16 July 2016

Killing

Mosquito squished on a  ceiling
Yesterday, I noticed a baby earwig on the tiled windowsill in our bathroom as I was having my morning shower. I got a piece of toilet paper and tempted her to climb aboard then very carefully put her outside. This morning a tiny spider was hanging from a gossamer thread, dangling below the showerhead. I moved him out through the window before I pressed the "on" button. It would have been awful if he had been washed down the plughole.

You see, I don't like killing any living creatures and try to avoid doing so. However, I must hold my hands up and admit that I do reluctantly kill garden slugs with slug pellets and when we were in Greece recently I killed a dozen mosquitoes that had found their way into our hotel room. My weapon of choice was a damp towel tied into a ball at the end which I fired at the ceiling with a deft yank of my wrist. It's okay - they would have felt nothing. It was all over quickly.

Like a Buddhist, I respect other living creatures and I would never kill a wasp or a even a fly. I am more likely to marvel at their flying skills and applaud their ability to  survive. 

As an omnivore I of course eat meat and fish but if I had to kill the unfortunate creatures that die for supermarkets or butchers' fridges I would probably walk away and become a vegetarian. I really do not like killing. The thought of it sickens me.
In Nice on Thursday night
And there is no way, no way at all that I could ever drive a heavy truck along a French promenade crowded with pedestrians. And carrying several deadly weapons, I could not blunder into a Florida nightclub frequented by gay people  -  intent on human slaughter. And I could not venture into the corridors of a Scottish primary school determined to kill other people's children with bullets or aim a crowded jet at a skyscraper or fire at holidaymakers on a Tunisian beach.

I would be held back by unbreakable but invisible reins, respecting the otherness of other human beings, sensing their fragility, their hopes and their dreams - knowing that they were all a bit like me and that our time on this earth is so precious and magical and brief. There's no cause, religious or otherwise that could ever turn me into an assassin of the innocent. And for this reason I am unable to project my thinking into the minds of the cowardly  killers who have been making the news this year - week in and week out. So much cruel and pointless slaughter. 

What kind of  beings are the perpetrators? Surely they are not human beings like you and me. They can't be. If it is wrong to kill a tiny spider hanging from a showerhead, it must be wrong to kill a complete stranger - someone you have never met who has never done you any harm. A son, a daughter, a brother, a sister, a mother, a father, a husband, a wife, a friend - someone with stars in their eyes and hopes in their heart. The targets are not mosquitoes on a ceiling. They are unique people. They should be left alone and allowed to live, to see another dawn, another full moon. Nobody has  reason or right to slaughter them. No one.
Peace & Love

29 comments:

  1. Well, said. You care about lives in general. That is key. we just care for the other guy's right to live out his time in a peaceful and happy manner.

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  2. If I had to kill an animal to eat I would be very, very thin indeed!

    However in the world we live in there are all sorts of people, some of whom do not think about life as we do. Why? I am not the expert to answer this question.

    Alphie.

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    1. Why?... Yes. Part of the horror of it all is that we just don't understand it. It doesn't make sense.

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  3. What has occurred...again...is so very sad; so very upsetting, distressing; so very wrong.

    Those who commit these atrocities are, I agree, cowards...despicable cowards of the lowest kind.

    More murder and mayhem caused by such a coward. When will all the killing end? Never, unfortunately! Humans love to hate. Humans love to kill. Humans will never learn.

    The world is imploding...with the help of humans. The world wouldn't be imploding if it wasn't for humans, and the hate they harbour!

    I hope, the dark cloud that hangs low and heavy over earth will lift and disappear forever...I hope one day peace, harmony, love and happiness prevail...one day....let it be sooner rather than later....

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    1. ...I hope some day you'll join us and the world will live as one.

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  4. This brought tears to my eyes. Thank you. ♡

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  5. Yes, it's awful !

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  6. Not in possession of their mind...that is the only thing that I can think of the perpetrators of such horrific events.

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    1. Maybe the Nice lorry driver was simply mentally ill... but he had the wherewithal to rent a big vehicle ready for his evil rampage.

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  7. I suspect the perpetrators are just like the rest of us. Men of my fathers generation bombed civilians and knew they were doing it. Men of my generation fought in Ireland and the Falklands, dozens of other places as well. They weren't terrorists and our leaders weren't war criminals or so history says but history is written by the victors.

    The only changes are the victims and protagonists.

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    1. That's food for thought Adrian. Thank you.

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  8. I could copy Lee's comment word for word. There is no solution or glimmer of hope I can offer - except for that I egoistically HOPE that my life will never be directly touched by something like that.
    As for Nice, my cousin and her family (husband and three sons) have been living in Nice for 20 years or so. She and a friend went to watch the fireworks from the Promenade des Anglais. Minutes before the horror happened, they decided to go and have ice cream... so they weren't there when the mad b.....d and his lorry appeared.

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    1. I'm happy to hear that your relatives are safe and sound, Meike. I wish everyone had remained safe and allowed to enjoy the night's celebrations without having simple pleasures callously destroyed by the hands of a fanatical maniac.

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    2. Also happy to learn that your relatives survived. Will the seafront at Nice ever feel the same again? I doubt it. It would be hard to laugh and frolic there any more.

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  9. In response to yesterdays post those horses would be Gypsy Cobs,a recognised breed here in Oz and worth a fair price as the "in" thing of the moment. Lovely photos Pud

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  10. Sounds as though the Nice " terrorist" was in fact mentally ill.....
    mental illness is still not treated well , certainly not understood , and is by its very nature an enigma ......killing someone when the perpetrator is mentally ill is just as shocking as when it is done by a cold blooded terrorist so i have no other answers or explainations to give

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    1. If he was mentally ill it was a mental illness informed and heightened by his awareness of other atrocities that have happened in the name of Islam.

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  11. The lack of empathy is what's interesting in all these people -- I think they need a touch of the psychopath to do their deeds. Fanaticism alone seems inadequate to explain it.

    I feel about killing exactly as you do. I try to save any life I can. Dave laughs at me because I hate to weed the garden!

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    1. This is a good way of getting Dave to do the weeding instead.

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  12. Like you I abhor violence and killing. But every empire is built on the back of conquest and bloodshed. We are the 'great nation' that we are supposed to be because at a particular time in history we were better at it than almost anyone else.

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    1. There wasn't 24 hour wall to wall news coverage back then... thankfully.

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  13. Most people think as you do YP. I know I do, but it's just the few who believe in violence, for violence sake, that cause the bloodshed and terror.

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    1. In Nice Bouhlel might have mown down Islamic clerics or devotees. He had no idea who would be out and about.

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  14. I agree with you YP, but they would argue that we speak from a privileged position.

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    1. I guess in their warped minds they might see things that way.

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