As I have mentioned more than once, this is a risky planet made more risky by human interactions. From would-be conquerors like Vlad Putin who invaded Ukraine to power-hungry Sudanese generals Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo fighting for control, and from mobs of Hindu Meitei ransacking and terrorizing villages of Christian Kuki to Islamic Hamas launching rockets into Israel inviting retaliatory strikes, this world—your world—is beset by conflict. It has always been so. Here’s the pessimistic forecast. Don’t look for much change. Instead, cherish the moments of peace you have, however fleeting they might be.
“That’s a really pessimistic view,” you say. “Surely, there’s promise somewhere, hope somewhere, enduring peace.”
Maybe, but the promise, hope, and peace are as intermittent as a stream that dries up in rain-free August heat. The risky actions of humanity are a river like the Amazon, bank-full year round, its liquid discharge unending. Cherish, my friend, cherish…
“But all conflicts spend themselves into peaceful periods. No one can maintain the battle indefinitely. The Ukraine conflict will someday cease, maybe with the death of Putin. The Sudanese conflict will end just as the coup ended the brutal dictatorship of former Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir that set the stage for the current conflict between one-time allies, and the Israeli-Hamas fighting will…”
Will what? Stop for awhile only to resume as children taught to hate turn into adults with suppressed rage once again take up arms? The conflict, as an historical fact, is seemingly interminable. The Middle East does not inspire much hope. Look at its 4,000-year history: Amorites conquered Mesopotamia, becoming Babylonia; Kassites conquered Babylonia, becoming Assyria; Arameans and Chaldeans then fought for control; Persia conquered the Chaldeans; Macedonian Alexander conquered the Persians…
“That’s ancient history.”
It is, but it has continued to be a region of conflict. How many have died in those conflicts? How many enslaved? How many…
“Okay, I get the point. The world is a place of conflict imposed on the innocent by ruthless self-aggrandizers.”
Which is why I say cherish any moment of peace you have. Avoid, if you can, the contention engendered by others. And that means avoiding the contentious chat rooms that breed controversy and hate.
Do you really care what others think about you? Especially others that you do not know?
I was reading through the online headlines of the New York Post this morning, finding myself drawn to many stories that centered on responses by some people to comments by others. It’s a bitter world, my friend, a bitter world. There are just too many curmudgeons to track, even in an age of GPS. They are everywhere, and they lash out every day—over the Web, of course, because it affords relative safety from personal physical reprisal. And as for actual news? Do you really care that William and Harry sat apart for the King’s coronation? And if you did care, would your voicing that care change anything?
The best defense from curmudgeons and self-aggrandizers on the Web is abstinence. Stop going to chat rooms; they have become a Middle East and an eastern Ukraine; they have become Sudan; they have become Manipur State in eastern India, where the Meitei now terrorize the Kuki. Stop reading all the online sites devoted to “a side” of an issue. Stop reading media outlets devoted to unconditional support for members of a political group. You know you aren’t going to read a balanced debate, so what’s the point, confirmation bias run wild?
Pledge a self-imposed abstinence. Read no comment about a social media confrontation between two people of renown. Do you care, really care, about what Celebrity X says about Celebrity Y? Or should I ask, “Do you really care about Celebrity XX or Celebrity XY?” To care, you must believe that Xs and Ys of others somehow affect you.
“But it can affect me,” you respond. “Especially when I go into a public restroom as an XX to pee next to an XY.”
Yeah, there’s that. And I realize it doesn’t help when school systems allow young XXs and young XYs to intermingle in restrooms and locker rooms. It’s a real problem, not just a chat room problem. It does, in fact, affect you, and it is a further demonstration of continuing conflict in human interactions. But going to the chat room to act as a curmudgeon doesn’t do anything but inflame the already burning.
“But I don’t want such-n-such in my society. Someone has to say something.”
And here we arrive at the uselessness of anonymously written words. Although sufficient numbers of them can motivate people into storming the Bastille or breaking the Berlin Wall, most chat room chats are merely examples of venting frustrations that the world isn’t what the chatters want it to be. Adding significance to whatever the “famous” say when what they say is just a matter of opinion and personal preference does you little good.
There are places where conflicts escalate beyond mere words; avoid them. There are virtual places where words are the weapons of conflict. Avoid them. Cherish any moment of peace you have. Cherish the peaceful. Conflict and risk seem to be inevitable and unpredictable. It is also ubiquitous. Did you think last year that the mountain villages of the Kuki would be burned by rampaging Meitei? Did you think two years ago that bombs would rain on Kyiv?
Cherish any peace you have. Cherish the peaceful. They are rare in a world of conflict.
“That’s a really pessimistic view,” you say. “Surely, there’s promise somewhere, hope somewhere, enduring peace.”
Maybe, but the promise, hope, and peace are as intermittent as a stream that dries up in rain-free August heat. The risky actions of humanity are a river like the Amazon, bank-full year round, its liquid discharge unending. Cherish, my friend, cherish…
“But all conflicts spend themselves into peaceful periods. No one can maintain the battle indefinitely. The Ukraine conflict will someday cease, maybe with the death of Putin. The Sudanese conflict will end just as the coup ended the brutal dictatorship of former Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir that set the stage for the current conflict between one-time allies, and the Israeli-Hamas fighting will…”
Will what? Stop for awhile only to resume as children taught to hate turn into adults with suppressed rage once again take up arms? The conflict, as an historical fact, is seemingly interminable. The Middle East does not inspire much hope. Look at its 4,000-year history: Amorites conquered Mesopotamia, becoming Babylonia; Kassites conquered Babylonia, becoming Assyria; Arameans and Chaldeans then fought for control; Persia conquered the Chaldeans; Macedonian Alexander conquered the Persians…
“That’s ancient history.”
It is, but it has continued to be a region of conflict. How many have died in those conflicts? How many enslaved? How many…
“Okay, I get the point. The world is a place of conflict imposed on the innocent by ruthless self-aggrandizers.”
Which is why I say cherish any moment of peace you have. Avoid, if you can, the contention engendered by others. And that means avoiding the contentious chat rooms that breed controversy and hate.
Do you really care what others think about you? Especially others that you do not know?
I was reading through the online headlines of the New York Post this morning, finding myself drawn to many stories that centered on responses by some people to comments by others. It’s a bitter world, my friend, a bitter world. There are just too many curmudgeons to track, even in an age of GPS. They are everywhere, and they lash out every day—over the Web, of course, because it affords relative safety from personal physical reprisal. And as for actual news? Do you really care that William and Harry sat apart for the King’s coronation? And if you did care, would your voicing that care change anything?
The best defense from curmudgeons and self-aggrandizers on the Web is abstinence. Stop going to chat rooms; they have become a Middle East and an eastern Ukraine; they have become Sudan; they have become Manipur State in eastern India, where the Meitei now terrorize the Kuki. Stop reading all the online sites devoted to “a side” of an issue. Stop reading media outlets devoted to unconditional support for members of a political group. You know you aren’t going to read a balanced debate, so what’s the point, confirmation bias run wild?
Pledge a self-imposed abstinence. Read no comment about a social media confrontation between two people of renown. Do you care, really care, about what Celebrity X says about Celebrity Y? Or should I ask, “Do you really care about Celebrity XX or Celebrity XY?” To care, you must believe that Xs and Ys of others somehow affect you.
“But it can affect me,” you respond. “Especially when I go into a public restroom as an XX to pee next to an XY.”
Yeah, there’s that. And I realize it doesn’t help when school systems allow young XXs and young XYs to intermingle in restrooms and locker rooms. It’s a real problem, not just a chat room problem. It does, in fact, affect you, and it is a further demonstration of continuing conflict in human interactions. But going to the chat room to act as a curmudgeon doesn’t do anything but inflame the already burning.
“But I don’t want such-n-such in my society. Someone has to say something.”
And here we arrive at the uselessness of anonymously written words. Although sufficient numbers of them can motivate people into storming the Bastille or breaking the Berlin Wall, most chat room chats are merely examples of venting frustrations that the world isn’t what the chatters want it to be. Adding significance to whatever the “famous” say when what they say is just a matter of opinion and personal preference does you little good.
There are places where conflicts escalate beyond mere words; avoid them. There are virtual places where words are the weapons of conflict. Avoid them. Cherish any moment of peace you have. Cherish the peaceful. Conflict and risk seem to be inevitable and unpredictable. It is also ubiquitous. Did you think last year that the mountain villages of the Kuki would be burned by rampaging Meitei? Did you think two years ago that bombs would rain on Kyiv?
Cherish any peace you have. Cherish the peaceful. They are rare in a world of conflict.
RSS Feed