Tamerlane Ashoka

 

PoBoy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Tamerlane(War)

Or

Ashoka(Peace)

 “The sword will plunge down and the mob will drool; the blood will pour down and turn the sand to mud.” Jacques Brel: The Bulls

        The verse actually begins with: “On Sundays the bulls get so bored when they are asked to drop dead for us”. It’s a satirical song about bull fighting and the mentality of the crowd seen from the bull’s perspective.

        I saw a woman reprimand/admonish her toddler for stomping ants. On the news, a mother in an argument tells her 14 year old son to shoot and kill a man. (NBCchicagonews.com) The other day I saw a woman feeding peanuts to crows; the other day I read about over 41,000 civilians being bombed indiscriminately, retaliating the killing of 1,325 other civilians (and the capturing of 250).

        I read where in the USA we kill 245,000,000 turkeys a year; 8,127,632,113 chickens; 124,061,094 pigs (animalclock.org). And 733,000,000 people in the world are suffering (and dying) from hunger, starvation or living in famine-like circumstances mostly due to poverty, conflict, climate change, food waste, and gender inequality (riseagainsthunger.org). If we’re killing billions of animals a year and a bunch of millions of people are dying of hunger, you would think that there might be something half-baked in human mentality/morality/sensitivity, especially when an estimated 526,000 people die each year due to armed conflict (databank.worldbank.org). Absurd. The human condition. I could go on but I only have 1,000 words.

        So, lemme get this straight; we are evolved from a bunch of ape-like humanoids that came down from the trees and set about taking over the planet by killing everything that challenged them because part of that mutation/evolution hinges on testosterone, greed and blood lust. And then, about 5,000 years ago the monkeys threw religion into the mix which gave us subjective concepts of good and evil, which has tortured, and killed, with great sincerity, alacrity and brutality (including but not limited to crucifixion)  anyone who  doesn’t worship like specific sect monkeys. 195,035,000 (reddit.com) We also assassinate anyone who advocates for peace and brotherhood.

        I have a theory about monkey #1 who came down from the trees and never went back up; he was an alpha badass mutation of the ones who inhabit trees, we’ll call him Adam. No monkey messed with Adam; placid monkeys resolved conflict by merely moving to another tree; however, Adam took whatever tree anyone else had, and when he peeped the ground he sussed and thought ‘WOW! This is pretty cool and I’m gonna make it ALL MINE!’ And when another ground animal thought that Adam would make a tasty meal, Adam learned to kill ‘for his own protection’.

        Soon Adam got real comfortable, ground wise, and thought it might be best to  make himself Emperor of the World, establish some perimeters/parameters and perhaps launch some preemptive strikes just in case any of the other woodland creatures might think of breaching ‘his territory’ that he fittingly named Eden.

        This was the times when other monkeys would forage on the forest floor for fallen ripe fruit, look around, find it nicer back in the trees, and go back after grabbing some goodies. One of them, a female (Eve), took a look at Adam in his fortified territory, bravely, arrogantly and with great license guarding it from no monkey in particular and decided to give him a piece of fruit (and maybe some nookie). You see where I’m goin’ with this?

        They have kids; some take after the mother, mild mannered (Abel: shepherd), some more like the father, tough, mean and privileged (Cain: farmer); and wouldn’t you know it, the meanies get the upper hand and the gentle ones get their asses kicked, killed or thrown under the bus. Thus, this accounts for the state of affairs in world today; I find no evidence to support this theory, except that 24,849 people are murdered in this country per year (cdc.gov); I blame that damn monkey who should have found some calming herb and stayed up that tree.

        But, actually, there’s nothing really wrong with the human mentality, it’s just that we’re hard wired in conflicting tendencies. We’re all descendents of that first couple that are responsible for the beauty and brutality of our world today. On one side you have (Eve’s) people who act for peace, encourage the arts and believe in kindness toward all of god’s creatures, whichever god you may happen to believe in; these include poets, environmentalists, artists, vegetarians, burlesque dancers, ukulele players, teachers and nurses.

        On the other hand, you’ve got the Alpha (Adam) mentality: bullies, con artists. misogynists, injury lawyers, inconsiderates, many politicians and The Three Stooges. In everyone there exist both of these qualities. Yes, were all imbued with percentages of the qualities that in fact, make us all unique and individual; neither all good nor all bad, just kaleidoscopic character pie charts of absurdity. And we get to choose the colors.

        A perfect example is our ability to love dogs; eat pigs; wear cows; kill neighbors. It’s not really okay but it is what it is. The saving grace is that there is all those people that advocate for peace, kindness and fair treatment in our world; because, if the Alpha ape-shit crazy meanies had their ways, they would surely have exterminated us all and there would be no people, no planet, no harmless pleasures like skinny dipping in the moonlight or ice cream of any flavor. What kind of world would that be? Hmmm.

        “and when finally they fell, did the bulls dream of a hell, where men and worn out matadors still burn? Huh? Or perhaps with their last breath would not they pardon us their death, knowing what we did at Carthage? Verdun! Stalingrad! Iwo Jima! Hiroshima! Saigon!” (Auschwitz, Tulsa, Kiev, Gaza, Sudan?): Jacques Brel (and Me): The Bulls. Happy Peaceful New Year Y’all