There is no war here.

There is no war here. It is peaceful and the birds are singing their morning joy. There is no evident religion in the form of special clothes or symbols or signifiers, although there are some scuffed up churches...there are people making homes and food and art and craft, having a coffee, going to the surf or to fish or to heal or to tend or to make machines or whatever they are doing. It's not that hard really. To live together without identity.

More than 200,000 people have been killed so far this year in wars and armed conflicts of lesser scale. The injuries, the terror, the unrest, the damage to work and life and animals and ecosystems is true insanity, when we have been given everything.

Half of those deaths are in the Russian war on Ukraine, where the murder toll is now 500k. The Maghreb. Myanmar. Keep going... 36 distinct conflicts. Not to mention state-sanctioned violence against its own people, or violent nutters executing mass shootings or terror. Or plain old crime.

One is not "surprised" by the conflict between Hamas and Israel. They aren't surprised. They have both been preparing for war, the fortifications and the weaponry and the rhetoric have been extensive. We just have selective attention until it erupts in blood and bombs and barbarism. What are we not paying attention to?

I feel the tactical exhaustion. The empathy fatigue of globalism. The swallowed fear of my grandmothers as bombs fell around them in past generations. I feel disgust with our ruling parties, this absurdity of arms dealing as our top export. Our dirty cities and unhealthy population while war toys and guns proliferate on our dime. Utter dismay with the violent culture.

It is a non religious spiritual plea: recognize our connection.

Look up, see what's been given. Violence fixes nothing. It just visits more violence on us later on.

Be peace. Work for peace. Mothers, fathers, all born people, lovers of earth and beauty, people of faith (not faith in that in invented asshole wrathful skygod, but faith in this given reality). Be a people of justice and empathy and work for peace.

May Eros trump Thanatos.