It has been a hectic and depressing month for me. Deaths, fatal illnesses and being forced to go back into my darkest days, have all left me feeling out of sorts and questioning the future. I took a little time, and did some inner-reflection and soul searching. It took a while, but I realized that the forces that would hold me down and force me to be less than I am or have the potential to be are all things that are truly insignificant in the long run.
I will never understand suicide...I don't think we are supposed to understand it, just do all we can to prevent it, help where needed and make sure that we tell those around us how much they mean to us. In the past month, I have had two friends attempt this unthinkable act, one was successful. I am certain that he would never have done it if he could have seen what the outcome would be. This friend was always the joker, the one with all the one liners and he never left the room without leaving you with a smile or a groan at his joke. He had a lot of pressures in his life, and attempted to relieve it with humor. There are wonderful things being said about him now that he is gone, and there are some who don't understand that the very things creating stress and issues in his life are the things that will haunt us all. He was so opposed to controversy, avoiding conflict with family and friends forced him to hide behind the humor. These are the same issues that brought my other friend to attempt the same type of act. She too had the pressure of a family that did not understand her or her wishes, but that wanted her to be what they thought she should be, not what she is. Religious and Societal norms make people pretend to be someone they are not, to try and do things that they themselves oppose. Somewhere, somehow, we need to quit being so quick to judge and just accept people for who they are, even if we don't agree with what they are or the choices they make.
During the past month, I have had to confront death in other ways too, not death now, here, today, but the mortality of those that I love and care about. Maybe it was that last birthday, and reaching the half century mark, but it seems the people around me are sick...not sick in the way the kids these days use the word, but sick as in dieing. Most of this, I feel is from environmental issues, where they have been and things they have done that have shortened their lives. For these friends, it wasn't always avoidable, these environmental issues may have been from childhood and choices that their parents or grandparents made. Ultimately, the blame will fall back on society, government or corporations that know what they are doing is harmful, but who find the cost acceptable, considering the profit of the moment.
Other controversy over environmental issues has risen in the past month. The use of wild areas and their designation have created undesired and unwanted gaps in friendships. The "Elitist" attitude of using it now and not worrying about the future is alarming to me. The idea that we should do it because we can, or that if I don't do it someone else might beat me to it are concepts that I don't adhere to. Wilderness, places where machines are not allowed to go make sense to me on many levels. Biggest and foremost is the concept of wilderness for wildlife. Large carnivorous predators need space, they need hunting ground, they need tracts of undisturbed land to breed, raise their young and train them to be apex predators. We as humans need wilderness, we need a place where more than our imagination or random thoughts can escape to. We need the ability to explore, to feel that we are the first of our kind to have been there...or at least to have been there in a very long time.
The abuse of power and authority by a chosen few have set me upon this current "rant", the desire to have a world that is non-judgmental with clear lines of moral and ethical consideration for others. Again, there is the "Elitist" idea of doing it because I want to and I can come into play. My philosophy of the circle of life does not allow me to approach things in such a manner. My darkest hours are not the hours spent in combat, or detailed by the military to perform tasks and functions for which I saw a need. No, my darkest hours came from being punished and psychologically abused for doing those things that the law provides for me. For following the directions of medical doctors and for demanding my rights. I was forced to re-live every moment of the 11 months I endured this treatment, in testifying to that abuse. I can only hope that others will realize that they would not want to be in the same position, that for someone to abuse their authority and power in such a manner is morally and ethically wrong.
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