Centuries pass

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.

Every time I hear that stanza, I shall be reminded of the part in Nineteen Eighty-Four when Winston and Julia are standing looking out the window of their hiding place, talking quietly about their plans to oppose society.

“We are the dead,” he said.
“We are the dead,” echoed Julia dutifully.
“You are the dead,” said an iron voice behind them.

It’s hard to argue that the soldiers in Flanders Fields are the dead, but we all are really.

What I really want to know is, did all those people who went off and died for the children they would never meet truly believe that their selfless acts would have any impact on the progress of humanity? Did they believe that if the great war was won, we would learn from our mistakes so that future generations would not have to die in the same manner?

Because humanity never learns, I can only assume that they would not have believed their war to actually be the one to end them all. Perhaps they still had some hope that it would not happen again, but given our history this appears to be nothing more than a blindly optimistic daydream.

So why did they do it? Why bother to go off and fight, when you know it won’t make a difference and you’ll probably lose your own precious life in doing so? Why, when you know that your family and friends and all for whom you care are all, eventually, going to stop breathing anyway?

War is hardly going to end. I do not believe that we learn from our mistakes that quickly. I do not believe that incredible massacres will not happen again -- they happen as I type. Yet I do posess a very faint hope for humanity, and this is why: if the same species that invented the atomic bomb, that kills its own kind and other kinds, that has destroyed much of the planet and is working on what remains...if members of this same species will go to die for another, though they know their actions are futile...if they will go to die for another solely because they believe in their heart that they could not have done otherwise...if this can happen, there must be a chance, however small, that this species will recover.

The chance, of course, is very small. After all, this act we consider noble consists of running off to kill other people.

Took some pictures in an odd place today.

I wanna be a STAR.