A few things have stuck out to me.
1. Loving feels pretty good. Giving even more than receiving.
2. Fear, indeed, is the antagonist to love. Being fearful or afraid sucks a lot.
3. Judgment is disgusting. To judge another is a sad thing.
4. Money is nothing. Not good or bad, just nothing.
5. We have a long way to go towards knowing love. And God, for that matter, though this distinction really a disguise.
After I took out this book for the first time with my family in China, my sister pounced. "Why are you reading a spiritual guidance book?" Lol. I said, "It's not really a spiritual guidance book."
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Gaza
There are few news items that have caught my heart as closely as what's going on in Gaza right now. I need to write a few thoughts about what is going on.
Since middle school, I've always kept a respectful distance from the conflict(s) from which this arises. I've always known that there are truth and there are lies, that "both sides" disseminate their fair share, and (most complacently for me) these players all share in wrongdoing. (I forgive myself by thinking that these basic levels of understanding were just a function of my awkwardness receiving a liberal UWS education.) And then, I'd say, there was college. I tried much harder to get my information promptly, to be responsibly informed.
Which is why feeling the sharp pain of an occupied people is new and pretty unusual to me.
The lack of a developed history in my epistemology has left me with very reductive ways to look at this conflict. I guess most of the world thinks this way now, with the soundbite-friendly internet and political erasure of histories, etc. But certain inalienable truths do come out.
Disproportional? Yeah. But I think what's more important is... If you need to kill a thousand to protect fifty, you only reveal a belief that the lives of your own are worth more than the lives of the other.
What a disgusting way to think. I remember hearing similar thoughts voiced by classmates in high school... When reflecting on the rich man's dilemma in La Barca Sin Pescador by Alejandro Casona (he was offered the choice to kill a poor man he didn't know far away, in exchange for wealth and power), they said, pretty flatly, that they would kill the man. Not only pretty fucked up, but it says so many other things.
A few other things before I'm done: I really don't know how a legitimate operation is conducted without basic, internationally-established humanitarian concerns. I don't understand how a successful operation is conducted without regard for public sentiment inside or outside Gaza. Shouldn't these be basics? Is anyone working for peace, instead of hit-me-I'll-hit-you-back?
Love is in a dire state.
Since middle school, I've always kept a respectful distance from the conflict(s) from which this arises. I've always known that there are truth and there are lies, that "both sides" disseminate their fair share, and (most complacently for me) these players all share in wrongdoing. (I forgive myself by thinking that these basic levels of understanding were just a function of my awkwardness receiving a liberal UWS education.) And then, I'd say, there was college. I tried much harder to get my information promptly, to be responsibly informed.
Which is why feeling the sharp pain of an occupied people is new and pretty unusual to me.
The lack of a developed history in my epistemology has left me with very reductive ways to look at this conflict. I guess most of the world thinks this way now, with the soundbite-friendly internet and political erasure of histories, etc. But certain inalienable truths do come out.
Disproportional? Yeah. But I think what's more important is... If you need to kill a thousand to protect fifty, you only reveal a belief that the lives of your own are worth more than the lives of the other.
What a disgusting way to think. I remember hearing similar thoughts voiced by classmates in high school... When reflecting on the rich man's dilemma in La Barca Sin Pescador by Alejandro Casona (he was offered the choice to kill a poor man he didn't know far away, in exchange for wealth and power), they said, pretty flatly, that they would kill the man. Not only pretty fucked up, but it says so many other things.
A few other things before I'm done: I really don't know how a legitimate operation is conducted without basic, internationally-established humanitarian concerns. I don't understand how a successful operation is conducted without regard for public sentiment inside or outside Gaza. Shouldn't these be basics? Is anyone working for peace, instead of hit-me-I'll-hit-you-back?
Love is in a dire state.
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