Anger

So we are at day five hundred and something and we have all been through a whole lot of shit.  Congratulations for those of us who have made it this far, condolences for those of us who did not - because those of us who didn't make it are still with us, will remain with us for some time.

I've gone mad with grief and rage several times.  I'm working hard to stay alive through this.  I'll continue to do so.  Today is one of my better days, this week one of my better weeks.

The great burden I carry is hatred.  I tried to lay it down, years ago.  Maybe I even did for a little while.  I've had to pick it back up, but I don't really know how to carry it well.  I don't know that any of us do.

You know, the administration, the people who are supporting the administration - they do want to hurt us.  They want nothing more than that.  When I didn't hate them, it was out of the belief that they couldn't hurt me.  I was quite wrong.  These are people who at some point determined - falsely, but no matter - that I, and people like me, had declared total war on them, and they are acting accordingly.  They are taking vengeance for perceived wrongs, and I know that this lust for vengeance will never be satiated.

And I now feel the things they feel.  Grief, rage, despair, murderous hatred.  The actions the administration and its supporters are undertaking are not actions taken by happy people.  One can afford to be magnanimous in victory, but the terms of their war means that it can never be won.

I am afraid.  I am afraid because these feelings are powerful, often overwhelming, and I am afraid because of history.  I have seen what has happened so many times in the past.  Sulla and Marius.  The Thirty Years' War.  A thirst for vengeance, a thirst for blood, beyond all principle and all reason.

We aren't defined by our history, though.  1618 was a hell of a long time ago, the first century BC longer still.  We have, as people, as a species, _changed_.  Obviously not all of us but... most of us, yes.

Whatever we do, whatever we feel, I believe that when the time comes we will able to put the need to set things right, not just for today but for eight years, twenty years... well we can't set things right for longer than that... over the need to punish those who have done wrong.  That's why I'm not out in the streets every day, why life goes on, because however much hatred I feel, I am now, always will be, motivated by desires beyond the urge to make others suffer.  We don't have to force ourselves to forgive, we don't have to choose not to hate, in order to make a better world - those things will come naturally in their own time.  All we have to do is choose to do things other than hurting our enemies.