predation, chinaware, and buddha

in 1st grade the present author was compelled by the teacher to write a fiction story. you see, the class at the time was going over the full timeline of species on planet earth, from dawn of life to human, covering everything from trilobites to carpet mites. the teacher, with somewhat notoriously difficult handwriting, had a note on the board about a specific period known for an abundance of "predatory fishes." the present author's classmate raised a hand, and, given the messiness of said handwriting, inquired about clarification on the two word phrase; asking, somewhat hesitantly, if it said "predatory dishes." the teacher chuckled, said "i can see why you'd ask that, the 'f' looks like a 'd'" and proceeded to rewrite the word to make it clearer. he then turned back to said classmate and told him he should write a story about predatory dishes, as it would be funny, and that he should ask for my help writing it, out of some misplaced notion that i was good at writing stories (this blog post, while not a fictional story, offering easily one of the greatest arguments against said claim). we wrote a story about dishes with extremely sharp, canine teeth, pointy silverware, and perpetual grins, running around trying to chop people up and eat them.

that teacher would end up teaching history in college, but at that specific time, he might have been teaching the future. for you see, the present author has spoken often, although not in some time, of one of the most simplistic renditions of an important piece of buddhist thought. that is, we exist is a cycle of eternal suffering until we shed desire. that until we do so, unending birth and death continue unabated, filled with pain. and perhaps no other activity quite accurately portrays this cycle as the kitchen on a thursday night. imagine, if you will, stepping into a dirty kitchen before thursday night dinner, and having to embark on a long session of "cleaning dishes." imagine, now, that those dishes, once cleaned, are immediately used to cook and plate the dinner you will fix. finally, once consumption is concluded, said dishes must now be cleaned again.

one could extend this out to an extremely varied host of activities, from waking up, going to work, and coming home, to any broad scale repetition. but expanding the scope out far enough on anything renders the specific analysis pretty meaningless. ergo, the present author must conclude that washing dishes encompasses the four noble truths better than anything else. suffering is true, and it is caused by a perpetually full sink. to end the suffering? just end the desire in having clean dishes, and invest in a large stack of disposable Chinet. not only does it save on having to clean, but truly; how sharp can the teeth of predatory dishes made of recycled paper really be?

the walls are closing in

when i was in 3rd grade our class went over to the local ymca (it was 2 blocks away from our school) every tuesday and thursday for swimming lessons. a game we used to play was where me and my friends would hold our arms out, and slowly close them together as we walked across a street, or across the field we would go through, or across a bunch of sidewalk squares, whatever. if our hands touched together before we did so, we were squashed, either by lava walls, poop walls (i mean we were like 8-9 years old), you get the picture. often we'd be seen hurrying up our last few steps to escape our own demise. it did not matter to us that we were in control of our own walls, each of us playing a version of the game where we were our own judge, jury, and executioner, parameters fully in our control. suffice to say, i don't think any of us every were "crushed." our hands never came together until we just made our goal, perpetually safe.

i don't know what made that exciting back then, because as i got older, i think it's fair to say those very walls - well, not the poop ones - were one of my greatest fears. the walls were closing in on me when i was failing out of university, so i decided that perhaps the best way to avoid it all was to just end it all and let the walls swallow me up. 

the walls are back again, in a way i never thought they would be. i write to you from a country whose leadership has decided that the walls are good for us. that if we all get smashed into the shit we will be better for it, or that dying in it is ok if it kills the right people. there is no matter of control over these though. every single day the inevitability of a deadly virus striking me, my loved ones, my friends and family draws nearer. i can only do so much to push the walls off.

those same walls trap me here. i don't take my privilege of having seen most of the country and a decent chunk of the world lightly, but now i am truly trapped. nobody wants me, us, the people who live here. we have been walled off from the rest of the world because of our insistence on letting the walls do so.

i wrote a while back i would never write anything political on this blog, for i had nothing valuable to contribute, and that remains true, but i find myself drifting to writing about these walls. some, realistically, 250,000 people here have been crushed by them. and they continue to bind and squeeze and grind away. one day they will likely get to me. i only hope i can climb over them enough to get out. that i will not be crushed by them like so many others. it is entirely out of my control. there are no hands to bring together or pull apart.