I am disturbed by what is happening in the world. This is not new...I am frequently disturbed by many things that occur in this life. But since March of 2020, it feels like the world is spinning out of control. It feels like we have all gone mad and that the world as we knew it is over...yet we still act as if everything is ok. Maybe it is, I really don’t know.
I just know that it feels like the differences among people is growing, well, really being exploited, more than it is growing. There have always been differences, there always will be differences, but today, it feels like we are being whipped into a fever to hate that which disagrees with us, that which is different, that which is somehow threatening to us with all the difference.
I am not playing along. I am not mad at anyone. I am not upset with people whose politics differ from my own. I am not aligned with the left or the right anymore. I just see us all as people...all humans who have the same basic needs but very different opinions. Very. And we are being manipulated into believing that those differences are worth dying over. That if we just go along with some ideology that we will be “better” or “right”. None of that is true, we will just be more isolated from the only truth that ever existed...that suffering is part of being human.
We cannot avoid it yet we can not do things to make it worse, and better. However, it seems to me that our solutions for living do just that every day. We demand more than our share or a continuous supply of money, fame, wealth, praise, security, attention and we suffer because of it. We suffer a lot more than is necessary because we are afraid...
And now that fear is being used against a people, and in turn all of us in the world. The instability and insanity of one man, is driving us all to the brink of a world war. How can we sit by and do nothing while innocent people are killed in their homes. That acquisition and subjugation is more important than freedom and life. How can this be the world we have created?
I do not like any of it. It makes me despondently sad. It makes me fearful of what mankind is going to do to ourselves. Is this the place that we become extinct? Is this the place that we finally and forever remove our humanity from the planet? Seems like we have been heading this way for a very long time, and yet, I have always believed that we could avoid it.
I have desperately wanted to believe that we humans could rise above the fear and lack and come to a place where we all work together for the benefit of all. But today, I see so much divisiveness, so much hatred and misunderstanding. I see so much polarization. So much fear. The fear vibration is running at an all time high. And it makes me feel insecure about our collective survival. Perhaps all those doomsday prophesies were not garbage...perhaps they were just an accurate foretelling of how it will finally end.
My heart breaks for those caught in the literal crossfire. Helpless subjects of one man’s mad delusion and quest for power and control. One human’s misguided attempt to grab what looks like an opportunity, caring not at all the loss of life that will occur. I guess it has always been this way, we have always prized things and concepts and ideology over actual life...why should it be different now?
The Ukraine is not a new war, it is just a current manifestation of the war that has been raging for all time. That between those who insist that the world provide them what they demand and those that are content to give freely with no expectation of return. We seem to worship those who carelessly and thoughtlessly punish others. Always being mindful that our decision to align with those in power only provides security so long as they retain power...and then doing what needs to be done to retain the power, fuck the cost.
I am not going there. I am not going to hate...anyone. I am going to try to understand our collective human need for chaos and confusion. I am going to try to understand the horrors we perpetuate on each other. I am going to try to remain calm in the face of a growing panic that even though what is going down is a world away, it cannot not affect me, because so long as one human suffers, so must we all. We are only as free as our most chained brother or sister. Why do we not know this by now? How can we look at history and not see that this never changes and can never be resolve through armed conflict?
I am disgusted with the world we live in. Fear being used as a weapon of mass destruction that is most potently used because we participate in it willingly and ascribe to the hatred by providing our assent, our condonation of hating as a means to live.
For me, hating cannot ever be the way. If I hold hate or resentment in my heart or mind, I am immediately poisoned as if I just drank Drano, or Arsenic. I might have time left to still hurt others but my skin and soul are so polluted in the process, that I am dead inside even though my heart continues to beat.
I refuse to go to war in my heart. I will spend whatever time I have left holding all of humanity in good regard whether they deserve it or not. I will love even when presented with good reasons not to. This is my declaration of war, I will not be whipped into a hating frenzy. I will not give in to the fear mongering. I will love no matter what the cost because I would rather die loving than to get to live because I hated. I also know that regardless of whether you are a world leader or a simple human living life, we all have a choice, allow the blackness that exists in all of us to grow, fanning the flames until it consumes us, or turn toward the light and allow it to slowly burn away the fear. I would rather be consumed by the flames, than to spend one more minute in the cold dampness of my own hatred.
May all beings be free from suffering.
May all being be free.
May all being be happy.
May all beings see that it is easy to hate, and hard to love but the most worthwhile journey in this life is the one that challenges us deeply within to take contrary action, to set aside our prejudice and differences and to love anyway, without regard for worth or whether the object of our love is worthy.
May all beings take the radical act to love themselves and each other without regard for the consequence of loving kindness.
May we all find a path forward that does not destroy us all.
