"Peace or War"
It doesn't make sense that we as a collective are either at peace or at war, this is a false dichotomy. War has no relationship with peace - not even as its opposite.
The opposite of peace is not war, the opposite of peace is resistance to change. Since life is perpetual change, the opposite of peace is the resistance of life.
Pain is caused by resisting the changing conditions of existence, it means the individual isn't paying attention and has fallen behind. Pain is the natural indication of a need to adapt. Suffering is the consequence of refusing to adapt.
Our entire social and political (dis)order is built on the premise that we are capable of controlling life - through government, religion, or whatever bureaucracy. We systematically resist change, we believe that by controlling life (change) we can eliminate pain. But by doing so we create pain, we refuse to let go of our belief in control and find ourselves in this perpetual suffering. Suffering is the denial of self.
Birthdays
Measuring human life in years doesn't make sense, a year is no point of reference whatsoever to the individual. Significance does not occur over years, but inside days, hours, and moments. Consciousness itself comes in and out of existence in a moment.
Does the elderly man care that its his birthday? Does this make any difference whatsoever to his joy or suffering? And all those gathered to celebrate, do the number of years affect them or is it all a charade? It's another day for him, on top of a mountain of days, and every day is a microcosm of life and death. He experiences each of them one at a time, one second at a time, and he's supposed to feel something special once a year?
Marriage
"The only way this could be better is if we got the government involved." - That doesn't make sense.
After attending a Justice of the Peace wedding:
There was no poetry in that wedding. It was treated with court-room solemnity, a vow before the "authority of the government of Saskatchewan" and facilitated by a robotic, short-haired woman who took her job very seriously.
Never have I witnessed such a perfect example of how we've replaced "God" with "Government" - they are perfectly interchangable. That ceremony was made out of concrete.
Thanks for reading my things that don't make sense to me.
