The points at which people are willing to risk imprisonment, torture, or their lives in the fight for freedom and self-determination vary. Most people whose lives have not been badly upended by the cruelty of a dictatorial regime probably have a greater tolerance for political and social discomfort than people who are targeted by authoritarian abuse. By the time the abuse hits home for them, though, their options are limited. They can challenge their own imprisonment and torture, but with little hope of success. They willingly can give up their lives for the “cause,” but without any assurances that the “cause” will triumph. I wonder what would cause me to risk my freedom and my life in an effort to derail an autocracy? How bad would my day-to-day experiences have to get to prompt me to make a full-throated attempt to restore my freedoms…or the freedoms of people whose safety matters to me? After nearly a lifetime of rejecting the idea of gun ownership as a means of personal protection, it occurs to me that the time to amass a stockpile of defensive weapons is well before they are needed. Now, watching a budding dictator as he tramples civil rights and treats freedom as a right reserved for the rich and powerful, I am in the mood for acquiring surface-to-air missiles, shoulder-launched munitions, and nuclear weapons. And, of course, shotguns and rifles and an assortment of handguns, grenades, and other devices capable of doing severe damage to unfriendly, weapon-wielding beasts who want nothing more than to hurt or kill me. Civil war is anything but civil. Perhaps the “weapons” we need are injectable chemicals that cause recipients to slide into pleasant, happy, non-dangerous mental states. States in which the desire to hurt or kill is replaced by a deep appreciation of poetry and painting and sitting by a fireside engaged in conversation over a nice glass of cabernet sauvignon.
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I have a vague recollection of being asked, in an email message, to join a few other members of my church in reading some of my poetry as part of a Sunday service. The event may well have already come and gone; I am relatively sure I read the message and set it aside, planning to return to it later. But I didn’t. And now I feel guilty for having forgotten to reply. I probably have been branded a non-responsive curmudgeon. I have gone to church only a few times in the last year or so; I try to avoid crowds while I’m undergoing chemotherapy because my oncology team tells me the chemicals dramatically reduce my ability to fight off all sorts of infections. But I doubt I’ve told many people that’s the reason. I should make it a point of filling them in—I might be viewed as less of a curmudgeon and more as a dutiful patient.
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This afternoon we plan to get together with a small group of friends for drinks and light snacks at a local restaurant. I will avoid hugs, though I truly like hugging and being hugged…again, the dutiful patient. These are friends from church…the same church I have not visited much of late. It still surprises me to hear myself say it: I belong to a church. No way! Oh, yes, way. But it’s not a church that demands I adopt beliefs I find offensive or intellectually stunting. I’d still like to call it something else…a “gathering” or a “fellowship” or a “place to make friends.” I need to nap in advance of the get together, lest I fall asleep in my chair at the restaurant table.
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Humans tend to believe we are the only creatures who think. But we are willing to concede that dogs and cats have dreams, which we begrudgingly acknowledge are evidence of thought. But we dismiss the idea that trees and bushes and fields of grass and many flowers think, as well. The problem, of course, is that we have a hard time understanding that thinking among vegetation is an entirely different process than among humans. For one thing, trees and shrubs apparently do not have a firm grasp of human language…not English, not Mandarin, not Spanish nor German nor French nor Icelandic nor any others. We cannot conceive of thought without language, despite the fact that Helen Keller stands in direct opposition to that ill-conceived bias. Not only can vegetation think, vegetation can feel…emotions, like ours, but completely different. Pine trees, for example, experience emotions in a way humans experience heavy doses of marijuana gummies. Birds, by the way, can communicate with trees and bushes and grasses either using bird language or vegetation language. Which should tell you…yes…trees and their ilk can hear and understand (and even “speak”) bird-talk. Though they call it “chirpster.”
