It was four something this morning and all the kitties had been tended to.
I checked the weather app and it said “clear or mostly clear” for the next couple of hours and I decided to make a run for somewhere to get a twilight/sunrise view.
So, given that time was firmly on my side, I opted to drive to a little park in the south side of St Pete. I had never been there before but it seemed to be facing east over water and offered a chance to catch something, if the skies would oblige.
It was going to be a little bit of a drive, but what else would I be doing at that time of the morning anyway, right?
To say I was thrilled with the outcome would be selling the experience short. I began shooting in darkness and twilight shots that were noteworthy revolved around some wonderful cloud formations that were hugging the horizon behind the St Pete Pier.
Though they weren’t spectacular, by the time twilight ended I was happy with my shots and felt that they were worth the drive and a lovely way to start my day.
But then some soft clouds started to work their way across at a different height and they began to catch the soft pastels from the arriving sun.
So I clicked some more and even made a short video and was super-thrilled with what I got.
Thinking that was it as the skies began to pale, I began to walk away and if I hadn’t looked over my shoulder on the way back to the car might have missed the sudden surge of orange and reds that the low clouds provided as the sun cleared the horizon.
Anyway, I have uploaded all three phases at the end of this blog … hope you enjoy the changes it all went through.
I certainly did.
As I drove away home, the worm-like thought that made its way into my brain really originated with the name of the place. It was called Demens Landing and it wasn’t a huge leap in my head to take it into Demons , which at the best of times I have plenty of. They run wild inside my head happy to undo any moment of happiness, if I let them.
I try to manage them as best I can. Sometimes I win and sometimes they do. But that’s another story.
Anyway, where my mind drifted onto was the whole notion of angels vs demons, and ultimately good vs evil.
And I thought how we humans love to identify almost every conflict in those simplistic terms.
Every war ever fought has been good vs evil (or so they would have you believe) and given that Hitler was correct when he said that history is written by the victors, then we reconcile the losses of each war against the comfort of at least a belief that good won.
But I love how everyone thinks they are the good ones and the enemy is evil. And I love how they all think they have god on their side.
America is the great satan in the eyes of many in the arab world but unless there is something here that I haven’t seen, I doubt that.
Anti-abortion people describe pro-choice people as pure evil which makes their extermination less of a sin in the eyes of the good christians.
For my part I shake my head at the pure evil that lurks in the loins of each republican or nationalist that puts guns and profits ahead of the poor and the infirm.
But in truth, I know there is nothing such as pure evil. Nor is there pure good.
No… people, groups, political parties, countries … they all live in the grey zone of having some good and some bad. Whether they choose to admit it or not.
I remember seeing a skit on TV in England a number of years ago, where two nazi officers are sitting down late in the war having a dialog and one asks the other “are we the bad guys in this story?”
But the truth is never black and white. Never clear cut, no matter how it is presented.
Good people do bad things and bad people do good things. Which translates quickly to there are no good people or bad people. Just people.
Actions can be bad or good, but not the people that commit them. But yes, by the way … actions should be punished or lauded. I have no problem with that.
I am sure a night of tea and biscuits with Mrs Bundy would include some lovely stories of Ted as a boy and how good he was to his mother. And old Mrs Hitler would recount all the lovely times she had with Adolf as we laughed together through her lovely memories. And surely Mrs Trump would have something good to tell us about her Dotard … well, maybe not.
But seriously, our viewpoints are only that. They are not a statement of fact no matter how right we feel we are.
And forcing our viewpoint on anyone who doesn’t believe the same as us, or see things the same as us, is just that … force. It is a force that enslaves others to our will. Forces them to be less of a person than we are and invalidates their own right to be right.
But activists will never see that point. They need to be able to turn their issue into white and will accept no black counter-point.
In their minds everyone should be able to buy a bazooka if they so wish, should accept only their god at the true lord and savior, and be sterilized if they are on welfare. “popping out babies on my dime!” … yes, I hear it now.
And in case you are thinking that because I am a liberal and in the above paragraph only hit conservative issues, I also don’t believe every black victim of a police shooting is innocent. You resist arrest, make a run for it, or reach for something that looks like I gun, then I’m sorry. But, you’ve created your own epitaph.
So, next time you hear an argument being made for war, or action, or even just a strong political position that uses, god, good, righteousness, or any other asinine justification in its argument … understand that you should be taking a healthy dose of salt along with whatever you are swallowing.
I have lived long enough to have a long list of bad things I have done. They have colored my soul a healthy shade of grey. These are the shadows that give refuge to the demons that every now and then make me question myself. They are the flavors that certainly take the sweetness off the life that I can claim to have lived.
While I sometimes struggle to remember them, I am sure I have also got a list of good things. Somewhere, I think.
Hopefully by the time I die, both lists will be more or less equal length.
But however long each list, neither makes me a good or bad person. They only make me a person.
… just a thought.
