Po Boy Views
By
Phil
LaMancusa
Love
and Death
Or
M*A*S*H
Humor me. Think
about yourself and your life as a pair of lovers (even if it’s just you and
yourself) holding hands and walking through Armageddon; seeing each other in eachother’s
eyes and, picking your way through the rubble of destroyed buildings and broken
bodies, heedless of cries for help and succor as you make your way to
sanctuary, a place to make gentle love. Life is like that if you’re lucky
enough to see the turmoil happening around you from an unscathed vantage point.
Happy Valentine’s Day… you deserve it.
Death and
destruction around us is viewed either subjectively or objectively and we can
watch and read the news of hell on earth and either be touched deeply by it or
be impatient for the next feel good story; we can be callus because of our need
for self protection, no one needs to be empathetic and live. That much pain
would be unbearable.
Oh, we’re
not apathetic, by any means. It’s called psychic numbing. The book Why We Love Dogs,
Eat Pigs and Wear Cows (Melanie Joy PhD) cites that our system works this way:
We love animals (insert people) and we don’t want to see them suffer; we have
three choices (insert when we witness or participate in misery and/or cruelty):
we can change our values to match our behavior; change our behavior to match
our values OR we can change our perceptions
of our behavior so that we appear to match our values. The third option is the
way our system works when we can love on our pets but allow ourselves to
rationalize forty million turkeys being slaughtered for our holiday dinners.
I’ve been
watching a lot of M*A*S*H lately, actually I’ve just finished all of the eleven
seasons. I’ve taken away two things from M*A*S*H besides the terrific acting:
One: Hawkeye, Radar, Klinger and Hot Lips (and the rest of the cast) are some
funny funny people. Second: underscoring their antics from virtually the first
episode is that they view the war as senseless but their view cannot stop the
bodies that continually wind up coming in; necessitating them to repair them
(when they can) and if they’re well enough send these unfortunates back to
fight in this senseless war. All through the mud and the blood and the beer
there’s the senseless war.
That’s
what we have here.
People are
dying senselessly all around us and we as individuals can do nothing to stop
this from occurring and continuing; paying attention to this only brings me a
feeling of impotence, yet I cannot turn away; it’s like watching a train wreck
in slow motion.
Here’s a
quick quiz, I’ll give you the situation and you fill out the location.
Starvation in ___? War in_____? Hurricane____? Earthquake___? Tornados___?
Environmental disasters ___? Mass shootings____ ? Homelessness ___? Poverty
___? Prejudice ___? Greed? That last one’s a ringer and the answer to that one
is: EVERYWHERE! And you might consider that some of the conditions of those other
quiz questions can be due to greed.
Here’s how
that works: your greedy politicians are given campaign money by a greedy
polluter, manufacturer, real estate developer and/or power hungry wealthy donor.
The politicos use that money to further their ambitions for power (a type of
greed)while getting legislations passed that perpetuate the businesses and
ambitions of the donors and/or turn a blind eye on their inhumanity or simply
put: Money Talks.
Who takes
it in the shorts? The answer to that is really simple: the whole world. What
can we do about it? Nothing. It’s too overwhelming. It’s frigging crushing to
even think about it. How do we, as a society create enough Mackenzie Scotts to
counteract all the you know who’s?
Well,
Hawkeye Pierce and BJ Hunnicut would know the answer. Be kind; be sarcastic; be
a pain in the ass; complain; point out discrepancies in the system and refuse
to participate in its inequities. Vote; get involved; do something useful for
no reward or recognition; pay attention. Be better.
Sure, on
M*A*S*H most everybody’s getting laid (or trying to), they are playing
practical jokes on each other; getting drunk; eating lousy food and living in
lousy conditions but, in spite of all that, when the wounded come in and the
broken bodies get to the operating room, there’s no monkey-ing around; it’s all
business. That’s another lesson to learn: to put people’s welfare and wellness
ahead of our selfish conveniences i.e. which would you rather see: a pig
drinking beer or a hog getting its throat cut (or a dog; or a horse; a person)?
Valentine’s
for me is not only a celebration of love but a time pre-spring evaluation of my
habits and behavior. Say what you want about January 1st, my new
year starts with the Vernal Equinox (that’s my story and I’m stickin’ with
it!); so, I think this year I’ll adopt the Hippocratic tradition and think of
myself as a person who will conduct their life by “First, do no harm” and
second: refuse to support anyone who does harm.
That’s a
tall order and a noble thought; it’s gonna take a lot of will power and
strength. Therefore, I will go to another source of courage, fortitude, wisdom
and instruction: I am now committing myself to watch all the episodes of Golden
Girls. After that maybe Frank’s Place; and then maybe Will and Grace and then…
and then… and then…
A joyous
Valentine’s to you. May you, by day, enjoy nature and by night, take life
lessons from Sophia Petrillo.
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