First off I want to apologize for the way my recent letters have failed to coincide with the spirit of the season. This is a time for everyone to reflect on the good within our hearts and to share that good with those we love. There's truly so much to be thankful for but I doubt a laundry list of my blessings is on any one's top 10 to read lists. Actually I'd be surprised if you had top 10 to read lists. That being said, I write what I feel and if my feelings come out somber then I can only give you what I have. I've never been able to sing a song I didn't care about and I doubt I'll ever to able to write something that doesn't ring true to what ever that voice is inside that direct my fingers over the keys. However my stories move you or fail to move you, I want to wish you all a happy new year and to thank you for continuing to share with me your thoughts and dreams and when the clock strikes midnight toast one extra glass for me and let's ring in a year of hope for a brighter tomorrow.
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There is a video game that I've spent an unhealthy amount of the last year playing named Call of Duty 4. It's a very well made first person shooter that takes place the modern battlefield in a dozen or so locations around the globe following the exploits of a British S.A.S. commando and a U.S. Marine private as they solve the worlds issues one thirty round magazine at a time. There is one particular level where you are the gunner on a Specter gunship which is a C-130 cargo plane outfitted with some seriously devastating firepower. You're task is to cover the friendly team on the ground by atomizing anything that moves around their position. Fun right?
Now the reason any of this is relevant is because I've spent the last two nights staring at a wall of wide screen television monitors relaying the images from our UAV drones as they circle over Baghdad. They use the exact same forward looking infra-red cameras that are simulated in the game so the images on the screen are remarkably similar to the one I used to play with. It gives you a feeling of complete control. Kind of like how I felt with the night vision goggles on missions last deployment but even more so because not only can you see in the dark but you are looking though eyes that are miles away from your target and you are miles away from those eyes. I found myself wanting to see the figures on the screen blown to pieces. It's just so disconnected, so impersonal. It's like a game.
And that's what humans have been trying to do since the first piece of obsidian was cracked into a crude blade and used to fell an enemy. We have continually pushed to create weapons that put us further away from the actual act of killing. From swords to spears to pikes to arrows to bullets to cruise missiles at each step we take a little bit more of the humanity out of the target and it becomes a little less difficult to flip the switch. Read an article about a man stabbing his girlfriend to death and you are appalled, read about the fire bombing of Dresden and all you think is "wow that's so many people; I wonder how hot it was in the center of the city." It's unfathomable by normal human empathy to understand the loss of 100,000 lives. Our ability to destroy has far outpaced our capacity to truly understand the consequence.
A first few days of starting a12 hour night shift is a little like fasting. Your body is so out of whack you begin to think in drastically different ways. Maybe you become a bit more introspective. I hatched a plan to sell my collection of hundreds of DVD's save a few very special films to help lighten my ties to "stuff". DVD's are on their way out anyway. Instant streaming video is the wave of the future; let those suckers pay for the beta-max equivalent of our generation. One less thing to carry home. I thought about the cost benefit relationship of owning property versus a more transient lifestyle. If I was to buy a home and had the choice of what size it was would I want a large home on a vast swath of land or would I be happier in a cottage atop a postage stamp. Where does the line between need and want blur, and is it possible that our desires are nothing more than the manufactured product of industry, a new coat of paint on a peeling exterior? Has anything you've ever bought made you a better person simply by owning it?
I'm going to try and see if I can make a list to narrow down my possessions to 100 items. Apparently it's a reductionist fad that's gaining popularity among those who feel that one of the greatest challenges our culture faces is the tyranny of choice. I've noticed that it's weighed heavily on my mind recently. This idea of ownership and guilt I feel because of the disproportionate amount of resources my lifestyle demands in comparison to much of the world's population. Probably also because when you're forced to actually carry you're life on your back you take note that it may weigh more than it needs to.
The baby boomers worried about Russia and war and Communism, my generation worries about water, global warming, and whether or not we'll ever actually see the money we continue to dump into social security. We worry about the tipping point of the planet and whether we've already done so much damage that it may not even be fair to bring child into the world. We worry because the burden that we will inherit won't affect those who are willing it to us and we fear they don't care enough to help us fix it. We worry because the human mind can't empathize the suffering of the estimated billion men, women, and children that won't have access to the resources they need to survive within the next 15 years. It's a terrible thought; it's as terrible as hoping the figure on the screen will explode when you know that figure is a man like you. It's terrible because you know that it's within your power to make the difference yet it's so easy not to.
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