Micro Essay-Act of Joy
“It could always be worst,” is a grouping of words that hands out proof and cause. The thirteen years younger version of myself would use this as a way to move through stressful situations that might cause an explosion of aggression. Yet, during that part of my life, that act could put either those to the left or right of me in danger of losing our lives.
For many who haven’t experienced such high levels of extreme stress due to a lack of sleep, malnutrition; plus the amount of fighting that seemed to come with no end. A constant IV dip of violence attached to my arm, melting my brain into a serial killer. A murder headspace, a space where the repercussions of such an act hold no weight and brought out joy and pleasure for killing their kind. Being this person for many years, left me with behaviors that could have turned me into a serial killer in the society we live in today.
This controlled act of flipping the switch to feel and not feel is no more a curse than a blessing in disguise. I battled and battled for years, to undisguised the blessing, uncovering, and understanding that separating war from the internal part of our being is no simple task. As it once made me a predator in a land to survive.
Today is no different, maybe the environmental variables, such as not being shot at, or having motors walked onto the position you rest and recoup at. Or late-night patrols through their land that we ransacked disturbing the peace in their lives. The danger on the fighting position used to be driven by external circumstances, by the acts of violence, put forth by another being trying to kill us. I no longer am in a place of such danger externally, a flip flop, a switch-a-roo, where the danger lays for the longest of days like the gunfights we use to be under; the danger is inside my mind.
The whole reason for this piece of art you are reading is from my examination of existence as it is today. With those close to me, my daughters, son, dogs, and wife, being fully dropped in; using pattern recognition a skill used in hunting the Taliban. Now, this skill and process puts the microscope on how I interact with the universe and see that my actions bring joy or sadness, peace or war. Realizing words can be knives just as much as they are paint brushes, behaviors can be so loving, but still, can cause harm.
The intentions during those months of hunting and murdering the Taliban were just that, to murder and get rid of the infection that causes havoc on the ecosystem. What I found later to be true is, we become the infection to those people, not the cure. Left those who step foot out in their land to be infected by anger, violence, aggression, and the lack of empathy, and compassion for anyone or anything.
Is this the reason why many of my brothers have taken their lives by their hands?
Today, instead of exploding with high amounts of animosity putting myself in danger. My veins have been purged and drained, then refilled with new ways to feel, flushing the war zone inside my head away turning me into a man of the universe, not against it, feeding me a euphoric state of living.
