Home » Partners & Parents » Aging » 90. Touching The Void

90. Touching The Void

© Judi S. Kaminishi

Last week I was chatting online with a friend, who insisted that I visit a website to see the most recent beheading by the Iraqis. I responded that I don't have to "see something to believe that it actually happened." For some reason the conversation went downhill from there, ending up with him accusing me of not living in the real world, calling me a "stupid Liberal," and asking if I had any feelings for the Russian children who were senselessly killed? "Get involved!" he told me. I was speechless and seriously wondered to whom he thought he was addressing.

I wanted to ask what feelings he had, if any, for the countless number of Iraqi women and children, not to mention innocent Iraqi men, our U.S. troops, who have been killed, will be killed, their families, and all who are permanently scarred emotionally. I resisted simply because I didn't wish to get into a political debate. Hearing commentary from returning U.S. soldiers, veterans, various journalists, etc., over the past months, has only reinforced my belief in the total lack of humanity from all who condone war for any reason.

This conversational episode filled me with depression, which I haven't been able to overcome or simply shrug off, because in truth, though I refuse to watch the continual visual horrors on television or streaming videos, there is no escape. I choose the newspapers and KPFK.org, free speech radio, to keep abreast on daily news and world events, feeling that it is my responsibility to keep informed knowing there is no end. If the news isn't about the War, it's about ethnic genocide in Africa, women and girls being raped and then ostracized because they weren't killed, suicide bombers, Russian terrorists, hurricane devastations, ecological warnings, corporate greed, political untruths and hypocrisy, etc., etc.

My July 30 article on the 2004 Olympics wasn't posted until August 31, major apologies for that technological oversight, and for the first time I've been experiencing writer's block. WHY? It's because I feel guilt if I write about something that doesn't sound "involved."

Then, walking the dog this morning, it came to me! Of course!!! There is a much bigger picture that slipped my mind momentarily. Thanks to my roommates, who rented a film about mountain climbing, which doesn't interest me in the least, mostly because I don't enjoy holding my breath in suspense for any reason, but who talked me into watching it by suggesting that I would find the documentary format interesting.