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smokingbootI just read a very interesting LJ comment (apologies to whoever, I'm crap with names) about a documentary on killers and the mentality of killing. It has prompted thoughts which I can't imagine would interest many, so I'll use the cut.
The comment expressed horror at the idea of life not being sacrosanct, of it being all right to kill. I could empathise with it, understand it with all my heart.
But some other part of me is not sure. I feel that life isn't sacrosanct unless we make it something sacred. Maybe this is because I don't know that much about death and it doesn't seem real to me, or maybe it's because I have now seen way too many ghosts. I don't know what goes on afterwards, but pushing up daisies isn't all there is to it.
Every flame of life is precious in itself. I want to live, I, me, this ego, this fighting animal,this earthbound and earth-enchanted spirit. I love sunsets, I love flowers, I love food, I love my life. Don't come for me until I am ready to go. Perhaps I will never be ready to go.
But I don't consider my killer to be my enemy, any more than I hate the wolf or the bear, or that most spoilt and applauded of murderers, the cat.Yes, I know that these have no option while humans have a choice. I eat meat. That caused terror to some being. Why is that better than killing a human? Because this being is more intelligent than the others? Is it intellectual superiority that makes one kind of killing OK? Or is it because the human and I are of like kind?
You are like me, and therefore I should not harm you, you should not harm me. Look like me and be safe. Unless you have something I want of course, or disagree with me (i.e, be not like me in your opinion) in which case, the story changes.
But while you are my mini-me,we shall be sacrosanct, you and I, to steal from each other and sell each other into slavery, to
beat each other up and rape each other, as long as we remember that the only real crime is to end the game.For it may be a desert but it is our desert, and it teems with our likeness, over and over again.
No, I don't hate the soldier. I don't hate the takers of life. My loathing is for those who make life ugly, the torturer, the mutilator, the rapist.
In Milton's Paradise Lost, Death and Sin are Satan's children. They are only hell's servants, they are not hell itself. Hell is well revealed in their master's quote:
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell...
Death's nasty but not the enemy. Making this beautiful world into a pit of poverty and despair, that's the enemy.
It's not enough to preserve life in all it's shiteness. If we made this world, thislife as full of choice and beauty and joy as we could,
maybe the rest would take care of itself.
Hmm. I appear to have banged on somewhat. Oh well.
The comment expressed horror at the idea of life not being sacrosanct, of it being all right to kill. I could empathise with it, understand it with all my heart.
But some other part of me is not sure. I feel that life isn't sacrosanct unless we make it something sacred. Maybe this is because I don't know that much about death and it doesn't seem real to me, or maybe it's because I have now seen way too many ghosts. I don't know what goes on afterwards, but pushing up daisies isn't all there is to it.
Every flame of life is precious in itself. I want to live, I, me, this ego, this fighting animal,this earthbound and earth-enchanted spirit. I love sunsets, I love flowers, I love food, I love my life. Don't come for me until I am ready to go. Perhaps I will never be ready to go.
But I don't consider my killer to be my enemy, any more than I hate the wolf or the bear, or that most spoilt and applauded of murderers, the cat.Yes, I know that these have no option while humans have a choice. I eat meat. That caused terror to some being. Why is that better than killing a human? Because this being is more intelligent than the others? Is it intellectual superiority that makes one kind of killing OK? Or is it because the human and I are of like kind?
You are like me, and therefore I should not harm you, you should not harm me. Look like me and be safe. Unless you have something I want of course, or disagree with me (i.e, be not like me in your opinion) in which case, the story changes.
But while you are my mini-me,we shall be sacrosanct, you and I, to steal from each other and sell each other into slavery, to
beat each other up and rape each other, as long as we remember that the only real crime is to end the game.For it may be a desert but it is our desert, and it teems with our likeness, over and over again.
No, I don't hate the soldier. I don't hate the takers of life. My loathing is for those who make life ugly, the torturer, the mutilator, the rapist.
In Milton's Paradise Lost, Death and Sin are Satan's children. They are only hell's servants, they are not hell itself. Hell is well revealed in their master's quote:
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell...
Death's nasty but not the enemy. Making this beautiful world into a pit of poverty and despair, that's the enemy.
It's not enough to preserve life in all it's shiteness. If we made this world, thislife as full of choice and beauty and joy as we could,
maybe the rest would take care of itself.
Hmm. I appear to have banged on somewhat. Oh well.
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