2001-09-16

i am humbled, and i guess that's widespread right now. I was just thinking about how we've gotten through this week, how i've gotten by. you eventually just hit a point where you are saturated with sadness, and you have this need to become mobile, to do something.

we humans (and i use that word because i mean to include everyone) have that need to keep going, despite how far atrocities can go.

and maybe this is easy for me to say because i don't know anyone personally in the WTC... it seems to me that the numbers can just build and build and build. well we have overpopulated the planet more than ever. those two buildings surely set a record for how many humans we can stack on top of each other in a given plot of space on the earth. and when you see the way the world is treated, under the boots of non-stop corporate capitalism; when you ponder just how different our (american) lives are from 80% of the world . . . what can you expect?

when the Spanish found the new world, they thought they were blessed by god to inherit it. They had just defeated the greatest fleet known to man, the british. it was manifest destiny. Likewise, when white man moved to the west, pushing and pushing tolerant natives across the plains and stinking deserts. we just assume we have the god given right to do these things, it is the nature and superiority of power. this terrorist attack may seem like a huge turning point, and i guess it is. i think it will go on farther and longer than any of us would like to consider.

the answers are yes, yes, yes. meditation is key for me. everything has a place, even this attack. suffering like this is balanced by bliss of most days. life is not without these sacrifices. i am beginning to have faith in things not expressable. i can see myself in the near future not being afraid of death. i may even be there now. it makes me happy and gives me deep peace to just trust my intuitions and say, "look, those souls are going somewhere, they will come again, they are not gone" Christianity and buddhism and muslim are all pointing at the truth. and the truth is only the next step for us, not the eternal truth. like a bicycle gear that's asking to be shifted because the hill is getting steeper and steeper. this is not a problem, we just need a perspective shift. I still love the world, with all this Real Pain right before my eyes in New York; and i love the attackers, how can i not? they were caught up in their death jihad. it is what they have been taught. people are nearsighted. they generally adhere -- to family, to history, to their culture. Americans, westerners - yes we tromp all over the rich variety of cultures in the world, trying to put our stamp of approval on every person. we need to disarm. we need to talk and discuss. not through our heads of state, but locally. fuck there is no simple solution. i wait for the strife to be over, perhaps after we have Really hurt ourselves will we learn.