*Made by the author in Leonardo.ai
I've been catching glimpses of the carnage unfolding between Israel and Palestine, and Ukraine and Russia.
Death.
Anger.
Brutality.
People were torn from their homes and their lives and uprooted.
Family's torn apart by the ravages of war and bloodlust.
It's always a tragedy.
I'm just a bystander trying to pass through this strange and often swift and brutal mystery called life.
One thing I know for sure is that war, death, and uncertainty are the stuff of life, and they've been with humanity since we came up out of the slime of the earth.
Look at the animal kingdom. It's not peaceful at all. Disney has made it seem harmless, but when you look around you see a world of terrible suffering and death where only the strong survive.
Whenever I think of these things I'm reminded of the Buddha and the Dharma Summaries.
The world is swept away.
It does not endure.
It offers no shelter, no protector
There is no one in charge.
The world is insufficient.
A slave to craving.
It's unrealistic to think that this world is going to change. Every empire in history has fallen. Everybody dies, sometimes in brutal and tragic ways.
I see it plenty while working with cancer patients. There are plenty of terrible and tragic endings. Life is not a Walt Disney cartoon.
I'm always reminded of Basho when I think about how tragic and ephemeral life is.
Basho was on a walking tour of Japan when he came upon an old abandoned manor home on the edge of a windswept field and he wrote:
Summer grasses
All that's left of man's imperial dreams.
No politics, no medicine, no technology, and no prayers have ever been able to stop the human tragedy of death and war.
Every era has somebody peddling a savior, peddling salvation.
Bob Tilton made a fortune selling empty dreams on TV in the 80s with his snake oil tactics of getting the poor to pledge money to him so an invisible God would bless them financially.
Biohackers and transhumanists make the same bold claims in their bizarre cyberpunk materialist fantasy of "better living through science and technology."
Politicians come out of the woodwork and claim that with just one more war or one more dictator drone bombed out of the sky the world will be a better place.
So what can we do?
Keep your loved ones close.
Follow your heart and your dreams.
Enjoy the short time you have here on earth because it can be swept away at any moment.
Nobody is coming to save you. No armies, politicians, Televangelist hucksters, or invisible gods are going to right the wrongs in the world or your life.