More hope, please.

[gement]

So, California has declared discriminatory marriage policies based on sexual orientation unconstitutional.

You could have learned this from a number of other journals on my friends list, or probably by walking outside. It's not why I'm posting.

I'm posting because this feels like a bit of a sole bright spot lately. I've been researching history. A lot of history. A lot of how people have treated each other. And the more I read, the more I think I shouldn't bother writing anymore.

I don't even have to go looking for it. When I see themes from my writing in the news, I can't help but look, and see the parallels. I'm not going to link, because I don't feel like making the car-wreck fascination as easy for my friends as it was for me. But in the last month I've seen...

A definition of "picquet" (picket) which was not the definition I was looking for, but was an old punishment for junior officers(!) in the military. Control of information in North Korea. The logistics and political theory of modern hostage exchange. An article in the P-I on the psychological effects of solitary confinement in our current prison system. An LJ entry where someone wrote down her second-hand Holocaust survivor story, one she has not seen elsewhere in the public media on the topic, involving the Auschwitz brothels (public record says the women were not Jewish, and does not mention the adjoining boys' brothel at all).

Today I did a little math and adjusted my mental understanding of a British pound during the Regency period to be more like $1000 (I had been thinking of it as $100). Doing the math about what people were living on led me around to calculations on what people are living on now.

I can't take this anymore. At least my vampires have an excuse. And they usually pay for what they take. Because, well, hell, they can afford to.

Sorry to go all emo here, but...

How do we stand it? As humans, how do we stand what we do to each other?

Can I please have some more links like the marriage news? I need to understand why we keep going right now.

Edit: I would also appreciate links to the bright spots of history, times and places where women have owned property and had more than decorative authority, where different cultures have mingled without bigotry in polite society, where people have carved out corners of sexual freedom, where those above have served those down below (to borrow a line). Where people have been decent to each other, and found joy.

Comments

[maida-mac.livejournal.com]

We don't stand it. We fight, damn it.

Yeah, I'm rather determined today. :p

I emailed you my info, btw.

[garillama.livejournal.com]

I thought this was pretty cool, even though it's a shame that more people haven't heard about it.

[gement.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Yes, that is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for.

[garillama.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

[gramina.livejournal.com]

Any of these?

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=adult-cells-steal-trick-f&sc=rss (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=adult-cells-steal-trick-f&sc=rss)
http://www.happynews.com/news/5152008/welcome-cadi-new-family.htm
(http://www.happynews.com/news/5152008/welcome-cadi-new-family.htm)
http://www.durrell.org/Animals/Pygmy-Hog/ (http://www.durrell.org/Animals/Pygmy-Hog/) (That site in general is cool: http://www.durrell.org/ (http://www.durrell.org/) )
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/religion/20080509_A_religious_haven_for_the_estranged.html (http://www.philly.com/philly/news/religion/20080509_A_religious_haven_for_the_estranged.html)

[gement.livejournal.com]

Thank you. The last in particular is exactly what I needed right now.

[cristoforio.livejournal.com]

when I need a pickmeup, I look at lolcats.

Cats at play is some of the happiest time evar

[gramina.livejournal.com]

I'm glad!

...And while this does tie in to the court's decision today (http://wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com/139933.html#cutid1), it's from a little more than four years ago, and reminds me that we can be good to each other, too. (wordweaverlynn, who posted it, is part of my family)

[plantae.livejournal.com]

Off the cuff, I would mention that one of my earlier National Geographics (finally have a subscription, woot!) had an article about the black pharaohs. One comment (paraphrased): Racism, as we understand it, did not exist in the ancient world. It developed only during the industrial revolution to explain why the European explorers seemed more "advanced" than the people they encountered.

So there's a lot of bad stuff we're working through, but some of it is fairly new. Hasn't always been that way, doesn't need to be that way always.

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

How do we stand it? As humans, how do we stand what we do to each other?

One word: dehumanization. I think of it as a failure of imagination, a failure to see oneself as the other anyone could easily have been.

For women owning property, I give you ancient Rome.

Women with more than decorative authority? Boadicea.

Sexual freedom? Ancient Greece.

Decency? I'm reminded of the famous video of Tank Man from Tiananmen Square. Chinese dissidents point out that there are two heroes in the video: the man in front of the tank and the commander of the tank, who didn't shoot. The Chinese authorities claim that Tank Man has, despite their efforts, disappeared safely into anonymity.

[gement.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I hadn't heard that one before. I look forward to digging up more on the subject.

[gement.livejournal.com]

That, my dear nun, was a remarkably valuable laundry list. Thank you for every point, but particularly for the last. I'm glad he got away.

[maribou]

Where people have been decent to each other, and found joy.

I think rather than diggging around in history for those, though they *are* there, I'm just too sleepy to provide such excellent links as some of the commenters above me did ... I tend to fall back on my own life.

My life is full full full of joy, sweet ferret, and just as full of good people doing the best they can to be kind to each other and do the right thing. And it almost always has been, even when I was small and we had no money to buy groceries (though, lucky me, I never actually went hungry); even when I was older and thoroughly engrossed in the attempt to break my own heart (though, lucky me, I didn't quite manage that self-destruction); the joy and the decency were always *there*, though sometimes it was hard for me to see them. And I'm not so special that I can believe that it hasn't always been that way for many people much of the time ... I'm lucky, but I'm not *impossibly* lucky, you know? People find joy and love in the direst of circumstances, not just in our spoiled ones.

That might be pale consolation - logically, I know it doesn't prove *anything*, and it's still true that the world is horribly broken and might fall apart any day now, really - but:
When I really think about how bloody grateful I am for my own life, for the joy and laughter and sweetness and affection in it, and for the amazing shiny people I see every day - both the heroic ones and the ones who are just, like me, doing the best they can with their small and worthy lives - I'm so delighted there isn't any room for all the Big Serious Problems I sometimes tie myself up in knots over. I'm not sure it's moral to be so self-absorbed that my own happiness overwhelms the world's woes, but on the other hand, I'm a lot better at helping when I'm not miserable.

[gement.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I just hit icanhascheezburger for the word "happy," which gives a vast number of results: http://icanhascheezburger.com/tag/happy/

The most pleasing of the first page is this one: http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/01/19/funny-pictures-a-warm-butt/

[maribou]

*cheers for you*

[gement.livejournal.com]

*sniffle* Thanks.

[morinon.livejournal.com]

Actually, according to accounts I've read, Ghengis Khan's empire was actually one of the more tolerant and SAFER places in the world. It was said that a woman could walk alone from Samarkand to Beijing without fear.
Women owning property is actually common among 'primitive' tribes, many of which still have matriarchies to this day.

[gement.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Note to self, learn more about Genghis Khan's empire. But probably not so much more about him, because you don't build an empire like that without being a right bastard.

[gramina.livejournal.com]

Thank you -- I think it's really important to remember that second hero. We overlook him far too much, I think. (Him and all those like him, now and throughout history.)

[jairen82.livejournal.com]

Yes...Genghis was a right bastard...Long quotation from Herman Hesse here:

"I am a sinner and you are a sinner, but someday the sinner will be Brahma again, will someday attain Nirvana, will someday become a Buddha. Now this 'someday' is illusion; it is only a comparison. The sinner is not on the way to a Buddha-like state; he is not evolving, although our thinking cannot conceive things otherwise. No, the potential Buddha already exists in the sinner; his future is already there. The potential hidden Buddha must be recognized in him, in you, in everybody. The world...is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment; every sin already carries grace within it, all small children are potential old men, all sucklings have death within them, all dying people--eternal life. It is not possible for one person to see how far another is on the way; the Buddha exists in the robber and dice player; the robber exists in the Brahmin. During deep meditation it is possible to dispel time, and then everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman. Therefore, it seems to me that everything that exists is good--death as well as life, sin as well as holiness, wisdom as well as folly. Everything is necessary, everything needs only my agreement, my assent, my loving understanding; then all is well with me and nothing can harm me. I learned through my body and soul that it was necessary for me to sin, that I needed lust, that I hat to strive for property and experience nausea and the depths of despair in order to learn not to resist them, in order to learn to love the world, and no longer compare it with some kind of desired imaginary world, some imaginary vision of perfection, but to leave it as it is, to love it and be glad to belong to it."

Maybe not a helpful passage, but one that helps me feel better about the world. Also from the same book:

"It seems to me...that love is the most important thing in the world. It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect."

Siddhartha by the way. Great book if you've never read it. It sounds kinda disassociative with life, but if you consider that just by loving everything you find a way to heal the wounds of those who can't love...I dunno...works for me :)

[jairen82.livejournal.com]

As a quick P.S., some believe the first Japanese Emperor was actually a woman, and one of the last Chinese imperial rulers was a woman (and a bitch of a woman too...think she ended up killing most of her family, and all who opposed her, kinda like the mother of Ceaser Agustus, Atia of the Juli, who killed her own daughter and paved the way for Octavian to become Emperor. You could argue she helped usher in the Golden Age of Rome)...and the Japanese venerate the sun as a female Kami named Amaterasu...probably the most important Kami in the Shinto religion.