Dirge
Little things change and most of it feels very familiar, too familiar maybe, sometimes, when the air is right, I want to travel, to drive, all other forms are too removed, there’s no sense of the distance, and for whatever reason being amongst the clouds, in a large metal bird, is as sterile an event as I’ve ever had, like tying shoe laces.
Still I have my pleasures, Halloween passed by without notice again, I remember trick or treating when I was younger, with friends, and throwing eggs, because that is life, at school once too, and my teacher calling my father to tell him that I had brought eggs to school and he suspected me of using them, and my father looking at him uninterested, he will always side with the family, to ill or gain, he’s loyal like that, comes from growing up in Ireland I suppose, from a place and period when your family’s name decided a lot more in your life than the sound of a few syllables. I’m glad I don’t live there, all the stories, what a nightmare, the easiest to offer to another as an explanation, without taking upon a faction, is that both sides built playgrounds on their sites of military, information or logistical importance, so that children would play there and it lessen the chances of an attack, literally using children as shields.
Maybe it’s because I’m an Atheist, but whenever I read about religious conflict, I can’t help but wonder what it is I am lacking, that all these people have to make them care so much, about something they all acknowledge can be known only through the individual, something that they can know only through themselves. Sometimes I think it’s a bit like what you see in schools, a kid will repeat something he heard from someone he knows, probably his parents, and then someone will say that they disagree, often pointing out a perceived flaw in the logic, the kid, feeling angry and potentially humiliated, will rise to the challenge, vehemently, because the greater implication is that someone they know, whom they respected, admired and liked enough to imitate, might be wrong, and you’ll see them defending to the hilt, an argument they never really cared or thought about until then, for pride, their own and that of others. Maybe that’s what happens, maybe they’d like it if they had an out, sometimes I see that, I can see someone defending something they’ve realised isn’t accurate during the course of an argument, but they’re too involved to be able to walk away from it, so they have to continue, in loathe of their self and at the person who forced them into the situation. It’s important to know, when arguing with anyone, when to quit, and chances are it’s always before we realise.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I don’t see the attraction to it, it is not without it’s advantages, community, reprieve, sense and purpose, understanding, who in their right mind wouldn’t want all those things? Especially the reprieve, I can’t imagine many refusing that, one of the hardest thing in the world, is having someone you care for die, and we will all experience this eventually so it is applicable to us all, of course, you want them to be happy, you want them to be somewhere at least, not just gone, disappearing is an awful agonising thought, it’s too cruel, too unfair, to imagine that someone you cared for so much, is, to the universe, a being of no consequence, one that can simply die and disappear without the entirety of everything collapsing under the weight of this change, as it ought be, everyone I know, who has lost someone has the exact same story, usually on the day they die or the day after, being, surprised, that everything was still going on as it always had, the same shows on television, the same countries existing, no sense of a great shared loss, strangers knowing nothing of their tragedy, the sky and grass were still the same colours, the lands hadn’t amassed and the trees in the forest weren’t ablaze, hardly a person seeming notice, that things were so profoundly different, as they felt it all to be.
That’s why I like things like state funerals, I think, it helps all people to be able to share the tragedy, it’s cliche and all but it doesn’t feel as unique and heavy that way, with nobody to know your grieving heart, things are much much harder.
Who wouldn’t want this all to be some quiet interlude to a greater existence, a short distraction to make the next plane all the more wonderful, where enlightenment was your right, where you’d never have to part from those you loved, no one would, where, you’d finally have the time to do everything you’ve ever wanted, make friends with the entire history of mankind, one at a time, if you so pleased, to have perfect understanding of all things, and then to maintain or create for yourself.
It sounds perfect.
In a way and for me, it’s because of that, because it is such a noble aspiration, that it seems peculiar its pursuit brings about things that are distinguished by their pettiness and cruelty, sometimes insignificance, and others their vulgarity without merit, all things that are contradictory of what one is hoping to acquire. You don’t, burn down the forest, to find the tree that has the treasure buried beneath it. You don’t destroy the path up the mountain, to better reach the pinnacle. There is no sense to be found in that.