Complicated
People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meaningful to say.
This quote is one of the ways I justify to myself the keeping of a blog.
Why would my own personal perspective be important to others?
Vonnegut answers me:
Vonnegut answers me:
Still and all, why bother? Here's my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.
I have been hanging out for five decades now. I don’t have much capacity for beating around the bush anymore. I speak of the reality I see... Vonnegut responds:
I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.
Except my edge feels more like I am straddling a chasm and am trying to see the truth in more than one world.
There is the world of the Marines who impinge greatly on my consciousness because I have been married to one of those creatures for 13 years. Maddening and yet no one is more loyal, more nurturing, more infuriating,than a Marine. I have found I have great love for all these Marines I meet who have laid their lives on the line to create our haven we call America. And now my son is training to be one too. I know he is needed precisely because he is highly intelligent and comes from a principled and educated background. This is the kind of warrior of which America can be proud.
Then there is my world of choice where I am a bona-fide crystal carrying Goddess Worshiper and have been refining my new/old age repertoire for 30 years. You know - love is all there is, the art of peace, Reiki, tai chi, I Ching, sweat lodges and various other earth centered off the beaten path kind of things.
My children and husband are not exactly of this ilk, but tolerate me as I do them. My world brushes shoulders with their brutal realism. There are lots of narratives in my head and boiling it down to just these two is really simplifying things.
But back to straddling the great divide... Perhaps I can serve as a diplomat - introduce these different sides and concepts to each other, let them dialogue and see if there is a possibility of reconciliation. Watch as I try to weave coherence out of disparity - a talent of humans, a cultural tool to help us survive seeming contradictions and the great complexities of existence.
I don’t believe in war. I believe in warriors.
I hate guns.
How is my son doing now? Next week he begins working on his marksmanship. Will he do well? I so hope he excels. This rifle will
be one of his tools for survival and I want him to survive.
be one of his tools for survival and I want him to survive.
We should get out of Iraq.
Listening to George Tenent has spread a chill through my being as I heard of plots foiled and the reality of how fragile my gas guzzling peaceful existence is washes over me. How bloody will it be to preserve my way of life? Will it be my son’s blood?
I got a dog in this fight now.
Lots of cognitive dissonance. How incredulous did I feel when I saw the “Commander Guy” veto withdrawal of our troops from Iraq and their funding... on the anniversary of Mission Accomplished! Aha - his mission - to create an ever growing conflagration in the Middle East. It is my son he will use as cannon fodder. I want the madness stopped NOW!
These are my thoughts as I wonder why I blog. Why expose my innermost struggles as I try to bring coherence to a situation that makes no sense?
Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Late Night With Kurt Vonnegut
