Blood spangled banners

I sit here on the northern corner of the planet and watch the world burn. All is quiet here, all is peaceful, in comparison at least. The sky blazed with fireworks last night and we watched rapt with sweet delight. Different kinds of rockets bulleted the night sky and city streets, fires raged, some new and some unquenchable, in other parts of the world. Those rockets and blazes were welcomed with quite disparate shouts and spirits.

Stoke it up, put it out or ignore it and hope it will go away, the choice is yours. Let them fight it out among themselves. You didn't start those fires. Why should you care what is up with them, somewhere else, anywhere but here? But do we really want to be part of a race that seems to have lost the 'human' in humanity? Doesn't it demean us, all of us, the evil and the beastliness?

We're all capable of it, and we're all capable of putting it under wraps, starting with ourselves. Maybe only within ourselves. You can be a good example or a horrible warning, to mangle that old adage, but you're setting yourself up for failure when you try to change someone else. If they don't want to, they won't care how much you want them to. (So take this with the proverbial pinch of salt or toss the container at me, but bear with me.)

Don't delegate, downsize or avoid the issue, complain or explain when hatred, prejudice and pettiness raise their ugly heads, especially within you. Don't sit and wait doing nothing because you can't do all that much. Do what you can. Some random act of kindness or a carefully planned premeditated one.

Those phone calls you've been putting off because so much time has passed you believe it will be awkward. That message you meant to write an eon ago but somehow never got around to sending. Those words you can't get out because maybe they'll laugh or think you're strange or stupid, a fruit cake, or fruity. Maybe they will, but let them think what they want; that is what they will do anyway.

I sit here on the edge of the world and promise to try and tame the devil inside, to use it's rage only to help keep up hope. And it's one of the toughest games in the world, hanging on to hope. It's not for the faint of heart. Think how much time and nerves and resources giving up on others and yourself would save. We can't afford to. This is an emergency, and we're all on call.