With our multitude of faces and desire for an indiscriminately and inspirationally encouraging alleviation from our daily qualms, mishaps, and, possibly, threats, we draw upon our own inner voice. Now our voices are drawn upon from many different aspects and registered by many different forms of media, prompts of transgression, and day-to-day happenstances. What we really find most important to us, and the suppression of that interest, is the catalyst, and at times, the igniter for such indolent bursts of flavor in our lives. These things in our life allow is to access our own inner beliefs. Separate from our community’s voice, societal voice, national voice, possibly even our ethnicity’s vocal beacon of guidance and advice, is profoundly utilized in almost all of our day-to-day activities, but our own personal, individual, profoundly significant and powerful voice remains scattered, and at times, inaccessible in the myriad of faces we must portray and the societal masks that we, at times, epitomize.
By not pursuing the enormous amount of problems that we have already accumulated, we end up creating the financially indisposed dilemma of not having problems to solve. This dilemma, however, hosts exactly what we lack – a personal revelation of inspirational juices, flavors, and appetizing recipes that will support our foundation. So, we must stop the pursuit of solutions to unnecessary problems and engage in the study of hosting this revelation. With this tide of change, creativity will provide the support for our foundation, so that we can internally grow.
With this internal cultivation, we may be able to answer questions like, What really allows us to ignite, or catalyze a reaction that can lead to a new scoop of our personal guidance system? How can we alleviate our temptation from creating a simplistic, idyllic environment, which is superficially a mechanism of doubt used as an apparatus of fear to suppress our voice? Basically, how can we cherish and accept ourselves?
This self-induced state, of residing in the duplicity of our individually concocted environment, won’t work anymore. We are prevented from creating inspirational guidance for ourselves, by ourselves. The state that we put ourselves in makes us, unfortunately, at risk for hundreds of fragmented standardizations and jeopardizes our possession of security. An example is our national and political stance with Iraq. While we are sending troops to Iraq, we establish a temporary environment utilized for the priming of our superficial security. But this day-to-day environment must be established on a day day-to-day schedule. This is similar to needing to paint the advertisement every morning to display that X Company is a better deal than its competitor; the U.S. must paint and repaint its patriarchal achievements without responding to the internal doubts within the country. I am not saying the U.S. is internally doubtful, but, rather, that we should pay close attention to are inner voice as a beacon for our external actions.
Sure, we’ve done an incredible job of establishing ourselves as an international force – militaristically, economically, commercially, politically, and diplomatically. But these establishments and symbols of recognition address the wrong dilemmas, producing extremely desirable and accomplished results, but not the ones that will allow us to excel. We are finding solutions to problems that are trivial in retrospect to the smorgasbord of dilemmas that face our extremely well established nation. We need that internal flow of creative juices and foundational recipes to emerge.
Maybe the question, or the problem we should try to answer or solve is “Are we becoming too established?” Are we designing our nationalistic masks to such an extreme that we forget the values – the integrity – that our mask exudes? Are we emanating self-confidence when we must mend self-integrity? Are we pursuing boldness when we must acquire self-mastery?
Take the recent assassination of Hamas leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi. After months and months of excitement and exuberance in the Gaza when American troops lay dead, smoldering in explosive rubble, finally, the tables are turned and the terrorist receives the terrorism. Great, the elimination of a source of negative destruction is complete. But the mechanism used to eradicate this destructive entity was viscously devastating in itself. Is fighting with fire, the answer? At times for sure, but in this situation, I feel the only result will be more burns and mournful scars.
When I look at the Washington Post headlines, I see “Hamas Chief Mourned by thousands in Gaza”. A multitude of beliefs, century year-old arguments about Middle East territory, and impassioned emotions and reactions are all consumed in this 7-word headline. First off, look at “Hamas Chief”. Chief connotes, most certainly, a leader, but in a proverbial undertone this word connotes something more physical – some one warrior-like. You would never refer to a religious figure as “Chief”. Instead, you would refer to him as a leader, director or guide – more benign titles that suggest powers of encouragement and motivation, rather than valueless control and manipulation. But words like Chief, Boss, Ruler, and even Manager put forth the overwhelmingly discriminatory notion that this person has some level control over a group of people and that his or her values may not be all that thoughtful. Whether it be the ability to incite minions to arms or the possession of a crafty aptitude for political puppet-mastery and the capacity to connive and produce political results at will and on whim, the title of this leader, Chief, connotes a characteristically dark alternate meaning, especially in a geographic location where deleterious manipulation has much more far-reaching affects. While it is beneficial that a terrorist force has been eliminated, I feel that, in the long run, this will only add more fuel to the politically bloody and incessant, feuding turmoil that rages in the Middle East.
Still analyzing the headline, the phrase “mourned by thousands” connotes an image of impassioned grief possibly mixed in with sparks of rage. Finally, the location of this ill-named leader and volatile emotional turmoil is described in the newspaper heading – the Gaza. The Gaza itself could be defined as a group of thousands of mourners with all of the incessant conflict, unresolved issues, and upheaval entrenched in the patterns of this convoluted area, but the fact that this territory is integrated in with a specific incident of mourning and the elimination of a controlling terrorist, makes this event even more potent.
From merely the headline of this article, one con dispel any myths of the Middle East being an enchanting, magical place for beliefs and religion. Instead it is a horror-house of air raids, hesitance to claim responsibility, and adherence to rigidly impassioned beliefs and traditions. It is anything from the free expression of beliefs; it is the viscious struggle for creating space for traditions. Because these traditions have so much belief associated with them, they are overwhelmingly sensitive and are the catalyst for this constant quarrel.
Back and forth like a ping-pong game -- not even like a chess game anymore -- these countries seem to bomb, raid, or destroy each other. I used to feel, from historical Cold War times, that the Middle East was the stage for the largest political chess game imaginable – land claimed by so many different cultures, religions, and backgrounds with so much impulsive energy fueling that area. Now, However I am sickened and perturbed by the trite and hackneyed actions that take place. The headlines tell you. First PLO refugees volley an attack, which is followed by another reactionary volley from Israel, which sparks resentment for Palestinians, resulting in another volley back. The depth, strategy, and efforts for peace have been eliminated from this conflict. Instead, it has turned into a mindless, undiplomatic game of pong that channels the nervous, uncertain emotions about territory, religion, political control, oil, and physical and cultural boundaries into destructive entities.
This destructively inane game of back-and-forth is exactly what the U.S. should not get involve itself in, but should attempt to impede. Whether it be a distraction or a force, I feel that if, with as little risk as possible, we should try to catalyze a bump or a push or maybe even provide some political fuel for this conflict to get it in any place more socially prolific than a mindless ping-pong battle played with suicide terrorists, political assassinations, and militant extremism.
I feel that once the U.S. has cultured its internal infrastructure of beliefs, growth, confidence, and recipes of values, we will be in a confident position to contribute to the progressively dormant state of the Middle East. I use the phrase progressively dormant because, while there are perceived changes in the Middle East --attacks, military responses, and defensive maneuvers -- nothing, in hindsight, is changing, improving or budging. It is a recalcitrant quarrel played by passionately obstinate players. The situation is politically and diplomatically stagnant; all of the mourning, blood, rotting flesh, unresolved diplomacy, and explosive terrorism is being dumped from one blood-stained glass into another and then poured back into the same glass, over and over again. In taking tremendously great caution to not over-engage (the U.S. has a tendency to over-engage and become a dominant obstacle for growth rather than a productive element), we should attempt to relay unproductive patterns in the Middle East. We should take proactive action towards fueling the fires of resolution, rather than being complacent with yet another volley in the militaristic ping-pong game of the Middle East. With this progressive action, we will cultivate the alleviation we need from our own intractable qualms and problems because we would have discarded our political sham for the creation of a valuable and benevolent state of diplomacy, teaching, and inspiration.