Fencing and the Apocalypse

After watching Knowing and 2012, both highly apocalyptic films, one is reminded of just how insignificant our lives are, how easily and swiftly life can be erased. Admittedly, I needed lots of hugs from Herr.

I think people get too caught up in thinking they are right, that the way they believe is the way everyone needs to believe. To be honest, everything is grey. It is a bad idea to take a fanatic stance (oh boy do I dislike extremism) on any subject. It is fine to live your own life your way, but so many different circumstances make hard absolutes on how everyone should live their lives impossible. A healthy debate is good, but lately, I have seen a lot of religious zealotry pushing people off the fence and really disrupting a good balance (well, it has been swinging in my favor lately so even I am biased… :P).

For example, religious community leaders have been attacking libraries saying we need to monitor children for parents and remove questionable material. Japanese culture doesn’t consider sexuality a taboo, so some manga may be more graphic than others. What I don’t see is an attack on parenting skills or people attacking marketing companies selling products by using sexuality that target younger audiences. (Or there’s the complete opposite of the too-busy parent, helicopter parenting, where the parent is hyper-protective.) Religious leaders can’t even keep their hands off children (okay, I know there are only a few bad eggs in the bunch), so to attack libraries, whose primary purpose is to provide a diverse collection from multiple perspectives to a diverse audience, should understand the hypocrisy.

Immigration, abortion, disallowing true historic facts to be printed (Yale would not print a book showing Islamic newspaper comics that were actually printed in the newspapers because of upset Muslims), religious teachings in school… I wish everyone would just calm down. More pressing issues? Global warming, maybe? Natural resources shriveling up? This is survival. We need to focus on reviving nature instead of pushing each other’s buttons. Digging and gouging in the grey area all those topics truly are isn’t going to do squat when water is no longer abundant (look what happened in Darfur!), or all the plant life starts dying away when the average temperature jumps 10 degrees (potato famine of Ireland).

So here’s my say: stop the hate, learn some tolerance, reduce the waste, and plant a tree. I don’t want a mile high wave crashing on me or laser sun beams breaking through the atmosphere and melting me!