Feeling stunned...which road to take

Is it the heat or that 60% of the USA is now officially in drought mode? I feel sad by this and a bit depressed. I try not to read too much news but with the headlines saying another country is invaded and people are getting killed...it's hard not to be touched by that. Why do people have to fight when we have words at our disposal? I know I get angry and sometimes will hit or throw things. I feel badly during these rages and am working on my self to understand why I do this. It makes me sad that people can just go and fly jets or whatever they use and drop bombs on countries with not even a flicker of shame...or maybe they do, but they still "follow orders". This is scary.

When my husband's uncle served in the Coast Guard he was ordered to launch missiles as part of an exercise. He refused to do it. He got into a lot of trouble and they ended up making him a cook. I'm proud of him for doing this. I wish more military would do this...if not for their own conscious but for the people who are really in danger of dying.

And I wish people would take the higher road...you know, the Mahatma Gandhi road; such as peace and peaceful resistance. Did you know that Gandhi read a lot of Tolstoy's writings? If you've ever read any of Tolstoy you'll know he was an incredible person. Born in wealth and power in 1800 Russia, he became aware of the suffering of the "common" man. He realized that ultimate wealth did not give him inner happiness and later gave up most of his fortune to his wife and dedicated most of his time to writing and understand human nature. He was a Christian but stripped away the dogmatism of religion seeking truth by actions of kindness and treating others with respect. This is the fellow that inspired Gandhi and a whole movement in India that would help end or at least bring awareness the horror of a caste system.

For those who don't know what a caste system is read this. Oddly, we in America don't have a traditional caste system but we do in another sense. We categorize people...generalize people...rich, poor, White, African American, Asian, male, female, Gay, Straight, Liberal, Conservative, Religious, Atheist, etc. We do this so we can identify ourselves and so we can isolate or avoid the "other". I can't say I'm immune, as I do this too. However, trying to understand why we do this is a major change in itself. Unfortunately, some people have latched on to this mentality of human nature and manipulated us to not think. If we are angry, if we are raging, if we are hurt, we are not thinking. We are acting out of emotion and not out of love and kindness. Yes, I know this sounds all goodie goodie but would you want to be on the recipient end of getting bopped or bombs dropped on us? I don't think so!

This is why we need to think and take time to use words to either get our feelings out and then to heal. A lot of leaders aren't using words wisely and this is not right. Maybe it's inevitable...maybe we will always be in a state of war and chaos. I personally, don't agree with this. We can do better to work with each other. We can and we need to.

When I lived in Los Angeles there is a massive amount of people. People, literally, from all over the word are there. Even my Bulgarian dad found his way to California, Los Angeles! There, when you think about it, there are far fewer problems then other countries on a bigger scale. Sure there were the LA Riots and there are some gang/corporate problems but on the whole, on the whole people are working with each other. It's amazing, really. I'm not romanticizing Los Angeles and it definitely has it's caste and poverty problems...still it is working and people are working together.

I guess this post is about working together...looking past people and their speech pattern/color and saying you are my brother and I will help you. You are my sister and I will help you. Yeah, I know I'm an optimist...still.