We forget. But when all seems lost we are reminded that all of this is not that complex after all. People can do extraordinary things, things that get lost in all of the ugliness that we are confronted with on a daily basis. For some reason that part of us seems to get overlooked, leading one to wonder why our goodness isn’t as news worthy as our villainy.

For every killer in this world there are a hundred saviors. For every closed mind there are dozens more that are open. Borders, oceans, and continents do not divide the decency within us, nor that universal belief in hope or peace or happiness that has been painted as folly by closed minds.

There are 6.7 billion of us on this planet. If one sixth of that number represents the worst in us then there are over five billion of us that don’t. And if that is the case, then what are we waiting for?

I am a man that deals in ugliness. Every day it awaits me like toxic samples waiting under a microscope. My eyes peer into the maw of the worst of what we can be and I faithfully catalogue it. That has been my daily routine for years now. But the truth is that when you look up and see the world around you, you realize that the darkness that lingers on our collective horizon is nothing more than a diffusion of light. It is a mechanism of distraction used to diminish and belittle those things that we are told are too idealistic to ever become reality. Thus, the question remains – at what point do we disengage ourselves from the drug that we have become so addicted to that we perceive its reality as the norm? At what point does sobriety become something more than a fantasy, when, in truth, the existence that we endure now is the fantasy?

From religious to political divisions, these are the drugs that we have become so accustomed to that our perception of something beyond them is rendered hazy and oblique. Under their influence we forget that there are far more of us that believe in something better than those that do not. If there is truly a War On Terror being waged then it is one that must include every aspect of the promotion of division, the belief in violence to solve our problems, and the corruption of societies and religions to ensure the solidification for the support of such beliefs. Because if it does not, then it is not a war against terror but simply two versions of its application struggling for supremacy.

We may be caught in the middle, but there is a choice left us. We can choose not to walk either path, but one that is not represented by political or religious ideologies. Some claim that that, within the context of our world, is an impossibility. A century ago so was sending a man into space. Making the impossible possible is our greatest strength – all that need be done is to alter its focus.

November 2, 2008 17 Comments

There is no side to be taken but that of the innocent, of those who pay with their lives for the corruptions of others. Hostilities between South Ossetian and Abkhazian separatists and the Georgian military didn’t suddenly begin earlier this month, they began more than a decade ago. During that time, as is always the case when fools employ guns to solve their problems, innocents have lost their lives.

I have removed every entry that I have made about the conflict, and my reason for doing so is quite simple. Because the only side that is worth taking is that of those that pay the price for the agendas of others that would rather have lived in peace.

I am tired of it. I am tired of the justifications of death. I am tired of sides, of the rhetoric spewed to criminalize the actions of some while defending the actions of others. I am tired of the altogether defensible actions of military giants and the condemnation of those that haven’t the historical mythology to excuse or glorify their behaviour. The deliverance of death is the deliverance of death, its method is of absolutely no concern to me. I could care less if it comes in the form of a suicide bomber than has been corrupted by some radicalized religious ideology or from 20,000 feet and delivered by someone that has been propagandized into believing that they are defending life by taking it.

I am tired of the deafening silence of the majority and the sensationalized wailings of the world’s minority voices that have always been able to produce the loudest of human misrepresentations. I am tired of politicians that don misleading new suits but care nothing for change and of so called activists that are so in love with ‘the struggle’ that the purpose of it no longer matters. Both are equally as revolting to me.

All of us, no matter what parts of this world we inhabit, get one kick at the can – religious promises to the contrary be damned. If we are to allow ourselves to be controlled, to be divided, to listen to those minority voices that misrepresent our true interests – of simply living our lives in peace – then we might as well commit global suicide. In truth, we are already in the throes of just that, even though confronting that reality is something that far too many people are uncomfortable admitting.

There is only one absolute in this life – death. As a species we have perfected more ways to deliver it than we have cures to combat it, which says something grotesquely significant about our inability to demand better. For the sake of our children, for the sake of our neighbour, for the sake of nature, for the sake of ourselves.

Fuck who you are, where you come from, the colour of your skin, and the God you worship. You have a greater responsibility – a responsibility to ensure that all of those things do not result in the promotion of division, willful ignorance, and suffering.

What ‘side’ am I on? I’m on a side that is considered by most an impossibility. And that is precisely why it remains one.

August 29, 2008 44 Comments