I can’t help myself. I’m tired of the whines and cries of victimization swirling from the aftermath of Katrina.
Look. Natural disasters happen, and there is only so much we humans can do to mitigate the consequences. It’s simple: Francis Bacon said, “For nature to be commanded it must first be obeyed.” Mankind has, indeed, come a long way and figured out many things. But when Mother Nature throws a fit you do more than just duck — you relocate until Her madness dies down. Marry, and you’ll get the hang of this drill rather quickly.
Yes, there were tragic instances. But giving airtime only to wacky, pessimistic voices, as media across the board did, was just too much for me to tolerate. Anyone who expresses sentiments like “How could they let this hurricane come here and do this to our lives?” is a kook as far as I am concerned. Truth is, these people thrive on despair and disarray. Chaos — mentally and physically and in the way they conduct their lives — is nothing new to them. They forge their whole lives in and around it. This hurricane, to them, was nothing more than rearranging the furniture. They never gave a care for order, cleanliness or function before, but once they get the attention of someone who can take over the responsibility of their lives for them, they go on tirades about how their lives had been ruined. Their lives were already in ruin — self ruin.
Everyone makes mistakes, but only stupid people make the same ones over and over again. Beginning with the choice to sit around expecting someone else to hand them a wonderful, beautiful, healthy and wealthy life. These people should be thankful all humans are not undisciplined, promiscuous, depressing, doom-and-gloom maniacs like them. Some of us care to do better all the time, not just in the face of disaster when someone else will do the work and pick up the bill. If all people were like this, it wouldn’t only be New Orleans that was a toilet bowl right now, and it wouldn’t be so because a hurricane caused it. It would be because people didn’t give a damn about making something better out of their lives and, thereby, contributing something better back into the world.
This is one of the problems with government that I always talk about. In Washington, DC they make it seem like they are creating societal solutions — this is how they fraudulently keep their jobs — but they never take into consideration how people think and behave to begin with. You can’t fix societal problems if you skip objective review of how people think and act and refuse to pass judgment. If I have a problem to handle, I can’t just skip the preliminary steps. I can’t just demand a different starting point where I want to begin. It’s nuts, and it is not how real life works. You don’t get to know how a problem began if you refuse to go and start at the beginning — and assign blame, there, if it is due. If two wrongs don’t make a right, as they say, then pointing out the first wrong is something we should make pretty damn important.
Now is not the time to point fingers? Just when would it be ok to do so? Pointing fingers, they say, is not a good idea because it keeps us from getting to the work at hand. Why, I ask, can’t we point the finger at those to blame first, and do so with a force to skewer their waste right on top of the pile of rest of the damaged debris? Why delay doing what everyday life demands? That doesn’t work in my life. Does it work in yours? Those with the forums and visibility are so damn politically correct, passive, and bought-off, pointing fingers at those truly to blame will never, ever happen. “Judgment” is no longer a concept in our vocabulary.
Common sense, self-restraint and disciplined thinking are less and less to be found any more, anywhere. In just over 100 years, from a time when this country fostered its greatest achievements, our populace has deteriorated to subhuman standards. No wonder our government subsidizes so much time and money to the study of primates — it’s their plan for the future: learn how to survive swinging from trees, sustaining ourselves on a diet of government-issue bananas and TV.
No sympathy, Warrior? No compassion? Yes, for those who truly need, but none for those who don’t. Yes, for those who truly can’t, but none for those who won’t. Yes, for those who truly suffer, but none for crybabies. Yes, for children who can’t make their own way, but none for adults who refuse to.
They claim New Orleans was a great city. Maybe it was, I don’t know. Truth is, before Katrina it was nothing more than a pornographic cesspool of decadence and depravity. You know, an East Coast version of the Las Vegas take on vacation time — “what you do there stays there.” You go there, drink and behave like a pervert, take a huge dose of antibiotics and a nice long shower before you hop on the plane back home, and, “Hey, who knows any better?” You go back to the church, PTA, and local council and “squarely” fit right back in. One thing is for sure. IF New Orleans ever was a great city, it certainly was not because it had leaders and citizenry like the leaders and citizenry it has today. Hurricane Katrina will go down as a historic catastrophe, yes. But what’s most historic are the dour, helpless suicidal attitudes by the leaders and the people. As an American, I am appalled at having to witness this.
Nothing great was ever created by sorry attitudes such as we all saw in the first few days of the tragedy. It made me ill. Gangs staked out territory. They shot at the fellow Americans who risked their lives to help them. Are you kidding me?! And we can have sympathy for this? That people don’t have the willpower and discipline to keep their rational human act together for longer than 48 hours?
Enough. Even though it’s been years since I stepped into a church and had the Bible thumped over my head, I am a pure believer and just happen to believe with all that I am that we are never given more than we can handle. Never. Whatever big, lumpy fist punches us square on, we already have within us what it will take to recover and prosper. Gloominess is always short compared to the happiness we get to have in our lives. Stuck on stupid as we are, we forget this too easily.
Often, especially today, we fall for believing having more is what makes us happier, when actually it is having less. Life is so, so beautiful– but, it is not always fair. This existence, our life and the world around us, is powerful in many ways that we will never understand. And some of those ways are mean, ugly, nasty and destructive. There are rules we humans make to coexist with one another, but there are also rules we have no say about. Nature is on a power trip all it’s own. It does not know that what it does is either good or bad, until we humans, all full of ourselves for knowing what little we do, label it so. You watch. For whatever bad that will continue to be talked about, some incredible, inspiring and very, very good things will come out of it. If you really believe, not by The Book or only because of The Book, I mean deep down in the bones of your being you believe, then you can count on the fact that this is a promise the Nature of the Universe will keep. The best rises up from the ashes of what seems worst. Without fail.
Funny thing, though, listening to all those damn God hypocrites — they’ve got The Book, but not the belief. If they had it, they’d have to reveal a sense of humor about all this. Again, what do you really believe? The Creator they all claim to believe in has His own sense of humor, has His own way of having fun with us human beings. When you consider that He owns it all — time and everything else — and we get only 60, 70, 80, maybe 100 years, death isn’t really something we should take too seriously too much of the time. My advice is to really believe in the bigger picture, and while you have life, do the living of it seriously. Death, which is inevitable, will take care of itself.
-Your Founding Father of Ring Intensity,
Warrior
Find more warrior wisdom online at: www.ultimatewarrior.com