Apathy

(A friend of mine told someone about this and they want to publish it.  She will not even let me edit it, she want it "as is," which is terrifying.  But I guess I said what I needed to say at that moment, and maybe it will make sense to someone else as it did her.  Also, it started out poetry and then stumbled into prose and then ended up an article... um, it's a Particle.)



we will always conflict

we love technology

we love autonomy

we love to judge from on high

(hooray for our side) - all the signs say the same thing

this is right and this is wrong

we will always fight.

the only thing that could save us would be if every single one of us here right now, every soul who walks on this earth at this moment

were to realize that there is something bigger and more important than each of us individually.  he or she or s/he would 

wake up inside and realize that there is something bigger and more important

(I realized there was a God and I was not it, and that there are much bigger things going on in this universe than my hopes and dreams - albeit they are still 

important in the grand scheme, but they are so very small and so am I.)

I don't care if they call it God.  I don't care what it is called but each person's ego wants to believe that there isn't something bigger, and there is.

if every single person realized this at the same time, we would maybe stand a chance, at that moment, of having enough common sense to pause.

and in that pause there would be something small inside us, starting small and growing, that would help us find our way.  once each of us found our way and 

figured out where we fit, we would no longer struggle to try and fit somewhere else and we would settle into neat little grooves.  it would not feel like a forced move

as it would be the individual realization of each soul's place and purpose at this moment among the many.  and those who attempted to disrupt another's movement to 

their natural state would be dealt with in a manner other than arguing online or tweeting political viewpoints and hitting a like button.

but this will not happen.  there will always be that one person - I am guessing quite a few more than one - who will want to be the God of their own universe, to see themselves

as the center of the universe, and will impose their will upon those around them, be it a population of people or maybe just those they meet in the street or online.

that one person will refuse to yield to what their soul already knows.  that person will refuse to recognize that they even have a soul at all, that they are energy and thoughts and

emotions that go beyond just a flesh pile that will someday erode away.

we will always fight because we are outwardly displaying the madness of the battle between our minds, feelings, souls, and experiences.... the outward will always match the inward.  the more unhappy one single person can be.... the more disturbed the world shall be.

On a Friday in December, I sat in the Sarpy County DMV waiting room waiting for my number to be called.  I was there to update the address on my driver's license and to register my car.  I waited among about 30 other people.  A TV played CNN, hung from the ceiling and droning as background noise.  I stopped filling out my form and watched in horror, food from lunch rising to my throat, as they announced that a gunman or possibly two had entered an elementary school and that almost 30 were thought dead.  They were turning away ambulances, a bad sign, as they were finding that there were not as many injuries as fatalities.  Many were children, the newscaster repeated after she had been told, and there was not much being released.  I watched the couple in front of me who were playing Yahtzee on their iPad look up, and then heard the man say, "Oh, another school shooting, huh?"  His wife or whatever she was shrugged, and they went right back to playing their game, arguing over how to spell a certain word.

It wasn't until later that I learned that most of the dead were the same age as my daughter.  That teachers and others had died trying to shield children.  That the gunman had killed his parents. That his mother had tried to get him committed.  There were a lot of other things to learn, but all I can take away from any of it is that we were all pregnant at the same time, those parents and I, and I am sure that they didn't think their children would be part of one of the worse mass shootings in history.  Or that someone would casually look up at the screen while Wolf Blitzer referenced Columbine and started the comparison and analysis of the tragedy before names were even released... that someone would look up and remark that it was just another... just another.  Back to the casual online board game, within weeks it was just another "unthinkable" tragedy.  

Why even begin to feel the rage?  It won't matter, right?  It won't matter because we don't know who to blame, right?  Nah.  I am going to go right ahead and be broken-hearted.  I am going to be furious and attempt to vent that fury to my God and hope you vent yours to yours.  If you have no tears, if you have no rage, if you have no unanswered questions about how we move on as a country, then do the rest of us a favor and just go back to your game.  Maybe do it quietly.  Maybe don't casually talk about the death of children as if it were an update about the Kardashians.  While you are at it, forget about Katrina. Forget the oil spill... forget Superstorm Sandy or the Tsunamis in Japan.  They don't matter, do they?  They don't matter unless it happens to us, right?  Isn't that the party line nowadays - "we never expected this to happen here..."  I think maybe it's time we all expect ANYTHING to happen anywhere.  Then we would change, because we would realize we needed to change.  We would stop putting it off.  

But I am sure this all just sounds like melodramatic sentimentalism from an uninformed Midwestern.  What the hell do I know, right?

I wonder which demon it was, I wonder which one it was, whispering in his ear when he unhinged his sanity.  I wonder how we heal as a country when we have too many wounds to cover, to protect, too many to stitch closed.  Too many pounds of flesh taken.  I wonder what I tell my kids.  One of them is autistic, high functioning, but was scared to go to school the next day, fearing his Asperger's diagnosis would be discovered and that someone would compare him to the shooter.  The other child doesn't know about any of it, as I have made sure no news was playing around her, no papers for her to see, no conversations about the event... someday she will be old enough to know about it or will hear about it, and she will ask me if it is safe to go to school.  And I will lie and say that I will always keep her safe, and I will pray like hell that I can do everything I can to make it as true as possible, but there is no answer to that question that is true.

We will always conflict because I can't even share this with anyone.  They might disagree.  They might start talking about gun control or something else, and my mind will clamp shut.  Because I too am just as guilty as you, I too am pretty sure I know some things and I am right and you are wrong... at least I don't think I am God.  I know how small I am. I hate to know it, but I know how small I really, really am.  But a lot of small things can really create something big, if they work together, isn't that a law of physics?  Or is that just my hope, my ridiculous optimism, the part of me that will never, ever be able to even look at internet Yahtzee again?