Mor(t)al Combat
We still have a plague ongoing. One that can certainly make a person wonder if this is it. We also have a war. One that made even those who cried in the beginning to be left alone, because it’s of no concern to them, already worry about famine. By this time, many have died. But despite the fact, “[t]he rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood — idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts (Revelation 9:20–21).”
And yet, everything is so straightforward. If ever in doubt, just remember that your death is a matter of when and how. Not if. It’s universal. The single absolute in the sea of relative. Just pay attention. “Always look at the man who is involved in a tug of war with you. Don’t just pull the rope; look up and see his eyes. You’ll know then that he is a man, just like you. No matter what he’s saying, no matter what he’s doing, he’s shaking in his boots, just like you. A look like that renders the opponent helpless, if only for an instant; deliver your blow then (Castaneda, 1998).”
Yes, it’s so banal and common sense, it’s seriously embarrassing that it has to be spelled out. But while you create and uphold borders and walls of any kind, be they national, ethnic, or purely economic, you cannot “beat [your] swords into plowshares and [your] spears into pruning hooks (Isaiah 2:4).” While anything is for sale, while anything is kept intentionally off limits, there will always be lying and cheating, there will always be envy and fight. And there will always be self-deception.
After all, everything’s so wildly obvious, and yet most will argue. Perhaps they believe and have their thinking marked by the proverbial beast. Thus they act accordingly. Perhaps they just tag along, blame the system of which they are but an essential cog, and excuse the very same mark on their behavior as lack of options. Some go as far as to try to bargain with reality or even deny reality as such. Needless to say, it does not work. The rules were set. Karmic streams of causality flow flawlessly accounting for every choice, for every given outcome.
Therefore it’s also obvious that that Sumer which gave us religion, war, and business six millennia ago is destined to cease. One way or another. When you look around, it could not be much clearer. Frankly, it makes choosing allegiances pretty easy. As if effortless … free, perhaps? Certainly peaceful. Maybe because it’s also the right thing to do, too. Well and we can start with withdrawing of Russian troops from Ukraine. That is, return Ukraine’s borders to the state from January 2014. And while we’ll be at it, we can stop all ongoing conflicts worldwide. After all, one must be an idiot to find it hard — the aggressor just has to stop attacking, go home, and the attacked party just has to forgo retaliation after the fact. All the war crimes, shitty capitalism and the rest of the planetary problems all across the globe we can tackle right afterwards.
