Dear World...

[ealgylden]

You make me so, so tired. We're better than this. We, as a species, can be better than this. Should be. Must be. All those thousands of years of human history behind us, all those empires, all those grand, mindless agonies and stupid, petty, little fights. All those beautiful, brilliant things we've done nonetheless, and still, we keep ending up back in the cave, smashing each other with clubs. And it accomplishes what, exactly? More battle lines being drawn. More voices shouting and fewer ears listening. More pain and loss in a world that's drowned in it.

I agree with the general admiration of Londoners for their resilience and determination. The clichéd stiff upper-lip, the sentiment that London has survived worse, by God! and this won't be the day we let the bastards win. I find that deeply admirable, I truly do. And yet... it makes me sad. It makes me sad when I hear it from Khartoum and Beirut and Bogotá and Jakarta, too. That humanity is able to develop defense mechanisms like that is impressive; that it's required to do so is tragic. We are better than this.

I'm going out to my garden now. I'm going to poke at the weeds with a stick, admire the flowers on my tomato plants, and watch my cats nap in the lemon balm. I'm going to watch things grow for a while.

Comments

[ophidiae.livejournal.com]

Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling but have been too scatterbrained to say.

I'm going out to my garden now. I'm going to poke at the weeds with a stick, admire the flowers on my tomato plants, and watch my cats nap in the lemon balm. I'm going to watch things grow for a while.

Enjoy. I did the same thing. There is something very restful about leafy green things and the smell of well-tended earth.

[aithine]

That humanity is able to develop defense mechanisms like that is impressive; that it's required to do so is tragic. We are better than this.

Amen, sister.