words like 'futility'
/fyo͞oˈtilədē/ - pointlessness or uselessness; achieving nothing
when i first looked up this word, the usage example from google was "the horror and futility of war" —- befitting of this post.
ever since i was in 7th grade, watching the Towers fall as my teacher broadcast the news in our classroom, i’ve known war.
i’ve had high school friends killed in Iraq, Afghanistan. i’ve watched atrocity after atrocity happen around the world — Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Syria; mass murders orchestrated and executed by the hands of the u.s. government - on foreign further soil, on stolen lands, on city streets.
if a land, a culture, a people, a religion or ideology doesn’t cater to a ‘small group of evil people,’ it is eradicated. erased. obliterated.
we are told war and these acts of violence have a purpose — ‘is freedom really free?’ (an essay my 7th grade teacher had us write after 9/11).
but the truth is that they don’t.
for 22 years, i have witnessed violence at the hands of the state. countless others have been forced to not just witness, but to experience it first-hand (and for far longer than my 22 years). i have listened as politicians and so-called leaders lie to us about the causes of war, the motives for murder, and the ‘better world’ that awaits for us on the ‘other side’ of war.
but there is no ‘other side’ of war. there is only more war. and life does not improve because of it. better conditions are not produced. humanity is not saved, nor is it advanced in any way. our lands do not thrive from war. trees do not grow from war. people do not become smarter, or kinder. war does not produce joy. it does not heal. it doesn’t plant seeds, it doesn’t grow food. it is not colorful (unless you can only see red). it does not build cities or expand community. it does not beautify. it does not put clothes on people’s backs, nor bread on their table, nor warmth in their beds.
what have we gained from showing up and forcibly removing people from their native lands? from occupying their homes? from destroying their homes? from killing their children? from putting people in cages? from depleting earth’s natural resources? from launching bombs from the sky and warheads through the seas?
absolutely nothing.
this, the futility of war.
as Plato once said:
only the dead have seen the end of war.
and in the words of Gandhi:
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?
when will the world see that war does not lead to any positive outcome? when will we wake up and notice the alternative path of peace and cooperation that’s always been there, waiting patiently for us to walk on it? how many bombs have to drop, how many graves must be dug, before we say ‘enough’?
Oof. Thanks for channeling this, Mitch.