philosophy

I’ve been at a bit of a loss for words lately. Many things have happened here, and each time I’ve had a reason, whether personal or professional, for choosing silence over writing, and I’ve just left it at that. I’m well aware that I’m out of the habit of writing now, but I’m also aware that I have to be very careful of what I say, because my name is now well enough known in the library world that my co-workers can easily google my name and turn up this site.

I think I understand why people stay, even though the pay’s never going to be great and sometimes dealing with the public can really get to you. One of the last real conversations I had with Stephanie, months ago, touched on a subject that comes up in the lives of Engineers’ Wives, and it hinged on a very simple idea: for most people, a job is just employment. There aren’t many real, consuming professions left these days.

Children spend years of their lives wondering, planning, dreaming of this moment. Adults ask the question before children are barely out of diapers: So, sonny, what do you want to be when you grow up? The adults find the answers cute, charming, and endlessly entertaining.My classmates and I were asked this question, once; our answers are printed in a sixth-grade yearbook that NONE OF YOU WILL EVER SEE.

We all have holes in our psyche to fill, you see. Holes that sometimes we talk about, and holes that sometimes announce their presence because we can’t (or won’t) bear to mention them. Sometimes, given the fortuitous combination of personality and circumstance, another person comes along. Another person with holes in their life. Given the right time of day and phase of the moon (or kindly guiding force, depending on how your world works) their emptiness lines up with yours.Sometimes the holes of one cancel out the holes of another, forming a stronger fabric.

I open up news sites and find myself recoiling over what I see. You can read for yourself, and I rather hope that perhaps you’re asking yourself the same questions I am.

I’ve been most disturbed by what I’ve seen happening recently in Israel. The sheer pointlessness of the brutality stuns me. The shot of the man leaning out of the police station, grinning, holding his bloodied hands up for the screaming crowd to see… It makes me shake my head. It makes me ashamed to be human, to be counted with these people—on both sides.

Ask yourself questions, and look behind and beyond that snapshot. First, the man—what would it take for you to become so angry, so full of hate, to attack another human being and then wear his blood on your skin like a trophy? Secondly, the crowd—to cheer such an event?