metonymy4u

As I reflect on a life often characterized by depression and suicidal ideation, I realize that I’ve recently discovered my own version of Viktor Frankl’s “reason to live,” described in his auto-biography of imprisonment and torture during WWII. For him it was the idea that even though he might be feeling done with life, life was apparently not done with him. For me, it is the idea that cruelty must always be met with strength. It could very well be my Kantian imperative: that which I will not consciously allow anything to get in the way of, to the extent of my abilities. And strength to me means, as for the Dalai Lama, “strong counter-measures.” Which may be nothing more than standing calmly between the adult and the abused child. Or sending the letter to the president . Or just refusing to respond to hostility with hostility: on the bus, in the car, on the street, at work, on the phone, in my mind. Because there is no strength in: yelling, hitting, slapping, threatening, kicking, menacing, warring, bombing, shooting, taking, forcing, pushing, pulling, sniding, sniping, gossiping, ridiculing, counter-terrorizing, discounting, or invalidating. These are only the signs, for me, that I have run out of the power of creativity. That I need to return to somewhere, to re-generate the causes and conditions of strength. In order to live.