From Cats to War

Well that escalated quickly

I didn’t write anything Tuesday, not that anyone but a few people noticed. Facebook, where I share these posts, seems really quiet other than a few people almost begging to talk about it and getting little engagement. Like there’s an elephant in the room that we’re all tiptoeing around. The subject of gas prices and oil supply has popped up, but not much else in the public conversations. The elephant is still in the room. That won’t last forever. The world changed overnight. People can analyze and finger-point and argue about who and what is to blame for it and that doesn’t change the fact that it is happening, right now. One man made the decision. Our lives are all affected in ways we don’t even know yet. Unless, of course, you don’t believe any of it.

I started following a lot of photojournalists from various sources covering Ukraine on IG. Then I unfollowed them. Then I followed some again. You can’t unsee the mass grave in Mauiropil, where the bare arms and legs of people’s bodies stacked on top of one another hang out of the blankets they were wrapped in. 

I am curious if and when the public will begin to voice their opinions en masse about what the US should or should not be doing, not just the seasoned and regular armchair experts rampant on Twitter, but the everyday citizens. I’m curious if this will cause further divisiveness or if it will bring this nation together. 

There is so much that is fucked up in this world. And as always, two things can be true at the same time and usually are. Trying to reconcile that in our minds is a mind fuck. And yet, it is what it is. We are in this moment, right now, of killing and death. In reality, we’ve been in this moment all along, of killing and death in many parts of the world.

Being uncomfortable sucks. Staying in that discomfort when you can run from it and numb it sucks. Staying in that discomfort because you have no other options must be excruciating. 

Ukraine’s President Zelensky is giving us a prime example of staying in the discomfort. Of not being ready and doing it anyway. Of looking fear in the eye and telling it to get out of the drivers seat and into the back seat. Of realizing he very well may die and overcoming that fear to stand by his values and beliefs. Of believing in himself and his worthiness and that of his country. Of being able to do hard things. 

I will say that I personally think it’s beyond time for many on the world stage to go out and collect their fucking balls. Dogs can smell the fear on you.

It’s an opinion. It doesn’t mean I’m right.

This is an interesting article:

Time To Consider A No-Fly Zone - A Conversation with H.R. McMaster

* Post #44 of 104

* This is part of a one-year writing project. I write something and post it on Mondays and Thursdays, for the most part. Some of it will suck. I'm doing it anyway.