Why I don't write....

If one looks back at this collection of 0's and 1's, they would think that the tragic has avoided me. To a large extent it has. My life has been simple and my cares small.

But there is another factor. I have spent a good deal of my life being silent. I believe that words have power. I believe that a wordsmith can change the world with them. Although I will not credit myself with that title, I hope that my words have some effect.

What I have never been able to do with words is mend. Words may be able to heal, but I lack the skill to use them in that way. In truth, I have not witnessed words heal. I have seen them tear and harm. I have seen them change people before my eyes. I have never seen them silence grief. Where a hand can offer strength, offer aid, offer support, offer warmth, offer friendship, connect 2 humans... words are a poor surrogate.

We humans have spread out. We can communicate across countries, across continents and oceans, in select circumstances across millions of miles. But what we have found out again and again, is that human interaction was designed for occurring within the range of 2 extended hands.

I can show you photos of other worlds, other stars, the other side of our own world. I can speak to you about warmth or cold, about pain and joy. You can hear the song of whales in your living room or view a mountain range on the other side of the world from your chair. But what I can't do is let you touch the water. To feel the wind on your face, you have to be there. To offer my hand or my shoulder, I must be near you.

And so, these bits are inadequate. There is no use in storing them. I have no perspective to add. I can not say anything to ease pain. I don't wish to store the failure for later review. Perhaps, if I do, I can learn from the failure.

But the risk of adding to the pain is simply too great. And so, I will simply try to digitize a touch, a handshake, a hug. If I fail, no one will know of it. If I succeed, I will have something to offer other than silence.

I guess I just don't understand...

I have the natural advantage of being a heterosexual Caucasian male at the center of the empire.

Do you hate me because of this?

No, of course you don't. You may not trust me. You may view these words differently from those written by another. Your entire perception of me, may have just changed. But how could one possibly hate someone they don't know. Oh, wait...

I could easily say that I love you. That I love all humans. It would cause you to pause. It would distract you for a moment. But it's not true and I have a thing about truth.

The truth is, I can only love those that I know. There are 6 billion people on this planet. I can list the ones I love on a 3x5 card. I will never know all the inhabitants of this country much less all of the inhabitants of the planet. It is physically impossible to meet all of us.

So, if you have never met someone who do you hate? I am not saying that everyone hates the same way. I find myself incapable of the emotion. Maybe that's the problem. I don't understand it. I have a vague concept. I know anger. Is hate simply being angry that an individual exists? I know love. Is hate loves opposite? Love lightens and strengthens. Does hate hold you down and make you feel heavy? Love enlightens. Does hate befuddle? Love transcends death. Does hate end with its subject?

The glow of warmth that suffuses us, the radiance that surrounds us, the power that fills the very cells of our being, that are all effects of love, do they have counterparts connected to hate. Oh... Oh no... Surely no one could withstand that. The opposite of love would destroy in moments. I imagine a soul torn asunder from the inside out. No vendetta, no past offense, no anger is worth that.

What to save...

There is a dark thought that enters into the mind occasionally. The truth of the matter is that although we are all equal, we are not all equally useful. In various thought experiments, we all have our own notions of what and who needs to be preserved. I recall a group of 30 young men whom would readily cut all funding to the National Endowment for the Arts. Various debates have gone on recently regarding where are priorities lie.

As with anything, nothing is cut and dry. There is simply no boon or drain on society. There is a strange ecosystem. The man or woman on the street will effect many lives during their time here. The birth and development of Einstein, Gandhi, Dr. King, the Kennedy empire, etc. were all a sequence of events involving billions of people. We could not plan it. If we removed things from the equation, the end result may not be the same. The "good" and the "bad" all combine to create what we know.

Our planet is not a dead rock. Although it can have awful consequences, geological activity is necessary. If were able to stop it, the result would be catastrophic. If we tried to remove all the things we considered unnecessary we would cease to grow. Imagine humans that were uninspired by art. Imagine a world where we shut off the lights. Imagine a world without recorded information. Imagine a world where progress in all its forms is halted.

There was such a world. We did leave it. It was a world where any random individual with a weapon could take over at any time. It was a world where meeting another group of people most often meant bloodshed. It was a world where only the strong survived. It was a world where we removed anything we didn't agree with.

It was a rocky path and perhaps there were other ways to get here, but we are here and we got here by deciding that we all have the right to be here. That all things have an importance.

So, at the moment when the dark thought crosses your mind. At the moment when you imagine fighting for resources. At the moment you look on a fellow human as negatively effecting your life, imagine the pinpoint connections in the web. If we look past some odd conception of fairness, we can see that we are changed by those negative effects. These changes can be positive. They can inspire confrontation. They can inspire their opposite. Even if you find no redeeming value in an individual, you must imagine how their life might have effected others.

And so, we have to save it all. We can't predict how it turns out. The resources are not nearly as limited as we pretend. We can save it all. Perhaps, that's the problem. We don't want to save it all. We see an opportunity to negatively impact our "enemies" or "competitors".

We are still so young. We have no enemies. We have no competitors. Our gain and loss is our own. We are simply humans interacting with one another. Shows of strength to gain status is all that is left to us. We have become masterful at making these shows of strength as bloody as possible, but that is all they are.

And so, flex if you wish. Grunt and throw things. But know that we have already won. That you are my brother or my sister. I might not see you as my equal, but I respect you. We all have our role. Forgive me my dark thoughts. Feel free to have your own.