It has been quite a long while since a post.
Hate to disappoint but this will not be much of a post either. I simply want to write down a few thoughts going through my head at the moment. I’m disoriented, out of balance and instead of retreat to my online computer game (Wow) thought it would be more productive to share these thoughts.
1. I’m alone
I’m currently in a large house, by myself, with nobody but myself, my fish and the lure of the internet. You see, I’ve just come back from Japan. While there I had to make a decision. We were visiting my parents-in-law with my young son. The great grandmother lives in Tochigi Prefecture which is just below Fukushima.
The decision was mine to go and I did my research. Never in my life would I have thought that I would have to make a decision concerning radiation. The choice also involved my young son as well as immediate Japanese family. I chose to go as we have a great grandmother there who is 90 years old. It was now or possibly never that my young son could meet the grandmother.
I learned quickly that the radiation levels were not very strong and could sometimes be just as high as the worst spots in Fukushima as they were in certain spots in Tokyo.
We did have many discussions about the radiation which I hope to write about later but what really captured my attention was the picture of my boy’s ancestors. In every Japanese house they have a shrine to the ancestors along with photos that peer down on you from the corner where the wall meets the ceiling. In the great-grandmothers house as well as in my parents-in law’s house there was a picture of a Japanese WW2 soldier in uniform that never came home. These men would be the great-grand-uncles of my young boy. In the film they call them “Japs.”
My wife and child are now staying another two weeks in Saitama. So I find myself alone, sad and for some reason have chosen a documentary on WW2 on Netflix as my weekend entertainment.
Sure I could go out, I have free reign to do whatever I would like. Yet, I chose wine and Netflix to divert my attentions. I miss them terribly.
As I watch the video of WW2 and the video of the dead American and Japanese soldiers I cannot help but try to recognize the same men I saw in my family’s house in Japan.
Is it not astounding how quickly times change, how quickly opinions change and how quickly we can all become allies? In one moment our nations are shooting at each other and in the next blink we are best friends?
War is absurd.
I then read about an impending military strike from Israel on Iran. As much as I read I simply cannot understand the rationale with “geopolitics.” Yes, I am aware that there are very logical reasons for attack, for death, but in the grand scheme of things I cannot help but think of us as a very primitive species. This instinct towards war, the belief that a divine power is always on our side, and that the only solution is to kill.
Being in this house alone, watching war in High Definition, watching politicians give their support for further war completely depresses me.
I almost wish I was not human, did not belong to this group that continues to kill over and over.
I hear the rationale, the reasoning and it is as if the chimps are chattering, beating their chests and I wonder, why can I not understand them?
So, further in-depth posts will come, I’ll use my tiny brain to try and reason, to argue against further destruction. But do I really understand anything?
Perhaps it is best to retreat to my wine, to watch my movies and wallow in the stagnant waters of sadness.
