I’m spending money I don’t have on pots and soil hoping it’s the right size, the right kind, trying to keep them “happy!”  And they just keep breeding!

How long until each surface of my home is spilling leaves and inviting insects and turning my one-bedroom apartment into a humid pod overrun by creepy shadow casters?  How long until some well-meaning soul gifts me an orchid that requires actual sentimentality, company and conversation?  How much longer can I get by without owning a vase, or calling a house sitter every time I leave it to water my plants?

I’m becoming progressively ensnared by a sadistic kitchen to my left and a swampy greenhouse to my right!

I guess what I’m saying is: please send help!

Meeting a "Hero"

They tell us not to meet our heroes.
Alright.
I disagree.
Absolutely meet your heroes.  Yes, they will become mere mortals.  Yes, the mystique will be gone.  And sure, they may disappoint.  That's alright.
We use heroes and role models as portraits of our own dreams and aspirations, so why not shatter the glass?  Making them human in our own minds could only remind us of our own personal potential.

It happened like this, more or less:

I was first introduced to the work of Friedrich Nietzsche when I was 20.  I was a young, passionate philosophy student, looking for the cause and ideal that spoke to my own experience of the world so far, and in his writing I found a passion that so few other thinkers had exhibited.  The ideas were controversial, but not entirely groundless.  There was something to look at, something to think about, and when I managed to make it work in my mind, there was something liberating about it.  I was hooked.  Moreover, I was also keeping the company of a handful of artists and "artists", which gave me plenty of social space to explore how I actually felt about ideas.
At the time, someone also recommended that I read about Nietzsche as well, and not just his work, but I was young and thirsty, and because of school, used to reading the work of the thinkers, and pay less attention to who they actually were.
That was a mistake.  Though I never forgot the recommendation, I admit I largely ignored it for ten years.  Then something changed.
I had originally gravitated to philosophy at a point in my life when I was having trouble making sense of things.  I was 19, and the work involved in studying ideas gave me a sense of hope, made me feel better about feeling "lost" in the world we hear about in the news, among other things.
At 30, following an unfortunate event that forced me to see something I would have been happier never having seen, and once again feeling "lost", I turned back to my bookshelf and playlists, and re-visited the ideas and art that had once made the world make sense.  On a whim, if only to occupy myself, I picked up Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography by Julian Young, which I had purchased years before but not yet read (it's a very heavy volume, not conducive to being carried around in my purse and read on a train), and started to read.

Here are my thoughts:

Mr. Young wrote a very artful biography.  I was surprised by how delightful it was to sit at a table and read it for hours on end.  His narrative is as colourful and sympathetic as it is unforgiving at times.  His explanations of the more complex concepts within Nietzsche's writing were fantastic, and I have a better understanding of Nietzsche's work than I ever had a hope of having a decade ago.  The biography is honest, fair, and unapologetic.  Furthermore, I learned far more about the cultural climate of Western Europe in the second half of the 19th Century than I had expected to.  I will read this book again, and likely be as sad to reach the end as I was the first time.

And my thoughts on Nietzsche, himself (albeit, in the years during which he could easily be considered sane):

He was just a man.
Not an entirely unique one, either.
He saw the world through the (ailing) eyes of a depressive who, though pained by illness and physically and politically stifled, was no stranger to beauty, loved life, and thought humanity could do better. (At its simplest)
He wanted to be understood, and was frustrated at being misunderstood and misread.
He changed his mind about things over the years.
He didn't like being used as a pawn in other peoples' agendas.
He had a family and friends.  His sister would have made a great movie villain.
He didn't want to be an idol, per se.
He had his heart broken.
He may have eaten all of 5 vegetables in his life.

Obviously I could go on with opinions and cursory critiques of details and excerpts and pros and cons and lessons learned and final judgments or lack thereof, but that's not what spoke to me here.

I found a certain measure of peace in acknowledging that the great people whose ideas, in their own ways, shape or bolster my own, were just people, just regular human beings (the more interesting and artistic of which I'm finding, curiously, happened to be depressive by our standards) who went about their days not entirely unlike myself, who by writing down the things that went through their heads joined a community of people asking questions, proposing solutions, playing with ideas, changing their minds.  They had good days and bad days, and they had dark times that made them think of how they fit into this mess of a world, and bright times when it all seemed to make sense, and by speaking out, staked their place in history.
If I'm right about this, I can feel a little better about my own place in the world, feel a little more confident in making my own mark, asking my own questions and contributing my own thoughts.
I'm not saying anyone will remember me long after I'm gone - I may never say anything profound in all my time here.  However, I do believe that as a species, we can do better and be better, and I do believe we need to have the kinds of conversations, curious and honest exchanges of ideas, that allow us to explore different ways to achieve that.  Perhaps an early step in this direction is to meet and humanize our heroes, and stop timidly hiding in the shadows, quotes and '-isms' of our idols.

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Why do bad things happen to good people?
Remove judgment.
Why do things happen to people?
That's better. Silly question, no?
Things happen to people.
Also true:
People happen to things.
People are living things.
Animals are living things.
Events are things.
Accomplishments are things.
So?
Things happen to things.
Reverse the perspective:
Things make things happen.

Is life easier to swallow now?

Fuzzy Ethical Lines

For the soldier who asked a religious man if it's okay to kill:

It's not.

I can see how it might be easy to forget that.  We train people to defend, to fight, to rescue, to kill.  You know better than I what you're trained for.  I imagine it's to turn off your conscience and react in certain ways to certain situations without wavering.  In some cases, the purpose is quite simply survival.  In others, it's a matter of following orders and trusting the judgment of superiors.  I guess, in a way, to reduce yourself, under certain circumstances, to animal instincts.  Sometimes, that means killing, and other times, not.

We non-soldiers are afforded what not all of us realize is a luxury in having the freedom to deliberate over these things.  We can have barroom debates about who should or should not be allowed to bear arms and the circumstances under which those arms may or may not be used.  We have the freedom to sit with our newspapers and scream 'fair' or 'not fair'.  We consider international conflict from our sofas while a headline ticker flashes across our screens and smiling anchormen yell in our faces.  We act as though we understand our legal systems, as though we understand justice on an ontological level.  We talk about right and wrong without having experienced the kinds of extremes that put these ideas to the test.  At the end of the night, we go to bed, reasonably sure we'll wake up tomorrow in the same peacetime in which we fall asleep tonight.

We non-soldiers have it easy.

Elsewhere in the world, going to sleep in one place tonight doesn't guarantee waking up at all, no less under the same circumstances.
Elsewhere in the world, the Powers fight over who owns the land a man calls 'home'.
Elsewhere in the world, groups haunted by hatred are plotting against others.  It may be the believers and the infidels.  It may be the haves and the have-nots.  It may be blacks and whites.  Or it may be grudges dating back so far that nobody quite knows what it is for which they fight.

Elsewhere in the world, human beings are being killed by other human beings, and this horrifies us, inspires us to get involved, moves us to action.  Who am I kidding?  Sometimes, elsewhere in the world, someone has or controls something we want or want to control - that moves us, too.  To fight horror, oppression, terror, hatred, violence, or to just plain take whatever it is we want, we send in our men, specially trained to act on a level of animal instinct, to follow orders and ask few questions.  They will take, quite simply, what someone else perceives as necessary action in order to achieve the aim of the day.  Sometimes that action is killing other human beings.  So who are these people?

Who are soldiers?

Soldiers are the ones who have declared themselves to have decisively taken a side.  They declared themselves by selling their soul, so to speak.  They will do the hard thing when it needs to be done.  They will do the hard thing when they are told it needs to be done.  They will do the hard thing when ordered to do so, right or wrong.

That hard thing is a thing that us non-soldiers know is not okay, but sometimes somebody needs to do it.  What determines that may be questionable.  It is a heavy moral burden we pull off our shoulders and lay on those of our soldiers.

Here is my question:

How grateful are we for their sacrifice?

To what extent do we, barstool philosophizing non-soldiers, ease that burden?  Do we feel the responsibility we carry for sending them out?  Do we try to understand what we, as a people, ask them to do?  Do we meditate on the gravity of their sacrifices (including the sacrifices of those who come back alive)?  As a community, do we carry a sense of cultural responsibility for the actions and hardships of our men and women?

I'm not implying a universal answer to any of the above.  These are merely the questions I feel we should ask ourselves, and not just on Veterans' Day.  Obviously, there are those that feel the gravity of those answers more than others - the families and friends of soldiers, first and foremost.  Perhaps the questions are weaker than a more important one:  HOW CAN WE DO OR BE BETTER?

 I will not undertake to answer that here and now.  Let your conscience answer for you.

But to return to the original question of the soldier, Is it okay to kill?
It isn't.  That is why you have become what you are - to become the man who can do the thing that I, a non-soldier, could not, on my behalf.  And it's hard for me to thank you while my heart bleeds for existing in a world that deems your soul a necessary sacrifice.  It isn't fair, and it isn't right, but history shows this to be the never-ending human tragedy.  It's hard to thank you, knowing that I don't want this for you, or for me, or for our community and culture.  It's hard to thank you, but I certainly and without question respect you.  It's hard to thank you, who represents the darkest side of my own self, but I do, and will, because without you I may not have the freedom to make that choice.

Welcome!