If this offends, disreguard it, but I must vomit words or they'll corrupt me into further convulsions of sociopathological misanthropic apathy and somebody might end up missing a limb or a reason to stay alive; maybe both. (I aim for the crotch.)
I was reading a short story recently by Tim O'Brien, a Vietnam veteran, called "The Things They Carried". It is as story about his army unit in Vietnam. I then got to a part where he said, and I quote,
"They carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrased not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishoner. They died so as not to die of embarrasment. They crawled into tunnels and walked point and advanced under fire. Each morning, despite the unknowns, they made their legs move. They endured... It was not courage, exactly; the object was not valor. Rather, they were too frighened of being cowards."
This reminded me of exactly what I hate about the world. Really? Is pride really so powerful? I mean, I know it is, but this reminder is excruciating. Man! I hate that! All the shit that's going on in the world? All of it is to fit this macho-man image? We've killed and are killing millions of people all over the world, because we have to fill the image of "bravery". We can't fail. We have to fight and kill; murder and commit suicide on the battlefield because nobody's willing to say "Hey, I'm not going to do this," because we're all afraid of showing meekness? Really? Gah! I can't express how angry I am! Humanity is so dumb! Maybe I'm just an angsty college kid, but still! Gah! I could puke right now I'm so hot in the brain. This can't be good for my blood pressure. Still. Am I the only one who sees how moronic this is?
No comments:
Post a Comment