Conflicts

It's amazing that there continues to be conflict all over the world.  It was like that when I was a little kid.  It's like that now.  Why should we believe that it's ever going to be any different?  Why is there conflict at all?  One answer is that we have free will.  Another is that, for all our similarities, we want to feel unique, so we play up our differences: nationalities, political parties, religions, skin color, et cetera.  By following our own human nature and playing up our differences, rivalries and tensions develop.  An 'us-versus-them' mentality develops.  So that's another answer to why there is perpetual conflict throughout the world.  Another answer is man's tendency toward sin and temptation: especially in the form of power (pride); this stems from man's natural insecurity, both materially as an animal that strives to survive at all costs, and emotionally as beings that compensate for internal insecurity by manifesting external power.

Another issue is that no relationship, nor anything at all for that matter, is static.  The universe is dynamic.  Your body and every person's body is dynamic.  People change and thus that makes the relationship between and among people dynamic.  I can think of easy examples in my own life right off the top of my head.  In fact, it's a theme that's been on my mind a lot lately.  I perceive that my relationship with my cousin Carlos isn't what it used to be or what it could be.  When I write a short note or message to him, his responses are either stock and pithy (the latest one was simply "gracias primo") or he simply uses an emoticon (usually a 'thumbs-up' icon) to acknowledge my note without having to engage in any substantive dialogue.  Assuming my perception is really accurate, I have no idea what's going on.  Is he jealous because I got married? and/or because I've become a father?  Did I slight him in some way the last time I was in Costa Rica?  I have no clue.  I suppose I can ask him what's going on.  That would be the mature, logical thing to do.  I think I may be afraid of the answer.  But then again, the cold hard truth should always be preferable to living under a hazy assumption, shouldn't it?

Next I think of my relationship with my friend Paul.  I still consider him to be my friend, though we're not as close as we used to be.  If you look back at previous posts here, around the 2008 time frame, Paul is a major player.  We spent a lot of time together.  We traveled together, to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, to his parents' home in Tampa, Florida, and even to Costa Rica back in the day.  I had a close relationship in those days, the late 1990s through the entire decade of the 2000s.  I kept my mouth shut on certain things that concerned me, because I enjoyed my time with him.  We had fun together.  In a very real way, at a time when we were young adults, flexing our wings (if that's even a proper saying) and coming into our own, we were each other's family -- at a time when we needed to prove our individuality separate and apart from our own respective families.  But as time passed, and perhaps when I became more comfortable in my adulthood, or perhaps wasn't having as much fun spending time and traveling with him, or perhaps when I had met other friends and thus didn't feel like I needed or depended upon my friendship with him -- whatever the case was -- I felt that I needed to communicate with him my concerns about his beliefs as expressed in words: using the word "nigger" to pejoratively describe a dark-skinned American of African descent, then a couple years later using the word "dyke" to describe a female mayor of some northern New Jersey city, either Hoboken or Jersey City.  After each separate incident, I wrote a letter by hand and sent it to him, expressing my disapproval.  Was this the right approach?  I thought so.  I still think so.  But maybe not.  Should I have talked with him face-to-face?  My main takeaway, as I write this now, is that I shouldn't invest too much time in a friend with such negative, prejudiced, and outdated beliefs.  In short: surround yourself with good people.  But then I ask myself, who am I to judge him?  Be soft on the sinner, but not on the sin!  Did I practically give up a friendship for the foolish objective of proving a principle?

This tug of war between philosophical poles happens quite frequently in my head.  I think part of it is the guilt -- justified or not -- at having effectively ended a friendship.  I think the other part is a realization that life is not guaranteed to remain static, things will change, and this logically leads to a realization, whether explicit or implicit, that life will eventually end: after all these changes and changes, death shall come.

I've written previously that a break-up from a girlfriend is very analogous to these existential realizations.  The relationship died.  It's as if the ex-girlfriend is dead, although we know damn well that she's alive somewhere, probably with some other guy already.  A break-up is a foreboding of death.  It's a terrible feeling...to be reminded of one's own mortality.  And yet we're reminded of it all the time, whether looking outwardly at all the conflict in the world, the people, the children!, being killed in war, or whether looking inwardly to our own failed relationships.  What's the answer?  I can't say I know, other than to keep on living, find something to believe in, put one's gifts and talents to the best use possible to be productive and self-fulfilling, and be with (or be open to be with) someone you love and who loves you.