reflection on a novel

The following is a reflection/journal that was written during a discussion of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. It’s a novel of personal experiences as a soldier in Vietnam… a novel that explores what it means to lie and tell a story that never happened, but that is completely true as well. A novel that uses lies to make you feel the truth.

It doesn’t matter that it’s true… it doesn’t mattter that it’s not – because it’s human. Morals – well obviously they change. Maybe they still exist, maybe they faded, but mostly they just changed. Like I’ve said a lot recently, there’s no black or white. There’s no good or evil, there’s no right or wrong – there never is. There are sometimes established grays. For example, you can be home, safe and comfortable and just know that for YOU… only you… at that place and time, something is right or something is wrong. Different time, different situation, maybe a different world – maybe it’s not right, or not wrong. But because it can change… your situation, your perception, your morals… then the only one truth of morals for YOU, is that everything is gray.

You go to a jungle, a war, some far-off land with far-off customs, it might be ok to laugh at death. It might be ok to torture an animal. Then you come home, and you realize that you may have no morals – or do you change them back? Can you?

No matter what happens, though, the only thing worth mentioning was what happened in your mind. What it did to you.