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Dalton
Roberts |
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Feb. 24, 2002 Pointless Violence Nothing dramatizes the extent of pointless violence
among us more than the Gotmaar Festival in Pandhurna, India. After a full moon
in early September, all village activity stops. The males divide into two
groups, gather rocks, and spend the rest of the day throwing rocks at each
other. At sunset they stop, nurse the wounded, and return to normal life. In a
recent year, 4 were killed and 612 injured. Lest we feel superior, think of the pointless violence
among us. Ever watch hockey on TV? How about football where men body-slam each
other – three hundred pounders at that! And boxing. Two men go out and try to
knock out each other. Many die and some merely turn out to be vegetables from
scar tissue on the brain. And racing. One of racing's heroes just got killed.
The racing son of a good friend of mine was killed a few years ago. Criminals walk in a store, take the money and round up
everyone in the store and kill them. Sometimes for a mere pittance.All we have
to do to see the prevalence of violence today is turn on the TV. Just running
through the channels to see what's on, we can witness a dozen incidences of
barely imaginable violence. Why so much violence? It is a societal mind attunement.
Pure and simple. This is abundantly evident in the fact that some cultures do
not have this kind of violence. Look at the crimes-of-violence figures from
Scandinavian countries and Japan and compare them to ours. It is mind-boggling. All we can do to help improve civility among us is to
not become a part of the violent mind attunement. EMBROIDERING MEMORIES A few years ago someone gave me a wonderful little
booklet with all kinds of strange but funny sayings. I clipped them all out and
scattered them throughout the 100-plus volumes of my journal. I call this
frequent ritual "scattering tasty tidbits." One of the sayings was, "If you lose a memory,
embroider a new one to take it's place." Why "embroider"? Well, did you ever notice the
time and care it takes to embroider something? It is meticulous attention to
detail. Try this: next time something happens you want to
remember, write as many details about it as you can recall. What did it feel
like? What did it taste like? If it wasn't something you could taste, how would
it have tasted if it had been something you could taste? What did it smell like?
What did it look like? What did it sound like? Draw a picture of it, full of all the rich colors it
brings to mind. Sketch it in black and white. What was funny about it? Describe
the kind of laughter it gave you. Did you giggle or heehaw? What was sad about
it? If you cried, tell how you cried? Tears of joy or tears of sorrow? Did you
sob or just sniffle? Then close it out with, "If I don't remember
anything else about this experience ten years from now, I want to
remember......" and state it in as few words as possible.
Embroider it. Stitch by stitch, with all colors of thread. Then when you
come to it in your journal, it will be a totally awesome work of art to savor
all over again. |