Bombing your way to peace

Being the New Year, I took time to clean house here. Cleaning out things seems to have a therapeutic nature, particularly at a time when other parts of your life begin to weigh heavy on the mind and soul. It is also worth noting that the apartment is at its cleanest since September. Well, on to other, more pressing matters.

"Refined notes..." is a reference to Chapter 2 of the Daodejing and speaks to the seeming contradictions in life, which in fact complement each other. The full poem is to the right of this post. Why chose this concept? It relates to the thesis I wrote for the USM Honors program in 2008 (which is also the raison d'etre of this blog), with the central paradox of an activity (soccer) which simultaneously unites and divides its participants. It relates to our lives, and the earthlings who are full of contradictions, like those working for large international organizations who support national self-determination; or those who leave their lovers and then feel regret and jealously when the lover moves on.

Serbia, my current home, is no exception to this paradox: a strong feeling of nationalism runs through this country, yet 70% of the population want Serbia be in the E.U. Serbia, where people have historically been looked down upon by Europeans, look down upon their minority cultures. These contradictions are not unique to Serbia however. All nations and states have these contradictions: In America, people drive SUV's to their environmental activism groups; Israel seeks peace by initiating war, for example.

As I see it, these contradictions are a complement in the sense that, without one, the other would not/could not exist. As we seek to understand the world, we need opposites to help define a thing. Of course, this begs a good number of questions: does this justify war? How can peace exist without war? How can we love without hate? Etc... The problem here is that it suggests we cannot move beyond such negative experiences as war, or violence. I won't pretend to have a cleaver answer to this conundrum. I will say that maybe we don't have to experience war, to desire and have peace; maybe it is enough that we know about it through history; that we have a concept of what it is. We can define peace (the absence of war, the non-violent coexistence of earthlings) because we know what war is. We can define love, because we know what hate is (this one is certainly a lot more tricky).

In any case, the entries of this blog will reflect the contradictions of the world as I experience them.