I don't know what to feel anymore. It shouldn't be my pain anyway - not that I don't care or it is not my business, but I don't deserve the dignity of their suffering. I want to write something, to shout something, to raise my hands and fists to something. But I don't know where my indignation ends and my vanity begins. When I draw attention to myself under the guise of welfare for others, these lines become very blurry for me anymore (perhaps I am just now being honest with myself). I have made it my business to witness suffering for more than twenty-five years now, and I am not sure I am any better for it. I am not sure whatever good I have done even comes close to balancing the neglect and pain I have caused others. And if I am on the wrong end of this personal balance, what does my anger and grief mean anyway. I don't know what to feel about Gaza or a dozen other terrible places I have seen in my life anymore. I don't know what to do for them.
I don't know what to think about Gaza anymore, I am tired of my own intellect. I am tired of knowing more than others, knowing better than most, knowing of places and peoples few have ever heard of. I am tired of an intelligence that yields no answers. An intelligence that spends more time absorbed in its own relative measures of pain and sorrow, miraculously immune to the horrible lessons paid for by others it has witnessed for a quarter of a century. Neither smarter nor stronger than those who victimize others, I have little pretense left for battle.
At fifty-four, the crimes and sins of others offend me differently, I am staring into a mirror now. Greater, smaller, extrapolated, or personified, they are mine too. Tomorrow I need to measure anger with patience, horror with kindness, frustration with pity. Not in or for Gaza, but for the small bits of recompense I can continue to pay back to a world that I have not improved. I am retreating now, humbled not by an evil world, but by the brutal magnification of my own weakness. I don't know anywhere else to start.
I don't know what to think about Gaza anymore, I am tired of my own intellect. I am tired of knowing more than others, knowing better than most, knowing of places and peoples few have ever heard of. I am tired of an intelligence that yields no answers. An intelligence that spends more time absorbed in its own relative measures of pain and sorrow, miraculously immune to the horrible lessons paid for by others it has witnessed for a quarter of a century. Neither smarter nor stronger than those who victimize others, I have little pretense left for battle.
At fifty-four, the crimes and sins of others offend me differently, I am staring into a mirror now. Greater, smaller, extrapolated, or personified, they are mine too. Tomorrow I need to measure anger with patience, horror with kindness, frustration with pity. Not in or for Gaza, but for the small bits of recompense I can continue to pay back to a world that I have not improved. I am retreating now, humbled not by an evil world, but by the brutal magnification of my own weakness. I don't know anywhere else to start.
we don't know which country, which people, which honor to grieve over anymore..,
ReplyDelete