This is my ramble.
The horror in the Ukraine caught me and held me down yesterday. It was the video of Ukrainian hospice children loaded on a train and the look in their parent's and caretaker's eyes. It's THE THING.... it's coming face to face with a psychopath's willingness to light the world on fire, children on fire, (lit. ad fig.) and let them burn to gain something, sometimes just to feel the flames and listen to the screaming, I think. Sometimes to build a legacy. Sometimes it's greed or lust or their own trauma burning inside the psychopath, IMO. It's THAT thing and it's in every corner of the world, likely. It's here, in our prisons and foster homes and homes where children are preyed on by the people charged with their care..... it's on the inernet and in all the "good men" who provide a market for human trafficking and child sexual predation here and abroad and I've accepted I'll never understand it so I hope to stop wasting my moments screaming it out silently in my head or otherwise into space.
So, radical acceptance of what I cannot change.
Doing what I can, where I can, as i can stand it then turning back to what's in front of me.
And there's more spaciousness in my life..... it's a byproduct of working on creating more space and I don't notice it until the pressures increase, which they have, of course with the Ukraine and travel and my friend's loss, but a day doesn't go by when my attention isn't drawn to the symptoms of broken systems and culture and community...... the incarcerated for profit, the children suffering for all the reasons they suffr, the lack of support for yioung single mothers, the lack of support for people and parents in domestic violence situations but I've learned to notice it without neeeeding it to BE different NOW all the time. It's always been on my radar..... if not the incarcerated, then always always the children bc I suffered as a sensitive child, as all children do, more or less and noticed the suffering of other children and my siblings. It left a mark. I worked with my T on that, specifically.
The Ukraine is a huge humanitarian crisis unfolding before our eyes and these are the times we notice those who aren't bothered by the suffering of others, IME. I'm noticing people who believe they're better than people who look different than them or people born into poverty and suffering..... the people who never cared about refugee children separated from their parents or how the justice system works for the wealthy but chews up the poor for profit.... like the armed services (EVERYONE SHOULD CARE our vets aren't receiving proper CARE)..... it's everywhere, all the time and those who SEE it are either nose on the pebble in despair or seeing it with some distance, bc being overwhelmed and paralyzed and unable to respond helps NO ONE.
Lately I think about people without empathy..... those who have no compassion for the incarcertated, the most vulnerable, all refugees and especially those fleeing war zones.... and I believe they're among the predators or those who enable them... or DIM thinkers (denial, ignorance and minimization,) which I've been...not gonna lie. Sometimes vulberable people or people who've been preyed on keep their heads down.... people who've been victimized, bc it's difficult to be brave when stuck living in fear. I'm not judging, just trying to SEE more clearly with eyes unclouded by vengeance...... and it's greed and a society chewing up children who grow into psychopaths who impact the lives of the many, bc..... the systems are what they are. People fight their own dragons and are kept in the dark about what they're taught and what they work for and how things are set up to funnel money into a few pockets while exploiting the masses and life goes on.
Sometimes my youngest dd is so upset by how the world works..... I feel she'll go into politics and fight hard for change. Shake things up. Then she assures me she'd go mad and would never choose that for herself. She's a "doomer" and believes the generations before her broke the world beyond repair, but I have to believe her generation and those after her have a chance. The old greedy giants will die. They won't take their property or money or power with them..... they'll be inherited by someone who MIGHT care, might step up, might DO the right thing for the greater good and to build a more just world. It could happen.
Im hopeful those who inherit won't be sheep. I'm hopeful they'll care about the earth and the community their children live in, date in, love in and hand off to future generations of grandchildren.... that they'll value the safety and health of everyone on the earth more than hoarding Countries and cash and gold and supply chains, but that's a stretch..... still possible though.
DD19 asked me how I'd feel IF I was plane wrecked on a dessert island..... and people woke up before me and collected all the coconuts making it necessary for me to s*ck d*ck in order to get coconuts and that's how she SEES it, but it's so much worse than that. The systems, the stock market, the red lining the predatory loans the generational wealth some have enjoyed while others have been banned from it......trading in people and it's not just getting to the coconuts first. It's so much more complicated and worse than that.
It's the wickedness of the world, which is a static state, as always and always will be.....AND also the failure of good people to act, step up, stop the wicked when they see them and can, but that's sacrifice and sometimes costs everything...... and that bravery is real and alive and necessary to steer civilization away from the dark and into the light. It's difficult to sacrifice one's own children to a cause that impacts the whole world, but there it is.... I think. That sacrifice is made regularly by warriors, but it's necessary for regular people too..... has been made by regular people, such brave people. Life is short. What do we do and what do we leave behind? Not everyone asks themselves that question.
I think enough good people sacrificing all DOES make a difference. I understand the choice NOT to sacrifice all..... I think all good people make that decision throughout a lifetime whether they're aware of it or not. Some things are worth total sacrifice, or a bit of sacrifice or none..... everyone makes their choices and lives with them as this generation of children do and those coming after.
I don't know that I pity the psychopaths, but there's compassion for how they were made and that blows back on the community and systems and lack of safety and care, IMO....on childhood trauma and how it's processed.... identifying with the bullies or not..... what does it take to crush an innocent child into a monster. I have compassion and I'm never for torture.... just an end to the harm. A T once told me all it takes to form a psychopath is to have parents who are at opposite ends of the parenting spectrum. He did not mention trauma or abuse.
Putin sends men to kill strangers as does Biden and any leader who has warriors and a problem they can't solve through other measures. The strangers kill strangers in the name of whatever the leader calls it, but sometimes it's for a legacy or greed or to watch people burn or to protect borders and people and that's an odd thing..... I've never considered being a warrior directed to kill strangers for reasons I do or don't consider justified. I've always felt protective of vulnerable peers from a young age and sometimes been seen as protective and felt the warmth of support from stranger who didn't like bullies pressing in on me in grade school or later in my life. People DO step up and do the right thing. It restores my hope in humanity and brings me to tears when I'm faced with it.
During the month I spent in a rough County jail I saw the symptoms of our broken society and systems.... people without power, without safety, without protection and one 13yo child who'd been taking off her clothes for money for many years with her Grandmother's knowledge and likely permission. This child was IN jail bc she'd been using an adult's ID to gain employment in adult clubs. The woman on the ID was wanted on a serious charge so this child ended up arrested and IN jail for at least a week before my release. I saw that child so vulnerable and confused... seeking safety next to me, not sure why she chose me, but she did and then she began seeking out attention and drama from the less mature inmates and I remained mortified on her behalf for so many reasons... for everything she suffered.... no parents to protect her, adults preying on her and profiting and enabling allowing ongoing harm..... she didn't tell me when that life began for her, but I suspect her life was always about the pleasure of sociopaths in her life with NO ONE to protect her and that's not as shocking as her time in that jail where SHE was the identified criminal and no one NO ONE thought about the reasons she ended up in that jail cell, on a stage, preyed on as a child, perhps a baby and victimized..... why doesn't anyone care about WHY the symptoms (inmates) are where they are? Why doesn't anyone care about the reasons broken people end up in prisons... why doesn't anyone STOP the people who harmed them and continue preying on others? It makes no sense, like our present sick care system makes no sense to me, but there it is.
It's bc the poeple with the power are often among the predators making rules, or the sycophants enabling them or the DIM thinkers or the people who're just struggling to get through their own day. It's circular and entwined and easier to be a sheep and to protect what one has and those they love.
Real change comes from regular people brave enough to stand up to the pscyhopaths and demand change or take it FROM them adn maybe the Russians will do that. Someone begins and loses everything before others step up. That kind of bravery is a glorious mystery..... the Ukrainian women taking up arms and fighting alongside their husbands....knowing full well they might make their children orphans is the kind of sacrifice required to make a stand against Putin.
Putin's parents lived during upheaval and war and starvation and the loss of 2 children and maybe Russians will be willing to make a stand and sacrifices enough to make real change for themselves, but at what cost to their children and grandchildren? It's a short life and people make choices. What sacrifices do Russians make if they refuse to support Putin's war? What will their futures BE if they make that stand? Maybe it would end life on this planet as we know it? Maybe the earth would breathe a sigh of relief.
People DO choose the greater good. Some profit and some give all. It's just reality and life is short. People consider and weigh what they value and choose according to risk and what their families will lose. Short sight or long vision..... Putin doesn't care about leaving a legacy of protection and plenty for anyone but himself, IMO.. Killing protestors and everyone a protester knows, along with must be amazing leverge, yet people still stand up and protest. People are "free" to protest here, but there's loss of life and sacrifice and blowback and it is what it is..... all the whining by bigots and the entitled shocks my Nervous System into incredulity. It's difficult not to let that get stuck in my limbic system, but the sky is blue and the grass is green. I'll get better at bouncing over that too.
Empaths are moved every day by suffering and they make choices around how close their nose is to the pebbles or get swept into despair, IME.... praying,meditating, donating in groups or in solitary solidarity,but those who feel the suffering and act are the hope for change. The people who stand up and risk limb and family and safety and life are maybe the ones who make the greatest change, but the smaller daily sacrifices have meaning and send messages and may support good causes.... or make psychopaths wealthy....perhaps both. Making a stand against a tyrant is expensive and terrifying and dangerous....... sometimes simply voting against the tyrant is dangerous. Safety is relative, always an illusion and devastation never happens exactly like one imagines it will.... at least IME. Crime rates go through the roof when the right to choose is taken away..... everyone is impacted...maybe not the very tippy top wealthy, but the world is made less safe when women are forced to bear children against their will, esp onces they can't care for. HOW do people in positions of power not SEE this? It's ignorance and inability to accept reality? It's something I'll never understand and I can say I'm not anti abortion.... I'm anti dumbass...... I can't imagine using D&C's as birth control.... but I'll fight for women's right to choose no matter how I feel about it for myself. Again, I'm gobsmacked when powerful men stand up and threaten or destroy a woman's right to choose..... it sticks in my limbic system.... I have to work at dislodging it. It makes zero sense, like the behavior of personality disordered individuals.... I accept it will never make sense and put it down. Let it go.
It's the state of the world and it's not fair or kind or always safe anywhere and we deal with it in the ways we learned to survive as infants... I guess. In these dark times we're forced to face our own stance on wickedness and how we react or respond and we notice how others respond, react or don't. I notice I'm more curious than judgmental, for the most part,most of the time. Rich people figuring out how to make a profit on the suffering will always be a reality... the sky is blue and the grass is green. What happened to those people that they operate in the world that way? What a terrible moment they must have when death comes to get them and they reflect on the life they've led, IF they can reflect at all and maybe that's part of what makes them so good at being sociopaths mining money from the suffering of others....they don't or can't or won't self reflect. The sky is blue, the grass is green.
If we want nice poeple in civilized socieities we have to be nice people or adjust our expectations. Set up fair systems and stop the profit from other people's misery and poverty..... if it's possible at all and I'm not saying it is. Change won't come from punishing and vengeance... it will come from somewhere else, pretty sure, if it happens at all.
it won't be our generation making these changes, IMO,but I have hope for the generations we leave behind. It's not going to be vengeance that moves us into the light.
I'm trying to stay level so I'm stepping around your thread on darkness, Hops.
I stopped copy and pasting other people's posts a while ago so they can change or delete them as they process. I appreciate my posts not being copy and pasted for that reason.
