Imagine
you're on another
planet.
No,
imagine
you're from another
planet.
Imagine
you're from another
planet
looking down on
Planet Earth,
and you see its people fighting each other, making war on each other.
Now
imaginethe planet
you're from, doesn't have fighting or war.
Imaginethe planet
you're from, doesn't know fighting or war. What could you
say about what you saw the people of
Planet Earth
doing to each other? You wouldn't know what it was they
were doing to each other, would you? Whatever you saw them doing to
each other would look very strange indeed ...
Of course, you're not from another
planet.
And you're not on another
planet.
So you'll never be able to look at what we the people of
Planet Earth
do to each other, from the perspective of not knowing what fighting is,
from the perspective of not knowing what war is.
But you can consider it like a possibility. Can you
look at what we the people of
Planet Earth
do fighting each other, can you look at what we the people of
Planet Earth
do making war on each other, can you look at all of it from the
perspective of ie coming from not knowing what fighting
is, coming from not knowing what war is? Can you consider the
possibility of no fighting on
Planet Earth?
Can you consider the possibility of no war on
Planet Earth?
This is what's truly bass ackwards about
Planet Earth:
here, no fighting and no war
are the possibilities which are very strange indeed ...
I won't publish this essay,
September 11, 2001
- Ten Years After,
today ie on the tenth anniversary of
September 11, 2001
out of respect for the commemorations being held for the people who
lost their lives and who gave their lives on
September 11, 2001.
There are times when it's easy to listen new ideas which intrude into
our already sensitivities, and there are other times when it's not so
easy to listen. Today, being the day of commemoration of the tenth
anniversary of
September 11, 2001,
may not be the most appropriate day to listen newly for
who we are
in the matter of
September 11, 2001.
Be careful. When I say "...
who we are
in the matter of
September 11, 2001",
I don't mean us. And I don't mean them either. That
would just keep the conversation within the same conflict: "us / them",
"good / bad", "right / wrong". And the trouble with keeping the
conversation within the same conflict is we alreadyknow the outcome of this conversation. We already know
"we're the good guys, and
they're the bad guys". And it isn't even a stretch
for our combined imaginations to realize "we're the good guys, and
they're the bad guys" can be
voiced
evenhandedly by both sides of the
September 11, 2001
conflict - indeed, by both sides of any conflict. This is
the nature of conflict. So when I say "...
who we are
in the matter of
September 11, 2001",
I mean all of us. I mean all of us nearly seven
billion people of
Planet Earth.
"Oh no!" you say. "You're wrong, Laurence. We are
the good guys, and they are the bad guys.". No.
It's all of us - if you're willing to listen it from this
vantage point. We're all the people of
Planet Earth
fighting each other. We're all the people of
Planet Earth
making war on each other. And from the perspective of someone on
another
planet,
from the perspective of someone from another
planet
who doesn't know fighting or war, what we do to each other looks very
strange indeed ...
I assert fighting and war are the natural results of not knowing
who we really are.
When I don't know who I am, I hurt you. When I know who I am, I am you.
"Too simple!" you say? Yes. Entrenched as we are in "us /
them", "good / bad", "right / wrong", it is simple. We
can't get it from the
already always
listening
we are. And maybe we can't get it today, the tenth anniversary of
September 11, 2001,
either. We may have to wait until the commemoration services for and
the remembrances of the people who lost their lives and who gave their
lives on
September 11, 2001,
are over. It's hard for us to listen this if it intrudes into our
already sensitivities.
But when the ceremonies are complete, when it's alright to re-listen
September 11, 2001
after an appropriate time has elapsed, when you can re-listen
September 11, 2001
with new ideas ... then I propose you invent it for yourself, like a
possibility. Try it on for size.