Peace Please
What exactly does a writer (try to) communicate? The truth. That’s what it all bubbles down to, my perjurious pal, my lying love, my hyperbolic haemorrhoid. No, but seriously, the truth: what the fuck is it?
When you know something’s true you just do. You can trust it, rely on it, and lean the fuck on it. The truth keeps you afloat in shark-infested waters. The truth lights a fire to scare away the wolves. The truth keeps a 747 in the air.
But the truth also draws us together. We share the truth like bread and wine. The truth is something we all got in common. Humans are truth receptors and bullshit detectors. Humans are truth machines. Not quite.
Part of being a human being means being able to discern a truth from a lie. Why? Because people are gonna lie to you to get you to do shit. There’s ten billion reasons someone may lie to you and only one truth. Is that true?
It’s true that Bin Laden thought he was right. It’s true that George Bush disagreed. It’s true that the sun comes up every day. It’s true that one day it won’t. It’s true that I can’t see inside your mind and check that you experience life the same way that I do, but it’s also true that I pretty much know.
It’s true that I can imagine that we are all the same. All humans, animals, plants, atoms and quarks, everything is made outta the same base material, call it matter, call it the great green grid of everything, call it God – who cares? But I can be me and everything else that’s ever existed and will ever exist at the same exact time. Sure. That’s easy to imagine.
What’s hard to imagine? That everyone’s as important as me. Everyone’s as central to their own journey as I am to my own. It’s hard to imagine how little the other ten billion people on the planet think about me.
It’s hard to imagine being dead. What was it like before you were born? Perhaps that’s a little easier to imagine. It’s hard to imagine a world without war. It’s hard to imagine life without suffering. Let’s try.
Life without suffering looks bland. I hate to say it, but violence is cool. Okay, so now imagine peace was cool. The cool thing to do is be peaceful. Pff. I’m bored already. Peace? Yawn. Not in my stories.