freepalestineon (original) (raw)

[	Current Location	|	My Comfortable Abode	]
[	mood	|	distressed	]
[	music	|	I Hope Your Heart Runs Empty - Neverending White Lights	]

I need to get this down on paper. But I don't even know where to begin. There is so much to say and so much to cry about, and there is so little meaning these words can convey. What can I say anyway? How can I possibly get this all out of me and put it down somewhere outside myself so that I am not always carrying it around with me?

What words do I use? What words can I use? Are there any words which haven't been abused, which haven't lost their meaning, which can properly convey the depth of this suffering I see in the world everyday? I want to cry even now as I am writing this. I am crying. I want to tear my heart out to show the world what this is doing to us. What all this injustice and pain and misery which we simply do not - cannot? - see is really doing to us inside. We are all dying. Slowly and painfully. But you can see it if you really want to. The more than just metaphorical hearts being ripped out. The more than just real suffering going on in this world.

But again I am losing myself. There are no words. I can't find the words.

Where can one possibly begin? This narrative is too large, encompassing far too many things, encompassing all of humanity and all of earth and all of the oceans and each single individual being. This narrative is too neatly woven together - to put it into words would be to pull out one of the threads and look at it minutely. In detail. How many strands do you need to look at before you can see the woven cloth? How many unique sufferings do you need to counter to feel some semblance of hope in this world?

I still haven't said anything. Perhaps I have said too much.

I want to talk about the daily horrors of the Palestinians. I want to yell and scream and force the world to just SHUT THE FUCK UP for two minutes and just listen. That's all. Is that too much to ask? Just be quiet. Please. Just be still enough to actually be human for once. Is that really too much to ask?

I want to tell the world that nothing ever just happens. That war & occupation is never just a coincidence, a seemingly incoherent mass of buildup. Wars are planned and strategized upon and usually successful in achieving their intended goal. I want to tell the world that there is always someone pulling the strings. That the majority of human beings don't revel in killing each other. That we are all human beings, one and the same no matter what anyone tells me or what I tell anyone.

But again I am wasting words. Or the words are wasting me. I can feel so much suffering that I can't even find the words to tell the world how I feel. And yet, I am not even the one who is actually suffering.

How can they possibly think that words are sufficient to tell their story. How can they possibly suffer so much without wanting to hurt someone else? How can we really be shocked when only so few are resorting to violence to relieve this suffering? I am shocked BILLIONS of people are not blowing their guts out because their stories can't be heard. That is not a spelling mistake. I truly mean billions.

And yet...now I feel better. Now that I have gotten something down on paper I will be able to get through another gut-wrenching day. Perhaps I will even go about my day feeling better about myself. But what does that do? What have I really done - except somehow relieved a tiny bit of my suffering by putting it down on paper?

Ripple effect?

From where I'm standing, the ocean looks pretty still to me. Dark and dirty. Static.

I see no ripples.

Because the ripples are just an illusion in the first place. Perhaps my heart is turning to stone. I was afraid I would lose my youthful idealism and look its happening already. My expectations are being lowered. I can see now that the only way I can remain sane in this insane world is by expecting very little in the way of good from it. But why? WHY is it like this? Why do we need to constantly dominate and subjugate and control and manipulate entire groups of people? Why? Is humanity really just a plague on this earth - destroying and clearing everything that lies in its path? What other sane conclusion can one come to by sanely looking at this insane world?

Everytime I ask someone about this - even people who are really aware and wise - they tell me that humanity also has the capacity to do an enormous amount of good. But if I could fathom some balance in the equation it would quell my fears about the most violent and greedy animals on this planet. But there is no balance in the equation. It is so lopsided it seems any day now it will fall in on itself. How can this answer possibly be enough for us? That we also do *some* good. So? What the fuck does that matter to the Palestinian woman who lost her enitre family because of an accidentally-on-purpose missile the Israelis launched to feel 'safe' in their Holy Land? What does it matter to the millions of Congolese slaves who got their hands chopped off when they dared to take a moment's respite from their gruelling, day-long labour? What does it matter to their children, and their children's children, who have to suffer through generations and still not be able to relieve the pain inflicted upon them? Is this the ripple we are talking about? Suffering past down to each new generation that has the gift of life stolen from them before they are even out of the womb? What are you going to do? Are you - can you - really find solace in this misguided notion that if we do just *this* much then its all okay?

So many questions I have and so little answers. So much to yell about and so much to find peace in. I am not looking for easy answers. That would be like giving up. There are no easy answers.

But deep down I still need to believe that it doesn't have to be like this. Before the Portuguese and the French and the Belgians saw the Congo and started salivating at the prospect of stealing all the natural and beautiful abundance of the land, the people of the Congo had been living for hundreds - perhaps thousands of years - without wanting to take it all for themselves. They did not feel the need to make each individual pay for what was naturally there. Why were they like that? Why were they able to put each other before themselves, unlike their future colonial masters? Why is it that even now, after everything they have been through, they are able to open their homes and offer whatever they may have to a passing stranger?

If there is anything that gives me hope now, it is the ability of the oppressed to retain their humanity after witnessing the most sinister evil our species can come up with. To be able to feel love, and joy, and kindness, after you have been violently denied all these things. What can possibly be greater than that? That is truly the ultimate pinnacle of our desire for a better world.

And yet...we have no shame. We call them barbarians and savages and evil creatures because we refuse to consider the possibility that that's who *we* are. We are the ultimate savages of this world - the most sophisticated ones. Who can maintain our moral high ground while doing everything we possibly can that is not morally good. That is not good, period. We should all be hanging our heads in shame and asking not to be slaughtered like chickens at the corporate farms we ourselves have set up. The unreality of the real is the most depressing thing to accept, even to just understand. Do we really think that because on the surface we appear to be normal human beings that we really are normal? To call ourselves human is to pollute the very notion of humanity itself.

But we don't stop. And we won't stop. Because we truly are the savages and the barbarians and the evil beasts walking upright somehow. It doesn't look like we care if we destroy the whole planet because we didn't want to share it with each other. We will destroy the whole thing and still not learn the lesson.

Please god, don't let these words be prophetic. If this is all there is to life, then death truly seems more appealing. If this is what it means to be human, then being the dirt under our feet seems like a better option. We cannot go on like this. Even the dirt must recoil when we humans place our feet upon it. It must know that we don't deserve to have stable, unmoving ground beneath our feet. That even the most violent earthquake mother nature can come up with is less than what we deserve.

This is how I feel. Can I save humanity? The answer echoes with a thousand resounding NOs. Can I save myself? That remains to be seen.