Yellow Submarine #4

Here it is, the twenty-fifth hour and I'm changing my post to take it in another direction. (my apologies to Marie)Hey, I value growth more than consistency anyway...

My father is a devout pacifist and I remeber him quoting someone when I was a child," Force and Mind are opposites; reason ends where the gun begins."

__________________________________________


Every decision can be viewed as a choice of incremental value. Sometimes there are no right answers and you are left to weigh one evil against another.

No one likes fighting. No one likes war. Its ugly, its messy, it hurts, and there's almst always some collateral damage in the fray. The costs are high. It is the last resort, but it is not always the lesser of two evils.

Sometimes avoiding action means the abrogation of your nation and the absolution of your way of life. Sometimes it means the murder of innocents in the six, seven, or eight digit numbers. Sometimes it means allowing a tyrant the time to gather his strength to where what was once a fair fight becomes a crime against humanity. *cough* Hitler *cough* Stalin *cough*

I am not against fighting on principle. If you read my first response you get that, if not, you'll just have to trust me. I used to be a fighter. Between the release of repressed anger and the thrill of the adrenaline I was pretty good too. But too often it is the manifestation of man's basest animal instincts. The theme of my life so far has been the struggle between these baser instincts and my conscious will to rise above them to my ideal.

That having been said, the most important lesson I have ever learned is that fighting is always a choice. Even in the barest terms of fight or flight, there is an alternative.

____________________________________


When I was in seventh grade I was in the class for kids with behavioral disorders. I had two friends in that class in particular. Mark I had known since we busted the school principle for smoking cigars on premises in the fifth grade and blackmailed him to get us out of detention. He was a huge country boy and a member of the KKK. Maurice was a guy I met in class and was basically a nice, funny black guy. The fact that they were both in class with me usually went off without a hitch, but one day Mark sets about baiting Maurice about his race and soon they're standing up ready to come to blows.

These are both my friends, but I don't want to see Maurice get hurt because Mark wants to be stupid.

So I stand up myself and step between them, looking mark square in the eye. "If you want at him, you'll deal with me first."

He laughed, and pushed me over a desk and I fell.

I got up, and resumed my position in front of Mark.

"If you want at him, you'll deal with me first."

He hit me as hard as he could and again I was down.

With a sore shoulder and unable to feel my fingers I got up and resumed my stance. We locked eyes again.

"If you want at him, you'll have to deal with me first."

This time he spared no effort and let into me. He threw me down, picked me up and then tossed me through a bookcase and into the brick wall.

I got up and resumed my stance.

Now everybody was in their for fighting obsessively, and everyone had their enemies who would have loved to see them turned into paste, myself and Maurice included. The longer this went on however, with Mark laying into me and me just taking it and standing right back up, the more everyone in that classroom began to stare sidelong at Mark. Eventually even Mark realized there was no honor in this and pretty soon he'd have the whole class on his tail if he kept going.

Eventually I got my way. Maurice was spared physical and legal reprecussion and Mark got what he had coming to him. Beyond that, I walked away with a banged up shoulder, a bloody nose and the respect of even the most hardcore fighters in the classroom. Over the years it was the only fight I ever really won.

______________________________________


Fighting is always a choice. There are times when it can be the most efficient means of dealing with a given situation, but it is a choice. With that choice comes responsibility to accept the consequences of the action. The simple fact is that sometimes the alternative seems more difficult or more destructive than the fight itself.

I am not a devout pacifist like my father, but the older and the wiser I get the more I see myself leaning in that direction. Too often fighting is a matter of instinct, not of intellect. There is always another option for resolution.

Maybe some day my instincts will give way to my enlightenment, but for now I still choose to be the guy who puts out fires and takes on drunken rednecks. (You would've had to seen the first post to get that one)