As I watched PBS' Big Cat series, survival runs through my mind. The lions, leopards and cheetahs all have to defend their territories. They need to eat. So, those that are carnivorous have to murder other species to get food to survive. I ask myself, if that is the same for us humans, here now. I'm not convinced it is.
So, then why are we going for more? More of things we will not be here to partake in. A person can have and enjoy just so much fun before it impinges on the rest of society. Yet we think that's okay, because its always been done. Not in my miniscule world it hasn't.
We could get down and dirty even on my ability to eat, to care, to move about in a variety of ways; however, what I've witnessed in throughout my life, are the people who having the most: The most in people loving them. The most compliments. The most friends.The ability to gain the most out of their education and also to advance in the educational realms.They put pavement over other people's needs, because its about power/control.
What people do with their gifts matters. We can observe such in sports. There's sustainability and then there's greed.
When I was about age 12, my dad's boss wanted our dog. He was a beautiful malmute-shephard mix. The man had money and more power than my dad could imagine. The man and his family lived on our block. He had 3 sons.
One day his youngest son, went into our back yard where my dad had built a run for our dog. It was for our family dog to get fresh air on nice days after his afternoon walk. Our dog was walked 3-5x a day. 20 minutes each time as my dad had demanded for the dog's health.
Going back to what this young son did. He teased our dog who was in the run. The dog snarled as he was caged and could not hurt the boy. The boy ran home and told his dad. My dad the next day was threatened. He was told by his boss to put the dog down or else. Mind you, our dog never bit anyone and that day he was caged, he'd simply snarled and scared the youngest son of my dad's boss' family.
My dad had our dog put down within 24 hours of the call. I cannot tell you the depth of my brother's sorrow. I thought it would crush him. He was never quite the same after that.
I can tell you, when someone desires to rise up from the ashes, there are many of those around and above them who will do everything to crush them. And it would be for no other reason but to show how powerful they want to be perceived. I've thought about this so many times in my life and wondered why this occurs. There is no logical reason for said action. I just know it is the ultimate evil. It comes in many forms. The child who picks on another child because they look different. Or because the child's parent(s) is ill or for whatever reason the parents aren't so social in the community. Basically, its noone's business why a person or people refrain from being too involved in any community.
To this day, I cannot comprehend why people hold hatred as this comes on the eve of the 25th anniversary of 9/11/2001. There is a certain type of hatred too that I'm aiming at here.
Yesterday, there was such an example. A man who had been one of my husband's friends to the point we'd been at their home with our children and his watching the superbowl about 12 years ago. Too, we were invited to and went to their Labor Day weekend parties with our children.
And the friend also was part of my husband's friend group from college in the 1970s. My husband was the first to die of the men in the group that still had remained close friends. One woman who seemed sweet was the first to die of that group about a few years before my husband's passing. We found out later, as somehow no one had told us. My husband said that he hadn't known her that well initially because she was closer to one of the other couples in their college friend group. I still thought it odd. Too, no one from the college friend group was at the graveside ceremony of my husband's which had over 100 people present that day. And two years later, about 30 or so, were at the unveiling. None of those college friends had come then either.
This leads me to what I witnessed yesterday in a post, that was probably written by the one person I didn't think had this level of bigotry in him. A man, like everyone in the friend group who had never served this country, not in anyway. He and his wife Catholics. Which actually my husband was the only Jew of the bunch of Christians of the friend group. By the way, he was their transitional Jew. Too, I was the only feminist of the wives who'd gone to all the functions. There was perhaps one other feminist, but she'd not been at all the functions I'd been at.
Yesterday on Facebook this one man posted a scathing hatefilled rhetoric about how he a New Jersey resident hated New City's Major because he was Muslim. He also posted that he backed Israel's Netanyahu. The post was quite extensive with angry hatefilled implications.
What do I say to a man, who because he'd lost a friend in the attacks of 9-11? I'll tell you that all he wrote not only do I disagree with this former friend. Too, my husband a Jew taught in the inner city in New Jersey and he'd lost someone too on 9-11. Yet my husband would disagreed with this said friend. And I can hear my husband's voice now when he'd call his friend, "How can you say such things. It does no good..." My husband would be shaking his head saying to me after that phone call, "Jody, I can't believe it. He's just so lost." I'd nod and say, "You know, he's not really a friend. Understand the times we weren’t invited. He had Republicans over. People who worked for the vile president, a rapist and have now to got him elected again." Norm would respond, "Yeah. But its so disappointing." I'd nod and add, "You know its funny, we've both had alot of loss. Lost so many, one year it was 15 people including a best friend. I've had people come after me because I reported, recorded testified against them under a variety of situations and then threatened for doing the right thing for the Marine Corps, for my unit and then for society. Still I don't hate.
I lost 235 Marines.in Beirut, 2 were originally from my unit on October 23rd, 1983. But yah see, I had to push forward, serve and make the world a better place. Not a bitter place. That's one of my jobs. I served this country twice with those intentions. I may want to see people kicked out of office and jailed, but that is not hatred. That is to rectify the fear that resides into hateful men. Who hold anger the minute they find something to hate forever. By the way, that anger and hatred that one holds onto, does tear down not only a person's longevity, it also effects the people around them too.
The big cats like Lions, Leopards and Cheetahs need to eat. They don't have time, nor the mind to hold onto anger. They do what they do because its their nature; however, most of us can alter how we present. How we act to push forward and make the world as wonderful as we imagine it could be. Or we can live in our own hell-hole. Holding anger that detracts from our fullest potential in life. Changing our thoughts are the Real Magic we have as humans as we are still alive.---Jody-Lynn Reicher
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