Not one word of it

It is late. It feels only natural to let thoughts drift and dissipate into a comfortable yet unstable realm of numbness and pain. Do not be confused; tonight is my paradox. I am tired, but cannot sleep. I am hopeful, happy and optimistic, but filled with dismay. Today, my tax dollars killed a Palestinian family picnicking on a beach on the Gaza Strip. The money also, probably murdered a few Iraqi families, and if I am lucky it is being used to plan the death of my own family in Iran.

The one lesson I am learning from my fragile Zen practice is too not attach myself to every emotion that the world forces me to experience. Especially, when so many of them seem to be dipped in such grief. However, I am also practicing the art of not becoming too callous to ignore the pain that comes from being alive in the twenty first century.

Sometimes it helps to play some soft music, late at night and write a few lines. The paragraphs may not go anywhere or say anything. They may not have a theme or moral, but the sound of the keys, overlapping the music, and the ideas themselves under my mental focus seem to make the pain bearable. At least for me, I am sure the victims of my tax dollars have a harder time getting over the sting.

The hardest part is knowing that none of this matters. Not one word of it.