What could this possibly mean, “I Am War”?
I am standing in my home. I am not in a current battlefield, the current war is “far away,” another continent. I have my likes and dislikes, I have my opinions and judgments, I have all of my feelings, and attitudes. I have my frustrations and peeves, my angers and my discomforts, irritations and aggravations. All of these things are me. I have become all of these things.
All of my justifications and rationales for my thinking, for my side-taking, all add up to be an enormous force within me. Everything I hear and see is categorized and sorted and typed according to how my “me” sees the world. I feel I must be right, and that need is so strong that I can find that I ignore, belittle, or misinterpret what does not fit my world view. This is violence on a personal psychic level.
All of views and concepts are arranged to fulfill my needs to be right, to have order as I see it, to bolster who I am. And this carries over into my actions and interactions with others. If for some reason I cannot win, if I cannot prevail, my resentments and animosities are gathered, are saved and stored for another day, all the while festering and growing, all providing justification for my distress, and how I will exercise them when I determine the time is right. Arguments and friction with my spouse, with my neighbors, with my co-workers, all combine within me, accumulate.
And within these grounds, I store my bitterness at others, I harbor my internal disturbances; all the while using others’ behaviors as the sources of my torment, as the causes of my misery, My thinking says: If they only would do this, or if only they wouldn’t do that, then things would be better. Since they don’t, then they are the causes from which I must battle for supremacy. My grief and sorrow for my plight is turned into anger at others, since it must be others’ fault I am distressed.
I am war. My ways are the ways of the individual. And also I am part of the whole. I am a part of a nation, a society, a mass of humans. So my behaviors and attitudes make up part of the whole. As we are shaped by those around us, and shaped by all the conditionings we experience as part of a society, as part of a nationality, as part of an ethnic grouping, as part of a religious group, as part of an economic class, as part of a consumerist world view, as a result of an educational system, as a recipient of all manners of advertising and propaganda,
As my internal conflicts are channeled and molded on a grander scale, at a national level, this is expressed in many forms, including militarily. As in all actions, there are justifications and reasons, all possibly logical, that defend the world view I hold. From within me I have segmented with those with whom I mentally associate, and apart from those who I make an enemy. They have weapons, they are out to destroy us, they have troops ready to kill us, they have bombs and planes and missiles, and all sorts of destruction at their finger tips, so must we.
Sooner or later the time is right. I am war. My reasonings propel me into action, my will to prevail incites me to act, regardless of any objective reality. As is often the case, any minor activity I deem unacceptable is good enough. Ideas clash. Wars begin, people die. Once begun, things cascade, things go into motion. Unexpected consequences are to be expected, people die. All for my idea of myself.
What do you think? Let me know here.
The Figure of A Woman is a clay pottery piece from the 4th–3rd century B.C., China, Eastern Zhou dynasty, Warring States period (475-221 B.C.). Courtesy Metropolitcan Museum of Art.
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