When I was eleven I wrote a book where the two main characters eventually fell in love. It happened gradually. They really disliked each other at first but were forced by necessity and circumstance to travel together for a long distance. Over time they became grudging friends, and toward the end of the adventure they each started looking at the other person in a new, rather surprising way, though neither had the courage to say anything about it quite yet. Then came drama - imprisonment, escape, literally fighting for their lives against a giant monster - and they were separated from each other. When they were eventually reunited, all that emotion bubbled up to the surface, and they both just knew - you're alive, you're okay, you're here. I love you. I want to be with you. It didn't need to be said; it was just so obvious.
This is why I love fiction. It all works out so neat and tidy. Real life sucks. Real life is nothing like that.
Instead you get people who have feelings about other people but never take the risk to make them known, whether out of fear or pride or self doubt... so many reasons, really, and none of them all that good.
I never realized this about myself, but apparently I am an old-fashioned girl. I was just watching a TV show ("Pramface") where a love interest says to the girl he's flirting with, "You've got princess syndrome. You're waiting for the guy to come and kiss you. And while I'd like that quite a bit, I'm not going to." (The obvious hint being that she should... and she did.) I'm not trying to buy into some patriarchal oppressive mindset or anything; for some reason it just seemed like common sense to me. If someone was interested, they'd say something. If they're not I'd save both of us a lot of embarrassment by just not saying anything.
I guess that's not fair though. Because the guy could be going through the exact same thought process.
But in the end, I think I know my answer to that "who makes the first move?" debate: it doesn't matter. Because I'll know. When I meet someone that's so amazing that it would be more painful being without them than to risk the embarrassment of rejection, I'll know. Or if they come to that same realization before I do and ask me first. Really, the timing doesn't matter. What matters is that something is there to make you want to risk it all. Not how they look or what they say, necessarily, but them, who they are as a person. At least, so far as you can tell.
See, that's one thing that a lot of the blog posts and forum discussions were taking as a given that I'm not so huge a fan of: walking up to strangers in bars, or cozying up to acquaintances at parties seemed to be two popular contexts for the "first move." But I prefer my eleven-year-old brain's dating model. Okay, so being thrown into a magical adventure together isn't very likely, but I'm still a fan of that other part of my story: the friends that gradually realize they feel something more for each other.
I don't think I'd be very good at dating. I suck at playing games and pussyfooting around the issue. I'm all for just saying whatever the hell you think, laying it out there in the open. But I don't know that I'd do that with some stranger in a bar. I'd go way too slow for the stranger in the bar, because they'd probably be looking for a hook-up, while I'd be all like, "Hey, let's hang out for a while and get to know each other..." Well. Unless he kissed me, and then all the thoughts in my head would bumper-car into each other and ricochet around, so I'd abandon logic and reason and thinking and just kiss him back instead.
I'm not making any sense.
So there's a person. I don't think it's anything but my overactive imagination, but I haven't exactly been helping things. I freeze up when they're around. I go quiet, almost glacial, which is not at all my intent. I need to remember to smile more. Eye contact, all the articles said stuff about that. But again, this isn't fitting with my ideal relationship model... I don't know the guy outside of work directives, so I don't even know that we'd get along.
So. Forget that last paragraph. The point is, I'm thinking about all this stuff. It's really confusing and annoying, but I guess everyone has to put up with the confusing and annoying stuff before they find the person they end up with.
God, I hope I end up with someone. (And I say that both in a taking-the-Lord's-name-in-vain kind of way and in a fervent-and-sincere-prayer kind of way.)
Preferably someone who doesn't have a tail and whiskers.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Hug
I got my hug.
I was at the library today. It was crazy busy. Not only were the crying babies and A.D.D. tweens out in abundance, but the computers kept freezing, and I had 4 days of emails to sort through, most of which were about meetings I needed to attend, powerpoints or flyers or posters I needed to make, deadlines I needed to be aware of, etc. Eeeek!
So I'm wading through all of this while trying to be patient librarian-lady with the children camped out on all six of the computers, playing some sort of make-your-own-movie-star game where they could chat with each other from their different screens if they used a password and username (I swear that's what was making most of the computers crash, but whatever). And one of the girls - I've seen her in here before but I can't remember her name, and I know I didn't do anything particularly helpful or nice for her today - just walks up to the desk where I'm sitting, squinting at an email like I do sometimes when I get tunnel vision, and she grabs me into a sideways hug.
"I love you, Miss Grace," she says, and I am surprised, and touched, and at a loss for words. Finally I manage a sunny (if befuddled), "Did you have fun today?" and when she nods I add, "I'm glad." And with that she leaves, and I turn back to my email, but I don't really "turn back to my email." Because my eyes are on the screen but my mind is still on the hug.
I think about yesterday, and that big, ugly, angry, sad, confusing lava of loneliness roiling inside of me, erupting out in the form of that blog post. Like a wish. Well, today it came back to me, transformed into something beautiful, totally unexpected and unearned.
Remember, children - no, actually, remember, adults; the children seem to have no problem with this - WISHES COME TRUE. Sometimes. And sometimes is enough.
I was at the library today. It was crazy busy. Not only were the crying babies and A.D.D. tweens out in abundance, but the computers kept freezing, and I had 4 days of emails to sort through, most of which were about meetings I needed to attend, powerpoints or flyers or posters I needed to make, deadlines I needed to be aware of, etc. Eeeek!
So I'm wading through all of this while trying to be patient librarian-lady with the children camped out on all six of the computers, playing some sort of make-your-own-movie-star game where they could chat with each other from their different screens if they used a password and username (I swear that's what was making most of the computers crash, but whatever). And one of the girls - I've seen her in here before but I can't remember her name, and I know I didn't do anything particularly helpful or nice for her today - just walks up to the desk where I'm sitting, squinting at an email like I do sometimes when I get tunnel vision, and she grabs me into a sideways hug.
"I love you, Miss Grace," she says, and I am surprised, and touched, and at a loss for words. Finally I manage a sunny (if befuddled), "Did you have fun today?" and when she nods I add, "I'm glad." And with that she leaves, and I turn back to my email, but I don't really "turn back to my email." Because my eyes are on the screen but my mind is still on the hug.
I think about yesterday, and that big, ugly, angry, sad, confusing lava of loneliness roiling inside of me, erupting out in the form of that blog post. Like a wish. Well, today it came back to me, transformed into something beautiful, totally unexpected and unearned.
Remember, children - no, actually, remember, adults; the children seem to have no problem with this - WISHES COME TRUE. Sometimes. And sometimes is enough.
Monday, May 6, 2013
Oh Silly Little Wild Thing...
...roar your terrible roars and gnash your terrible teeth and roll your terrible eyes and show your terrible claws...
"And Max, the king of all Wild Things, was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all."
Loneliness isn't weakness. And all my diluted references to Biblical proverbs ("a cord of three strands is not easily broken" or "as far as the east is from the west") are a little too obvious, but still right.
I'm a 27-year-old but I still think like a child. Or like a monster on an island, all raw emotion and eager earnestness.
A long walk and a clearer head, and I'm back here again to amend that last post. Oh, not all of it. I could still use a hug, but then couldn't we all?
The leaves outside my window are no longer golden. The sun's too low now in the sky for that.
I will meet true friends. I will tell my stories. I will find a way, or make one.
We can choose to be better. If I don't like something, maybe I can change it.
I'm reclaiming this day.
"And Max, the king of all Wild Things, was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all."
Loneliness isn't weakness. And all my diluted references to Biblical proverbs ("a cord of three strands is not easily broken" or "as far as the east is from the west") are a little too obvious, but still right.
I'm a 27-year-old but I still think like a child. Or like a monster on an island, all raw emotion and eager earnestness.
A long walk and a clearer head, and I'm back here again to amend that last post. Oh, not all of it. I could still use a hug, but then couldn't we all?
The leaves outside my window are no longer golden. The sun's too low now in the sky for that.
I will meet true friends. I will tell my stories. I will find a way, or make one.
We can choose to be better. If I don't like something, maybe I can change it.
I'm reclaiming this day.
Lonely
I used to think it meant you were weak to admit when you're lonely. Maybe I still think it, but I'm admitting it anyway. I am weak. I am one strand. A good strong rope needs two or three strands, maybe more. I can do things on my own, but I'd like to not be alone for once.
I'd like a hug.
I'd like someone to notice or care when I'm gone.
I'd like someone who wants to share their life with me, and would like me to share mine with them.
I'd like someone who would fight for me, even if sometimes the thing they're fighting is me. Does that make sense? Like, I put up walls and barriers. I'm not just the princess in this fairy tale; I'm also the forest of briars and the big scary dragon, and it would be nice if someone realized I was in there and even after seeing the obstacles went to the trouble to go through all the defenses I put up anyway. I'd like someone to maybe think I was worth the trouble.
Part of this is me just being emotional because I'm on my period. (Sorry if that's TMI, but this is my blog, so I'm going to say whatever the hell I want.) Part of this is because I just saw on facebook that a former acquaintance of mine, a childhood friend, has just gotten engaged. Part of this was waking up and realizing that I can count my close friends on one hand, and that a good half of those friends don't really care about me; I'm just a diversion, a something-to-do to pencil in on the calendar, a sounding board for ideas, opinions, and complaints, a yes man to provide validation.
I feel very lonely. I feel very alone. I really, really want a hug.
Does that sound needy? I don't really care. I don't even care about romance, not really. I just want a friend, a real friend. I just want to know that there are nice, genuine, caring people out there in the world, that not everybody is a selfish asshole.
But that's a lot to ask. I mean, I'm a selfish asshole. Maybe we're all selfish assholes and just terrible, small people. Broken and twisted and strange.
As I'm writing this the sun is shining through the leaves on the branches outside my window, and it's this beautiful gold filtering through the green, and it's the kind of light I remember from my childhood. It's the kind of light I associate with wonder and adventure, with innocence and endless possibility. And it is so very strange to see that light and to feel what I am feeling now. It's like, those two things can't possibly exist together. They are as far apart as the east is from the west. This despair, and that golden, aching, brilliant sort of promise.
It's not a hug, and it's not a friend, and it's not someone who cares. But I've stopped crying, so that's something.
I'd like a hug.
I'd like someone to notice or care when I'm gone.
I'd like someone who wants to share their life with me, and would like me to share mine with them.
I'd like someone who would fight for me, even if sometimes the thing they're fighting is me. Does that make sense? Like, I put up walls and barriers. I'm not just the princess in this fairy tale; I'm also the forest of briars and the big scary dragon, and it would be nice if someone realized I was in there and even after seeing the obstacles went to the trouble to go through all the defenses I put up anyway. I'd like someone to maybe think I was worth the trouble.
Part of this is me just being emotional because I'm on my period. (Sorry if that's TMI, but this is my blog, so I'm going to say whatever the hell I want.) Part of this is because I just saw on facebook that a former acquaintance of mine, a childhood friend, has just gotten engaged. Part of this was waking up and realizing that I can count my close friends on one hand, and that a good half of those friends don't really care about me; I'm just a diversion, a something-to-do to pencil in on the calendar, a sounding board for ideas, opinions, and complaints, a yes man to provide validation.
I feel very lonely. I feel very alone. I really, really want a hug.
Does that sound needy? I don't really care. I don't even care about romance, not really. I just want a friend, a real friend. I just want to know that there are nice, genuine, caring people out there in the world, that not everybody is a selfish asshole.
But that's a lot to ask. I mean, I'm a selfish asshole. Maybe we're all selfish assholes and just terrible, small people. Broken and twisted and strange.
As I'm writing this the sun is shining through the leaves on the branches outside my window, and it's this beautiful gold filtering through the green, and it's the kind of light I remember from my childhood. It's the kind of light I associate with wonder and adventure, with innocence and endless possibility. And it is so very strange to see that light and to feel what I am feeling now. It's like, those two things can't possibly exist together. They are as far apart as the east is from the west. This despair, and that golden, aching, brilliant sort of promise.
It's not a hug, and it's not a friend, and it's not someone who cares. But I've stopped crying, so that's something.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Dido
My dad's birthday was last week, and he's a very hard person to buy gifts for. Usually he's happiest (and we're least offended) when he gives us a list and we just buy him stuff from it, because then he gets what he wants and doesn't insult our choices or turn right around and return them when it's stuff he wasn't planning on and doesn't like. (He doesn't do well with surprises). So... I got him a Moe's gift card, and my Mom ordered him a bunch of stuff offline, including the new Dido CD since he's a big fan of hers.
Well.
My Mom ordered 2 CDs in the same shipment, one for him and one for Oma (her mom) for Mother's Day. She was so preoccupied with getting Oma's CD packaged and shipped that she has no idea what became of the Dido one. She turned over all her normal hiding spots to no avail. And knowing how he is about wasting money, she didn't want to just turn around and buy him another one then have the hidden one show up months from now. So she told him what had happened and we all had a massive hunt, and still nothing.
Well, I was at Target on Wednesday and they were having a sale on the CD, so I figured why not? I got it and hid it in this copper container that Mom got from some catalogue and uses as a magazine holder on the table next to her chair in the den. I slipped her a note telling her where it was, figuring she would know the best way to "stumble upon" it and let him know we'd "found" it. I was thinking she was going to do it immediately, like, that night, but no... a couple days go by and we still haven't had the big Dido unveil.
I asked her today if she'd given it to him and she said she couldn't find it. That she'd emptied the whole container, went through magazine by magazine (which was unnecessary; she should have been able to see it looking down from above), and that it wasn't there. While she'd been going through the container she found a bunch of stuff she didn't want anymore so she tossed that out. We even pulled that stuff out of the trash and it wasn't there either.
We were hoping Dad had found it and just hadn't mentioned it to us. But he just got home from reffing and seemed confused when Mom asked. "Don't you think I would have told you if I'd found it?"
I am so pissed off. And a little frightened. Because to my mind this means one of two things: either my memory's completely messed up and I didn't do what I said I did (because I can literally see it there. I even went back and double-checked it was still there. I know I put it there!), or Mom's memory is messed up. Maybe she went and moved it somewhere else and now can't even remember she did that? I don't know.
I'm considering going to the store and buying a third Dido CD and putting it directly in his hands. Or waiting until he's at home, and walking into the room with it in my hands, and just lying and saying I found it somewhere.
Bloody fucking hell.
I have a migraine, and I'm pretty sure my period's about to start, so neither of those things is helping my mood right now, and then this? Seriously? Somebody just find the fucking CD already and get this over with!
Well.
My Mom ordered 2 CDs in the same shipment, one for him and one for Oma (her mom) for Mother's Day. She was so preoccupied with getting Oma's CD packaged and shipped that she has no idea what became of the Dido one. She turned over all her normal hiding spots to no avail. And knowing how he is about wasting money, she didn't want to just turn around and buy him another one then have the hidden one show up months from now. So she told him what had happened and we all had a massive hunt, and still nothing.
Well, I was at Target on Wednesday and they were having a sale on the CD, so I figured why not? I got it and hid it in this copper container that Mom got from some catalogue and uses as a magazine holder on the table next to her chair in the den. I slipped her a note telling her where it was, figuring she would know the best way to "stumble upon" it and let him know we'd "found" it. I was thinking she was going to do it immediately, like, that night, but no... a couple days go by and we still haven't had the big Dido unveil.
I asked her today if she'd given it to him and she said she couldn't find it. That she'd emptied the whole container, went through magazine by magazine (which was unnecessary; she should have been able to see it looking down from above), and that it wasn't there. While she'd been going through the container she found a bunch of stuff she didn't want anymore so she tossed that out. We even pulled that stuff out of the trash and it wasn't there either.
We were hoping Dad had found it and just hadn't mentioned it to us. But he just got home from reffing and seemed confused when Mom asked. "Don't you think I would have told you if I'd found it?"
I am so pissed off. And a little frightened. Because to my mind this means one of two things: either my memory's completely messed up and I didn't do what I said I did (because I can literally see it there. I even went back and double-checked it was still there. I know I put it there!), or Mom's memory is messed up. Maybe she went and moved it somewhere else and now can't even remember she did that? I don't know.
I'm considering going to the store and buying a third Dido CD and putting it directly in his hands. Or waiting until he's at home, and walking into the room with it in my hands, and just lying and saying I found it somewhere.
Bloody fucking hell.
I have a migraine, and I'm pretty sure my period's about to start, so neither of those things is helping my mood right now, and then this? Seriously? Somebody just find the fucking CD already and get this over with!
Monday, April 29, 2013
Not A Competition
Tonight a friend was complaining to me about something that had happened that made her have "a meltdown" (her words). Plans she had been looking forward to and depending on were cancelled at the last minute by someone who didn't realize what a big deal it was to her. And while I could understand frustration, the level of anger and emotion she was displaying ("Fuck this. Fuck today. Fuck absolutely everything.") seemed so far past the point of melodrama that I found myself literally rolling my eyes. I didn't let it on to her when I responded, stuck instead to the Supportive Friend script of, "Oh no! What's wrong? I'm sorry... That sucks," and so on. But inside my head while this all was going on I kept thinking, Your life isn't really as bad as you think it is. Why are you whining so much?
But then I remembered one of my last conversations with Mandy. Mandy is the former friend I referred to anonymously in some of my blog posts back in November and December of last year. I don't have any qualms mentioning her by name now, because fuck it, what's she going to do? Not be my friend anymore? That ship has sailed. Anyway, Mandy was going on and on about how I had no reason to feel sad or upset because at least I had parents who were alive and cared about me, unlike her with her dead dad and "racist" (her description, not mine) mom, and siblings who were nice, unlike her "asshole" brother. She was basically trying to make me feel guilty for not having had bad things happen to me, and trying to make me feel like I could never possibly have anything to complain about because her life was so much worse.
And I didn't reply to that part of her message. By that point communication had dissolved a great deal and would soon cease altogether. But this is what I wish I had said to her:
Pain is not a competition. Even if the conditions in your life are worse than mine, that doesn't cancel out my feelings or make them any less legitimate than yours.
Here's the deal. Feelings of frustration, weariness, helplessness, sadness, anger and dissatisfaction - they happen to all of us to varying degrees depending on the situations we face. Everyone's experiences are different, but our emotions and reactions are often very similar and that's part of what connects us as human beings. The death of someone you love is a terrible tragedy. Feeling trapped by debt to the point that you work yourself literally to exhaustion week after week to pay it off is wearying and sad. If you compare the two, obviously death is going to outrank debt in most people's minds, but honestly what do we get by comparing? What purpose does it serve? It doesn't help anything. Both experiences are legitimate. Pain is not a competition.
So thinking about it that way... Losing your job and having to live at home with parents who think you're a Jezebel and a demon-worshiper and do what they can to constantly remind you of that must be frustrating and emotionally traumatic. So of course the opportunity to escape this for a little while would be the sort of thing you get your hopes up about, and if it were to fall through I can see being upset. The histrionics? A little much, sure, but who am I to dismiss the pain behind them?
So I'm glad I at least went through the motions of being a supportive friend instead of being bitchy and sarcastic. No one needs that. No comparisons or rankings. How about just plain old compassion?
But then I remembered one of my last conversations with Mandy. Mandy is the former friend I referred to anonymously in some of my blog posts back in November and December of last year. I don't have any qualms mentioning her by name now, because fuck it, what's she going to do? Not be my friend anymore? That ship has sailed. Anyway, Mandy was going on and on about how I had no reason to feel sad or upset because at least I had parents who were alive and cared about me, unlike her with her dead dad and "racist" (her description, not mine) mom, and siblings who were nice, unlike her "asshole" brother. She was basically trying to make me feel guilty for not having had bad things happen to me, and trying to make me feel like I could never possibly have anything to complain about because her life was so much worse.
And I didn't reply to that part of her message. By that point communication had dissolved a great deal and would soon cease altogether. But this is what I wish I had said to her:
Pain is not a competition. Even if the conditions in your life are worse than mine, that doesn't cancel out my feelings or make them any less legitimate than yours.
Here's the deal. Feelings of frustration, weariness, helplessness, sadness, anger and dissatisfaction - they happen to all of us to varying degrees depending on the situations we face. Everyone's experiences are different, but our emotions and reactions are often very similar and that's part of what connects us as human beings. The death of someone you love is a terrible tragedy. Feeling trapped by debt to the point that you work yourself literally to exhaustion week after week to pay it off is wearying and sad. If you compare the two, obviously death is going to outrank debt in most people's minds, but honestly what do we get by comparing? What purpose does it serve? It doesn't help anything. Both experiences are legitimate. Pain is not a competition.
So thinking about it that way... Losing your job and having to live at home with parents who think you're a Jezebel and a demon-worshiper and do what they can to constantly remind you of that must be frustrating and emotionally traumatic. So of course the opportunity to escape this for a little while would be the sort of thing you get your hopes up about, and if it were to fall through I can see being upset. The histrionics? A little much, sure, but who am I to dismiss the pain behind them?
So I'm glad I at least went through the motions of being a supportive friend instead of being bitchy and sarcastic. No one needs that. No comparisons or rankings. How about just plain old compassion?
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Destructivity
Almost everything on the news this past week has been about Boston, and we've gone through the normal pattern of questions....
Bombs went off at the marathon on Monday. People died and were seriously injured. What exactly happened here?
This was a purposeful act, not an accident. Who did this?
The city is placed on lock-down. Where are they?
Two suspects are identified and located. In the shoot-out to follow, one suspect is killed. Soon afterward, the second suspect is captured and seriously injured. Which means that after all these other questions, we come to the most haunting one of all:
Why?
Dzhokhar Tsarvaev is in the hospital in critical condition and isn't going to be answering that question anytime soon. Even when - if - he is able to clarify his role in all this, to put into words the motivations that led to his alleged actions and the alleged actions of his brother Tamerlan, it is doubtful that his explanation will really tell us anything. It won't be enough. It won't be anything we can wrap our heads around. Because to the average person, this makes no sense.
We seem to only hear that word, "senseless," tossed around in the media after some overwhelming act of purposeful destruction. The earthquake that happened today in China that has killed over 150 people is a terrible tragedy, but it is not "senseless," because we do not expect a force of nature to operate within rules of logic and morality. The plant explosion in Texas that occurred earlier this week and has killed at least 14 people is a devastating accident, but it is not "senseless," because dangerous chemicals and machinery do not follow any sort of creed or code. And even if the cause is revealed to be due to human error or negligence, this is different than intentional design and can at least make a sort of sense to us. To use a fictional example we can look at Life of Pi. If Pi were to be eaten by the tiger trapped with him on the lifeboat, it would be sad and horrifying, but not "senseless." Because again, though animals have intelligence and emotion, we understand that they are more often driven by instinct and impulse and do not hold them to the same standards of human interaction.
But we expect more of one another. We expect our fellow humans to operate with a certain respect for themselves, each other, and the species as a whole. Theft, rape, even murder - they are disgusting and evil acts, they cross the line, but even so they still make a kind of twisted sense, because at least we can understand what it is to selfishly want something (even if the majority of us would not go about such totally wrong means of getting it) or to be driven by an overwhelming emotion (though for most of us, self control wins in the end). But when someone comes along and purposes in their heart to completely fly in the face of this innate respect for fellow human life, and to act in such a way not for personal gain but simply to make some sort of statement or attract notoriety - it makes no sense. None at all.
Why? Why?
In a blog post four years ago entitled "Musings on Entropy" I wrote this: "I hate how easy it is to destroy something. I think this is a fundamental flaw in the universe: the fact that it is easy and immediate to kill, to destroy, to take away, to injure, to break, and that it is often difficult and slow to grow, to build, to repair, to create, to heal, to restore." I still hate it. Two years later in 2011 directly following the London riots, I wrote another reflection on the exact same topic, calling it the "dichotomous relationship" between destruction and creation. But pondering it now, yet another two years later, I don't think "dichotomous" is the right word. It talks about a split into two mutually exclusive groups, but actually I'm beginning to realize that creation and destruction are two sides of the same coin.
It is unsurprising the me that Adolf Hitler, the man whose name is perhaps as synonymous with evil as Lucifer himself, was first a painter. Unsatisfied with limiting his vision of the world to still lifes of scenery and flowers, he went on to commit some of the most senseless atrocities in modern warfare, and, let's be honest, in human history. And you know how he brought this about? Imagination, ingenuity, talent, hard work, effort. All these words we post up on motivational posters, that conjure in our heads images of great artists and inventors and humanitarians, people who create and inspire and add something beneficial to the world - well, guess what? They are the tools of dictators and terrorists as well. (Yes, I know, they have other tools we refuse to use: fear, manipulation, etc. But still...)
There is power in ideas. There is power in imagination. And this isn't The Wizard of Oz where you're a good witch or a bad witch. Imagination is a neutral force that can be funneled toward any cause or any point on the moral compass. Plenty of people figured this out long before me. Nearly two hundred years ago, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote: "Words - so innocent and powerless they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good or evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them." (Emphasis mine.) Last year, musician Amanda Palmer released a song called "Ukulele Anthem" in which she notes: "It takes about an hour to teach someone to play the ukulele / About the same to teach someone to build a standard pipe bomb / YOU DO THE MATH." And back in 2008, giving her commencement address to the graduates of Harvard university, author J.K. Rowling explained that "unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people's places. Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise." Which is why, she went on to explain, it is so very important that we learn to "imagine better."
Boston is just the latest knot in a long string of senseless violence, and I fear this string will only grow more tangled in years ahead. We may get answers to some of our questions, but that last one, the most important one, is one I don't think there will ever be an answer to.
So instead I'll choose to ask a different question: if evil can be "senseless," why can't good?
I think the best way to fight back against such inexplicable destructivity (look it up - it's a real word!) is through acts of kindness and compassion that defy logic. People don't always deserve love - we can be cruel and downright terrible to each other, and many of us, even on our best days, are still ultimately self-serving and small-minded - but what if we do the radical thing and give it to them anyway? Go out of our way to do things to add joy and beauty to other people's lives, even people we really might not like that much? Even if it was inconvenient or meant putting someone else's interests ahead of our own? How senseless would that be?
...and how wonderful?
I don't really have some neat way to wrap this whole thing up. It's long and rambling and all over the place and I'm not even sure if I've said what I'm trying to say. Just, don't get discouraged. And don't be afraid. I read these books nowadays - Hunger Games and others of that ilk - and wonder if people respond to them the way they do because there's that fear there in all of us that the world really is sinking into such a hopeless state. Well, I don't believe it. Not for an instant. For all the hell we see in this world, there are also shining glimpses of heaven.
There are two sides to every coin.
Bombs went off at the marathon on Monday. People died and were seriously injured. What exactly happened here?
This was a purposeful act, not an accident. Who did this?
The city is placed on lock-down. Where are they?
Two suspects are identified and located. In the shoot-out to follow, one suspect is killed. Soon afterward, the second suspect is captured and seriously injured. Which means that after all these other questions, we come to the most haunting one of all:
Why?
Dzhokhar Tsarvaev is in the hospital in critical condition and isn't going to be answering that question anytime soon. Even when - if - he is able to clarify his role in all this, to put into words the motivations that led to his alleged actions and the alleged actions of his brother Tamerlan, it is doubtful that his explanation will really tell us anything. It won't be enough. It won't be anything we can wrap our heads around. Because to the average person, this makes no sense.
We seem to only hear that word, "senseless," tossed around in the media after some overwhelming act of purposeful destruction. The earthquake that happened today in China that has killed over 150 people is a terrible tragedy, but it is not "senseless," because we do not expect a force of nature to operate within rules of logic and morality. The plant explosion in Texas that occurred earlier this week and has killed at least 14 people is a devastating accident, but it is not "senseless," because dangerous chemicals and machinery do not follow any sort of creed or code. And even if the cause is revealed to be due to human error or negligence, this is different than intentional design and can at least make a sort of sense to us. To use a fictional example we can look at Life of Pi. If Pi were to be eaten by the tiger trapped with him on the lifeboat, it would be sad and horrifying, but not "senseless." Because again, though animals have intelligence and emotion, we understand that they are more often driven by instinct and impulse and do not hold them to the same standards of human interaction.
But we expect more of one another. We expect our fellow humans to operate with a certain respect for themselves, each other, and the species as a whole. Theft, rape, even murder - they are disgusting and evil acts, they cross the line, but even so they still make a kind of twisted sense, because at least we can understand what it is to selfishly want something (even if the majority of us would not go about such totally wrong means of getting it) or to be driven by an overwhelming emotion (though for most of us, self control wins in the end). But when someone comes along and purposes in their heart to completely fly in the face of this innate respect for fellow human life, and to act in such a way not for personal gain but simply to make some sort of statement or attract notoriety - it makes no sense. None at all.
Why? Why?
In a blog post four years ago entitled "Musings on Entropy" I wrote this: "I hate how easy it is to destroy something. I think this is a fundamental flaw in the universe: the fact that it is easy and immediate to kill, to destroy, to take away, to injure, to break, and that it is often difficult and slow to grow, to build, to repair, to create, to heal, to restore." I still hate it. Two years later in 2011 directly following the London riots, I wrote another reflection on the exact same topic, calling it the "dichotomous relationship" between destruction and creation. But pondering it now, yet another two years later, I don't think "dichotomous" is the right word. It talks about a split into two mutually exclusive groups, but actually I'm beginning to realize that creation and destruction are two sides of the same coin.
It is unsurprising the me that Adolf Hitler, the man whose name is perhaps as synonymous with evil as Lucifer himself, was first a painter. Unsatisfied with limiting his vision of the world to still lifes of scenery and flowers, he went on to commit some of the most senseless atrocities in modern warfare, and, let's be honest, in human history. And you know how he brought this about? Imagination, ingenuity, talent, hard work, effort. All these words we post up on motivational posters, that conjure in our heads images of great artists and inventors and humanitarians, people who create and inspire and add something beneficial to the world - well, guess what? They are the tools of dictators and terrorists as well. (Yes, I know, they have other tools we refuse to use: fear, manipulation, etc. But still...)
There is power in ideas. There is power in imagination. And this isn't The Wizard of Oz where you're a good witch or a bad witch. Imagination is a neutral force that can be funneled toward any cause or any point on the moral compass. Plenty of people figured this out long before me. Nearly two hundred years ago, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote: "Words - so innocent and powerless they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good or evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them." (Emphasis mine.) Last year, musician Amanda Palmer released a song called "Ukulele Anthem" in which she notes: "It takes about an hour to teach someone to play the ukulele / About the same to teach someone to build a standard pipe bomb / YOU DO THE MATH." And back in 2008, giving her commencement address to the graduates of Harvard university, author J.K. Rowling explained that "unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people's places. Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise." Which is why, she went on to explain, it is so very important that we learn to "imagine better."
Boston is just the latest knot in a long string of senseless violence, and I fear this string will only grow more tangled in years ahead. We may get answers to some of our questions, but that last one, the most important one, is one I don't think there will ever be an answer to.
So instead I'll choose to ask a different question: if evil can be "senseless," why can't good?
I think the best way to fight back against such inexplicable destructivity (look it up - it's a real word!) is through acts of kindness and compassion that defy logic. People don't always deserve love - we can be cruel and downright terrible to each other, and many of us, even on our best days, are still ultimately self-serving and small-minded - but what if we do the radical thing and give it to them anyway? Go out of our way to do things to add joy and beauty to other people's lives, even people we really might not like that much? Even if it was inconvenient or meant putting someone else's interests ahead of our own? How senseless would that be?
...and how wonderful?
I don't really have some neat way to wrap this whole thing up. It's long and rambling and all over the place and I'm not even sure if I've said what I'm trying to say. Just, don't get discouraged. And don't be afraid. I read these books nowadays - Hunger Games and others of that ilk - and wonder if people respond to them the way they do because there's that fear there in all of us that the world really is sinking into such a hopeless state. Well, I don't believe it. Not for an instant. For all the hell we see in this world, there are also shining glimpses of heaven.
There are two sides to every coin.
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