A plea for true resolve
This has been a great week. It's hard to make a comment like this when your week includes pondering the fate of your missing checkbook/social security card, getting an average of 5 hours of sleep a night, the tragedy in London and the fears of what further tragedies will be deemed "necessary" in response, and seeing the sleazy nature of my gender, uh, up close and personal.
I would like to offer my thoughts on the word "resolve". After all, it's a word we've thrown around a lot this week, and it needs to be truly pondered before it becomes as hollow and meaningless as the word "freedom".
Resolve is often used in a way that makes it interchangeable with words such as perseverence, endurance, and steadfastness. I think that there is a big difference. If one looks at those three words that I just mentioned, they refer to withstanding some sort of extended conflict or challenge. Resolve is usually used to refer to the end of a conflict; it is similar to "resolution" after all.
So the way I see it, the true meaning of the word resolve, in the noun form that we've heard it thrown around in this week, is the state of resolution of some sort of conflict or challenge. That can be any conflict, internal, external, whatever.
This is so important, because I think that the deepest internal conflict is figuring out who we are, as members of the human race and how we fit in with other members of the human race. Every one of us is connected, every one of us is necessary for that vast quilt that we call humanity, for a purpose that affirms and yet ultimately transcends humanity to a much higher level. It is a challenge to believe this, in the face of everything that we are forced to confront every day. But resolve means that we stand by the resolution of that conflict in our mind, and we believe that there is nothing immovable that separates us from our true selves, and from others. It is when we don't see this that we become terrified, isolated, confused and hateful, because we know something is wrong, we see the conflict, and we don't see the ultimate resolution to that conflict as existing. So we put up our walls and we strap on our blinders. We fight our wars, holy, just, or necessary as we see fit. And like a person who sacrifices their legs for the sake of their car, we surrender our souls for the sake of our lives.
Or not even our lives, but their lives, their power, that of our lives. It is those of us who fight the mundane and everyday struggles that suffer in today's world. For as fragile and fleeting as life is, it is too precious of a gift to be taken away in the pursuit of power, something so fleeting and meaningless even within the scope of a lifetime. Yes, we want things like "democracy in the Middle East," and "Islamic states," or maybe just "an end to terror and WMDs" or "the end of the U.S./Israeli presence in the Middle East". We also want it to not rain today, we want things to cost less, we want our secret love interests to see how wonderful we are, and we want jobs that pay us enough money to take the family to Cape Cod, Mass or Alexandria, Egypt for the weekend. But until we know why we want those things, then we are enslaved by them. We are captives to their fulfillment or denial, and our very being is molded accordingly. These things are important, but they should never be allowed to guide our souls.
So I ask that we find true "resolve." I ask that we have faith that this inherent conflict of our human race already has been resolved, in a way much outside the boundaries of space and time. Then we will be free, of our anxieties, of our wars against terrorism, of our wars of liberation, of our holy wars and our spreading of democracy. We will be able to navigate those every day dramas and know why we do it. And our lives, whether fleeting and tragic, long and uneventful, pained and inspired, will transport us to places that hover above the edge of our imaginations.
"Have no fear for atomic energy, 'cause none of them can stop the time."
I would like to offer my thoughts on the word "resolve". After all, it's a word we've thrown around a lot this week, and it needs to be truly pondered before it becomes as hollow and meaningless as the word "freedom".
Resolve is often used in a way that makes it interchangeable with words such as perseverence, endurance, and steadfastness. I think that there is a big difference. If one looks at those three words that I just mentioned, they refer to withstanding some sort of extended conflict or challenge. Resolve is usually used to refer to the end of a conflict; it is similar to "resolution" after all.
So the way I see it, the true meaning of the word resolve, in the noun form that we've heard it thrown around in this week, is the state of resolution of some sort of conflict or challenge. That can be any conflict, internal, external, whatever.
This is so important, because I think that the deepest internal conflict is figuring out who we are, as members of the human race and how we fit in with other members of the human race. Every one of us is connected, every one of us is necessary for that vast quilt that we call humanity, for a purpose that affirms and yet ultimately transcends humanity to a much higher level. It is a challenge to believe this, in the face of everything that we are forced to confront every day. But resolve means that we stand by the resolution of that conflict in our mind, and we believe that there is nothing immovable that separates us from our true selves, and from others. It is when we don't see this that we become terrified, isolated, confused and hateful, because we know something is wrong, we see the conflict, and we don't see the ultimate resolution to that conflict as existing. So we put up our walls and we strap on our blinders. We fight our wars, holy, just, or necessary as we see fit. And like a person who sacrifices their legs for the sake of their car, we surrender our souls for the sake of our lives.
Or not even our lives, but their lives, their power, that of our lives. It is those of us who fight the mundane and everyday struggles that suffer in today's world. For as fragile and fleeting as life is, it is too precious of a gift to be taken away in the pursuit of power, something so fleeting and meaningless even within the scope of a lifetime. Yes, we want things like "democracy in the Middle East," and "Islamic states," or maybe just "an end to terror and WMDs" or "the end of the U.S./Israeli presence in the Middle East". We also want it to not rain today, we want things to cost less, we want our secret love interests to see how wonderful we are, and we want jobs that pay us enough money to take the family to Cape Cod, Mass or Alexandria, Egypt for the weekend. But until we know why we want those things, then we are enslaved by them. We are captives to their fulfillment or denial, and our very being is molded accordingly. These things are important, but they should never be allowed to guide our souls.
So I ask that we find true "resolve." I ask that we have faith that this inherent conflict of our human race already has been resolved, in a way much outside the boundaries of space and time. Then we will be free, of our anxieties, of our wars against terrorism, of our wars of liberation, of our holy wars and our spreading of democracy. We will be able to navigate those every day dramas and know why we do it. And our lives, whether fleeting and tragic, long and uneventful, pained and inspired, will transport us to places that hover above the edge of our imaginations.
"Have no fear for atomic energy, 'cause none of them can stop the time."
posted by Justin @ 1:46 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home