Love and let love, I don’t know why but that quote comes to mind when I think of the chapter that I just read. I comes to no surprise to me that someone who is in love or has love has more to live for then that of someone who hasn’t. I find it some what surprising that it could inspire someone so much that it can weaken the pain that they are feeling. Because in my experience love is what makes the world go round but it also could send you to “hell” in a second. From what I have experienced in life love was never enough for me to want to be a stronger person or try to achieve something greater.
It has never brought me close to a point in which I was willing to disregard the pain I was in to imagine something I had as better. I am a romantic by nature but I can never see myself or that of anyone I know using love as a shield to the physical and emotional pain they are feeling. All I’ve seen love do is help to increase emotional pain that soon leads to the deterioration of their physical self. So it comes as a surprise that the thought of his wife (the author) helped him get through some of his harder times. What I do find easy to believe is the disillusion of reality. I myself find myself in hard times and I know that all I can do is to retreat into a world of fantasy to get away from all of my hardships.
Inner life is how they described their ability to leave their current position or torment and remember or envision better times they had. I can’t imagine how bad life could be that I would have to make up another life that didn’t exist because life as it is right now feels perfect, probably because I decide what I want out of life, a luxury that these men didn’t posses. I take for granted all the memories that I have and never really go back to memories that are simple or don’t stand out. The simple things that everyone just shrugs off as ordinary these men would have died to be able to sit down and just remember. I wonder right now why I don’t treasure the moments I have but rather assume that it is my right to have thoughts and moments that I do. I see a butterfly fly through the air, and I don’t see a creature that embodies gentleness and beauty but an insect.
I see a flower blooming and I don’t see the potential for growth or life reacting to change but I see a plant that can be used in an arrangement. Is it that I have not suffered enough were these men have suffered a lifetime? I don’t know. I think of the humiliation some of these men, if not all of these men must have felt while they were being herded around like animals rather than humans. What kind of horrible thoughts or feelings must have flooded their minds when they thought of the families they left behind or hadn’t seen or heard from month after month. I wonder if they wondered about how their children were growing and what kinds of evils must have occurred to their children, in which they were not able to protect them from. Then the line appears in this text, “If our wives could see us now.” With that line all my questions are answered, the pride that a man feels when he witnesses the birth of his first child, or the pride he feels when he buys a new home for his family, or even the pride he feels knowing that the eyes of his children look at him with pure admiration.
That pride that he has rightfully earned has been stripped from him within seconds, not because he has done something knowing this was the risk but rather, he was born. He was born into a world that hated and blamed him and people like him for problems that were beyond anyone’s control. No longer are these men, men any longer but mere shell’s of men who’s pride has been taking with the winter breeze. These men can no longer look into the eyes of their children and know for sure that the admiration that was once felt, is felt any longer. They are stripped of their manhood and by that I mean their self-respect. Men without self-respect also lose hope or lose faith rather in God but more importantly in themselves.
Decisions that at one time took a second to make now take them a lifetime to decide. Second guessing one’s self is a common result of someone who has lost faith in their ability to live life to it’s fullest. These men had become so use to being told what to do every waking second that when it came to making their own decisions they were as lost as a child in a supermarket. The overwhelming feeling of frustration to stay and “live” or run and die becomes the biggest decision they have to face on a daily basis.
A man who has no faith is also a man who has no will, no will to live that is and with that a man loses his courage because he sees nothing but desolation in days to come. All of these feelings lead up to the point at which he lives his life in fear. He is fearful of life, which is obviously how these men lived their lives, many to their deaths. To be so afraid to smile, laugh, be compassionate or caring means that these men were dead long before their bodies died. Though their bodies were not to far behind. I have seen many movies about zombie and vampires who are claimed to be the “living dead.” But these were real life zombies.
Sullen, and sickly faces crowded camps as bones protruded beneath their skin. To see your body rotting before your very eyes must not be the most motivating of sights. I wonder why people think that being skinny is beautiful, when in fact it is a sign of starvation. Why would western civilization knowing that all this has happened allow such a “fad” to continue? I still can’t even begin to comprehend why someone would want to embody death. Maybe I never will, but I know that beauty goes a lot further than skin deep. I think that the new shows coming out on WB and newer aged t.
v companies is a good if not an improvement to what children could be watching. It may not have the same views as many but in all actuality what television show actually embodies the beliefs of everyone who watches?