-1War Has No Epilogue

War and violence are, without a doubt, an inevitable part of the human psyche. Not a single culture that has populated the world is immune to the taint of destruction, nor are they safe from the looming presence of hatred. I agree wholeheartedly with these experts, basing my rationale on the simple fact that ‘what goes around, comes around’. Nothing ever truly reigns over the human mind, even within a mere lifetime; it is a conglomeration of emotion and intention that no one ideal may master completely.

However, despite the menacing specter of warfare that seems so prevalent, you must remember that wherever war exists, an equal peace must also. Our world may drown in bloodshed and battle cries, but even as it falls, a tentative peace will begin anew. Gradually, soldiers will lay down their guns, their missiles, their flashing swords. Eventually, rage and hatred will fade into quiet contemplation, the heat of battle singing through their hearts will disappear into the soft song of the wind rustling among the barren grasses that haphazardly grow from fields not quite dead.

Someday, the blood-bathed earth will sprout not the half-dead weeds of a ravaged village, but the bountiful crops that are the pride of their simple tenants. Despite the appearances now, with the blackened corpses piled high along the streets and the glassy eyes of their would-be protectors gazing dispassionately over the barrel of a massive machine gun and starting only enough to combat ‘insurgents’. Hearts so proud and patriotic will break under the stress of dying and killing for those they love, and for those they believed in.

The violence too of ordinary life seems utterly unbelievable to those who do not wish to see what is before them. The accusatory anger that erupts between two shoppers, two lovers, two enemies; it is one and the same. The bitter bile that has displaced in some the will to do good for others, and the will to love all others, shares in this morality the same message across all races, not merely white or black or brown. You cannot deny it’s existence, for even in a saint there is that sluggish anger. Just like in warfare, that emotion that makes most humans into killing machines at the slightest provocation can make them into mortal enemies within their everyday lives.

Despite the ideal that all men will live in peace one day, it cannot ever truly occur. There are too many petty fools, too many broken hearts that can never be mended without that resurgence of anger that no religion may quell. Peace is a hard-won trophy that so rarely lasts for more than a single generation, many times broken well within the field of a decade. However, though war and violence remain, and will most definitely grow within the next ten years, there will always, without an utter doubt, a fragile peace to return to.

A simple essay for a scholarship…I was rather proud of the way it came out. Meh…just a little bit of my hopes for the world.

Laters,

KD