Thursday, April 7, 2011

u=mgh

u=mgh
There is a great potential in everything. The words, the actions, the currents of fate seem determined by some underlining norm, yet there is potential nonetheless. As physical law mandates: an object being held above the ground has no kinetic energy. However, this object stores energy of its own, potential energy. In our lives, this force is almost always overlooked. We draw our attention to the moving, the acting, but we ignore the waiting.

Although elementary, this concept has plagued my thoughts for the past weeks. As I sit in class, I think not of what is happening, but what can happen. Every second that passes is growing suspense. The ruffling of papers and the ticking of the clock may as well be the sounds of the crackling fuse and the revolving chambers of a pistol. Is the bomb a dud? Is the pistol loaded? These are the questions that have driven me to a state of unrest. At any given moment in class, I could kick my desk over and:

A) Punch a whole in the wall.
B) Sprint out of the building to the nearest Peace Corps office.
C) Claim that I have been possessed by the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and demand the worship of my peers.
D) All of the above.
E) None of the above.

Fortunately for my peers, I continue to choose E. Although each option is relatively hilarious, the point becomes much too clear when A through D are replaced with acts of violence.

The following series of unorganized and underdeveloped thoughts is most certainly destined to be misconstrued. The very least I can do at this point is promise that the focus of this writing will return shortly.

Of course, this tangent has been generated by my reflection of one of the nastiest genocides to scar the face of humanity, Rwanda. It was so different. It was not the systematic extermination that the Holocaust was. It lacked the calculation, the precision, the cool blues and grays that I associate with the Nazi death machine.

This is interesting, because when reflecting upon genocide, I find myself differentiating between exterminations by referring the Modus Operandi of the exterminators. What else is there to look for? Although the victim of one murder is different from that of another murder, the piles of corpses, the mass graves, the scenes of people laying about the ground as if some large entity had spilled them there have become the universal trademark of genocide. In the end, the true victims of genocide are a constant.

Is it for this reason that I find it easier to empathize with the killers? As I mentioned, this thought is condemned to misunderstanding. However, because of some unseen circuit of logic or some unchecked emotional predisposition, I have an easier time putting myself in the shoes of a living Hutu than a deceased Tutsi. Perhaps this is natural. After all, the only thing we truly know is existence. This is undoubtedly the root from which religious belief of the afterlife stems. In this light, there is no wonder why I cannot seem to feel pain of the genocide victims, for I do not believe in an afterlife. Pain is a chemical response as well as a staple of the human psyche or as some would call it, the soul. Nevertheless, the victim dies, and so dies the soul and my chances of real empathy.

I'll write some more tomorrow.... hopefully I'll get back to the point.

Tomorrow came already. In fact, tomorrow was some months ago. Many more tomorrow’s came and went without further thought and certainly without progress towards this vague and invisible geist I mechanically identified as “the point". Several minutes ago, however, something dawned on me, and I was compelled to get to the point.

On April 6, 2011, I was standing rather composed but undeniably uncomfortable inside as Murphy’s law threw up all over the most important school presentation of my student career thus far. I remember looking at the clock; it was 1:25pm, my exact birth time eighteen years ago. Eight hours from that moment, I planned to take a moment of silence in order to reflect upon the death of Former Rwandan dictator, Habyarimana and—more importantly—the genocide that followed in his wake. Eight hours from that moment I did just that.

Several minutes ago a terribly exciting realization came over me. Habyarimana’s plane was shot down at Kigali airport at exactly 8:25pm.

Kigali.
Kigali, Rwanda.

I felt like an idiot. I went to convert the time online and a bold “1:25pm” stared at me through the screen.

Well shit…

At the exact moment my parents were most likely cradling and embracing their gigling, one-year-old future in their arms, a plane went down and with it came everything but a destined bloodbath for a tortured country. I had thought about this concept of simultaneous contrasting reality before, but I had never felt it. I never felt it this close.

Neighbors come to celebrate a family; neighbors come to destroy a family. This was the way the world worked.

No comments:

Post a Comment