It is interesting to read about soldiers who seem like moral people, soldiers who see a difference between fighting and murder. Obviously, there are liars and scoundrels both in the army and not in the army. How you behave in a given situation doesn’t necessarily have to do with being in the military, but rather with your own personal character. Some people are good people and some are bad, in, or out of, the context of war. The context of war does not change reality. If a person acts like a brutal animal in a war, it seems to me that it was there close to the surface anyway. On the other hand, what would it take to push a man or woman who does not have such inclinations near the surface to be like that? It seems to me to be tied to level of awareness/enlightenment. Could someone who is awake be pushed to that point? I don’t see how it would be possible. So, these are interesting issues.
It always interests me, the level of humanity sometimes shown between opposing soldiers in a war, how some soldiers treat the enemy soldiers as people, not soldiers, not “The Enemy,” not things. Why? I think it is partly the unconscious understanding that they are brothers with these people, that the reasons they are fighting are not really who that person is, and doesn’t even really have to do with either of them, but are rather the insanity and greed of those in power. It is the brotherly, human connection we feel to all other people, but do not express, do not really let out.
Life gets exponentially more complicated the more you see, and treat, people as whos and not whats; and it is when and where life is truly beautiful, messy beautiful. When a person is treated as a who, something is going right.
The more people are seen, and treated, as whos, the better life will get, the happier people will be, and the harmony of things working as they should will be felt. Connection is beautiful. To me, human connection, and beyond that, all life connection, is what it’s all about. Connection, harmony, music, dance, understanding, love—whatever you want to call it, that is what I live and work for.
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From my personal notes, 5/27/00
