The picture above...depicts what happens when killing isn't looked at straight on...that things such as this are seen by some as an acceptable way of life...that the faces aren't even seen anymore (take a moment if you will, to look into their faces). That is you...that is me...they are us...the same thing that is in you...that animates you ... animates or did animate them...that is my head/your head. I am not saying this to go out and save the animals or stop the people from doing it...I am saying it to take a look in myself...for you to take a look in yourself ..this is not about another...the only one that can stop killing in your world...is you.
Tonight I've been watching a documentary on the Iraq war it is called "The Ground Truth" and worth the time to watch. The soldiers speak about the time that they have served there and like many of them share that they wanted to join the military to see if they had it in them to kill...which I have wondered in myself ... Do I have the capacity to kill.
This has come up time and again in my life...I used to read as much as I could about serial killers to see what was the difference between them and me and besides the fact that I hadnt killed a human, I couldn't find any other differences that would stand out...cept something in them had snapped that hadn't in me.
Over the last 15 years, I have been moved away from killing animals (I haven't killed anything that wasn't on the road). However, it took along time to realize that I was still a killer because...I let others do the killing for me...such as going to the grocery store...I was an accessory to murder (having someone else kill my food for me so that I didn't have to see what I was doing).
So now that I am not eating meat (which began about 15 years ago and then I went back to doing it because it was easier than trying to go against the status quo...but it kept showing up again and again until I just couldn't eat it anymore) and the last 3 years have been a major shift in the perception of my role in the killing of animals). From this the thought has appeared that if for some reason I find myself starving for food...would I kill to survive? What came were two thoughts...
The first thought is "Who" Who is the you that would kill...or simply...
"Who am I?"
The next thought that appeared is:
"Wait and see" :o)
One thing about hypothetical(s) is that you don't know...it doesn't matter what you think about yourself or what you are capable of. Until that moment arrives, you do not know. I do not know. However I do know that I have the capacity to kill (or seem too). I also know that I just found myself sobbing in front of the TV watching this documentary when the solider spoke of seeing an Iraq woman dressed in her garb and he couldn't tell if she had a weapon and she moved abruptly and he shot her and then his whole company shot at her, and they go up to her after and confirm she is dead and find that she had a white flag in her hands. I could feel how deep his (the soldiers) pain is and could feel for her family and as I was sobbing I could feel that I was capable of the same that he is in.
We train soldiers to protect us and we train them to kill for us so that we don't have to think about killing and so we can feel like we are protected. But we are training them to be what we are trying to protect ourselves from.
What I admire the most in a soldier any soldier is their willingness to die. To put themselves on the line for something they believe to be greater than their own life. And I also appreciate the honesty that they come from when their ideals are changed...when they see that they have become part of the problem and not the solution. Killing is not the solution...it only creates more killing.
Oddly enough, today I was driving to an appointment and I hit a squirrel...I looked back and he was not moving and I recognized in myself that there was not emotion attached to it. It used to be that if there was even the possibility of hitting a squirrel happened my insides would ache. About 6 months ago...I hit a squirrel (which is actually a rare thing I have probably only hit 4 in my life) however I hit this squirrel but it wasn't dead I could see it squirming and I was sick with it...I turned around and started driving towards it and closed my eyes as I ran it over again and was just uncontrollably sobbing. At that moment I knew I was capable of killing...from mercy or compassion...yet it was still taking the life of another with intent to do so. So I wondered today...how come no emotion with the squirrel today and what comes up is that it was a confirmed kill...there was nothing to grieve for and there was nothing I could do to change it so life goes on...there was no intent to kill the squirrel.
You may think well it is only a squirrel...but in my world we are all animals and someday something will squish me out of this picture whether it is an illness or an accident or a murder...something will take me out just like that squirrel was this morning...the light will go out and it will be as if I never was...which is the closest to the Truth I can speak.
~Joysters
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