Not Everyone Recognizes the Enemy
“We have met
the enemy and he is us.”
(Oliver
Hazard Perry 1813) (Walt Kelly, after
poster on Earth Day, 1970)
History of
all fabled and unnarrated times tell us that humans frequently damage themselves,
their environment, friends, loved ones, relationships of all types, countries,
neighbors, political parties, institutions, organizations, employers,
employees, spouses, progeny, armies, ambitions, livelihood and lives unknowingly,
unintentionally, ignorantly.
Nobody
escapes this predicament; sages and professors, learned and unlearned ones, benign
devotees or vicious despots, sinners and
angels, my parents and my daughters.
Some of the
damage reminds one of the story of the old Japanese shadow puppet entertainer
told at the end of a favorite book, “Quinn’s Shanghai Circus” by Edward
Whittemore. Some is more earthshaking, with multiple tremors and ripple effects
which can only be offset in an alternate universe tale.
Heeded
warnings are forgotten even in most fairy tales. Unheeded ones are taught in
text books, sometimes to tell new generations of scholars the wisdom of old
sages, philosophers, wits, unforgotten writers of humanity and life, mostly to
be learned but not to be heeded once again and again and again.
I cannot
tell if it is a psychological or neurological issue, a built in self-destructive
neuron network that formats thought or values/ beliefs that can be energized to
frame a series of behavioral associations leading to uncharted territory. I can
only surmise that warps in space time continuum and the activity or dormancy of
time crystals may have something to do with this observation.
At any
moment or cross section on the warp, humans are mistreating their loved ones,
endangering their careers, mistreating their voters or workers, damaging their
immediate environment and their instruments, ignoring their future health and
happiness and joy and survival.
Hazily realized mistakes transform into regrets to lead to other actions
and similar or different regrets. A lifetime of lessons learned and forgotten,
regrets regretted and forlorn.
Chances,
possibilities, probabilities, risks are not easily discerned. And when they are
believed to have been understood, one searches for a coin to flip. Ignorance of
statisticians and mathematicians were made famous by Ms. M. vos Savant (after her
1990 column on a variation of the Monty Hall problem.) (also, “Why Flip a Coin,” W.H. Lewis)
Whether one
is a practitioner of flippism or follower of “Madman Theory” it is difficult to
place or presage beyond the Tom Stoppard approach in “Rosencrantz and
Guildernstern are Dead” (play or film)
Others like
Bernard Black in “Black Books” can get away with, “It's an impossible choice.
I'll just have to hope when I flip the coin, it somehow explodes and kills me.”
To others, it is a slow death and not easily attributed to a decision tree
toppling down due to pestilence or tempest or a misguided logger.
In the
Corona year 2020 of our good Lord, we sacrifice our precious bodily fluids,
unearned freedoms, face uncalculated dangers for our ambitions, greed, pockets, loved ones, unloved companions and
continue to believe that we are better than extinct species which survived much
longer than humanity.
