Recently, it seems like all the headlines can offer is war, war, and war. This is a staple food for humanity, iron-rich and overcooked. Back in the day, you just challenged your clan leader and maybe wrestled around a bit. We moved on to blunt and sharp objects, strategies, and hopeful prizes of fertile land and women. We rode horseback into villages, and after settling down, other people rode in on their horses. There’s an obvious cycle to this.
We evolved, or shall I say devolved, into organized religion. Groups convinced themselves that they were the Chosen Ones, and the people who successfully killed the Chosen Ones realized that, well, they must be the actual Chosen Ones. I’ll give the benefit of the doubt that only a few top narcissists really pull the strings; the majority follows along because it’s easy.
Once you get metal, electricity, and improved sewage systems, things get a lot more interesting. Oh, and don’t forget about money. Inept politicians (which is every politician) find more ways to fuck people over. They stand on the roof of their mansions requesting funds, just enough for a cup of coffee and a missile silo. Every step they take is a piece of propaganda plastered around middle-class neighborhoods. The upper classes already know who they are and their financial intentions; the lower classes get the occasional handshake and promising grin at a corner-store campaign, if at all.
It’s these poorer folks that end up in war. The deal is just too good to pass up. You get free college, shitty healthcare, and, hilariously, honor. You just have to survive, in whatever sense that word means. You might end up killing a civilian or two, but you can ponder that decision over a bottle of whiskey in the dead of night. You may have to watch your friend get their leg blown off, or maybe it’s your own leg. Either way, you won’t be able to fully explain it to your future kids—that is, if you don’t kill yourself by then.
I think it’s those military brats that have the best understanding of what I’m trying to say. You're brought into this world because soldiers have few entertainment options besides being horny, and you spend your childhood moving state to state, sometimes staying with Grandma while the parents are away. My mother was deployed shortly after I was born, and I wish I had gotten to know her before she left. What returned wasn't a mother, but a veteran. Veterans dress up as Mommy and Daddy, and they try to talk like how a Mommy or Daddy would talk. But there’s something indescribably different.
You get yelled at for tying your shoes, you get an uncomfortable hug as you open the fridge, and you get a woman standing in the dark corner of your room after bedtime, watching for something. Or you get nothing at all. You hear stories mostly through the grapevine, and the stories you hear from the source have too many pauses and jumps and extraneous details. Don’t get me wrong, it’s all there, all the experience and emotion and truth, but as close as one can listen, you’re never truly listening! This is the war. (I recommend reading Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others if you’re confused.)
I’m in bed right now, typing away my energy as the sunlight leaking through my blinds intensifies and dims. My dog barks at a man walking outside. I’m hardly a victim of anything at this moment. Life has had its period of shitty times, yes, but it has stabilized for the most part. Nowadays, I’m more concerned about the congressmen (and the corporations who fund them) who play with tax dollars like how a fat baby plays with its spaghetti, the type of baby that’ll grow up to burn ants with a magnifying glass.
I think about those well-to-dos who take extended vacations and smile in every photograph, how unaffected they are; and I think about their children, the boys and girls who will never know what it’s like to touch dirt. They may grow up having opinions fed to them by silver spoons, and since war is so ugly, why bother to actually look or listen? They might drink an extra beer on the Fourth of July or Veteran’s Day, taking a hearty piss in memoriam. It’s laughable how little they know, but I am nonetheless jealous and angry.