Day 15: I have work to do, work I enjoy doing -- and yet, and yet...Could there be a syndrome, call it war fugue, whose sufferers (whatever their position on the conflict) find urgent reasons not to do what they have to. Their pretext for procrastination is that something important (or catastrophic, or ominous, or incomprehensibly weird) may be happening right now -- over there. Somewhere else. Anywhere else. Concentration on tasks at hand becomes inordinately difficult, like swimming against the current. Time passes --the urge to turn on (TV, radio, browser) is irresistible -- yeah, I know...addiction talk
Are most of the afflicted males? Perhaps so, it wouldn't surprise me..but I'm not really talking about that easily parodied boys-with-toys stuff. WF is more akin to generalized anxiety: like those Gulf War I veterans who feel compelled to "watch[ing] to make sure no mistakes are made," to imagine exercizing control.
A key symptom: searching for confirmation of developments that don't really matter. I mean who cares that a US military spokesman has renamed Saddam International Airport "Baghdad International"? Give that man a raise! It isn't news, it's transparent, dumb p.r. talk. I mean, rename the friggin' thing when it's open for business, and you feel safe that planes landing there won't be shot at with missiles or rocket-propelled grenades.
To some extent war fugue is closer to tom's war rant, although this log doesn't have any primary topic. And I feel more like a sleepwalker (or a zombie, perhaps) than someone stuck in a another's nightmare. The essential point of commonality is that the war impedes one from living life fully in the here and now -- it colonizes the mind.
Look, I don't think one can make this war just go away by refusing to discuss it -- and if there's no public pressure to let Iraqis run post-war Iraq, there sure as hell won't be any arising spontaneously in Washington.
We can't levitate the Pentagon and hyperbole -- say, finding no difference between the warped US polity and totalitarianism -- is just as escapist, in my view. And we here, even in ever-anxious NYC, are surely much better off than those who are directly in the line of fire.
But a modus vivendi is necessary. And I'm looking for it. So I can get some things done. Important things. I think.
I often wonder if ordinary folks in Rome thought much about bloody skirmishes going on at the fringes of empire. Probably they didn't unless there was a victory parade for a returning general. The fact that anyone cares shows that there is a vestige of democratic (or republican) sentiment left in the USA--even when caring seems to have no influence on current events.
WF is a good handle for this phenomenon. Be careful, it can contributed to outrage overload.
There's wonderful poem by Zbigniew Herbert (or maybe Czeslaw Milosz) about the Roman general returning to his triumph in in the Forum, but I haven't been able to track it down. Both poets were masters at depicting Imperial pomp. It's not hard to imagine a toga'ed GWB hauling the evil trinity (Saddam Qusay and Oday) in chains behind his SUV/chariot to the roar of the crowd...
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Are most of the afflicted males? Perhaps so, it wouldn't surprise me..but I'm not really talking about that easily parodied boys-with-toys stuff. WF is more akin to generalized anxiety: like those Gulf War I veterans who feel compelled to "watch[ing] to make sure no mistakes are made," to imagine exercizing control.
A key symptom: searching for confirmation of developments that don't really matter. I mean who cares that a US military spokesman has renamed Saddam International Airport "Baghdad International"? Give that man a raise! It isn't news, it's transparent, dumb p.r. talk. I mean, rename the friggin' thing when it's open for business, and you feel safe that planes landing there won't be shot at with missiles or rocket-propelled grenades.
To some extent war fugue is closer to tom's war rant, although this log doesn't have any primary topic. And I feel more like a sleepwalker (or a zombie, perhaps) than someone stuck in a another's nightmare. The essential point of commonality is that the war impedes one from living life fully in the here and now -- it colonizes the mind.
Look, I don't think one can make this war just go away by refusing to discuss it -- and if there's no public pressure to let Iraqis run post-war Iraq, there sure as hell won't be any arising spontaneously in Washington. We can't levitate the Pentagon and hyperbole -- say, finding no difference between the warped US polity and totalitarianism -- is just as escapist, in my view. And we here, even in ever-anxious NYC, are surely much better off than those who are directly in the line of fire.
But a modus vivendi is necessary. And I'm looking for it. So I can get some things done. Important things. I think.
- bruno 4-04-2003 7:57 pm
I often wonder if ordinary folks in Rome thought much about bloody skirmishes going on at the fringes of empire. Probably they didn't unless there was a victory parade for a returning general. The fact that anyone cares shows that there is a vestige of democratic (or republican) sentiment left in the USA--even when caring seems to have no influence on current events.
- tom moody 4-04-2003 8:37 pm
WF is a good handle for this phenomenon. Be careful, it can contributed to outrage overload.
- mark 4-04-2003 10:20 pm
There's wonderful poem by Zbigniew Herbert (or maybe Czeslaw Milosz) about the Roman general returning to his triumph in in the Forum, but I haven't been able to track it down. Both poets were masters at depicting Imperial pomp. It's not hard to imagine a toga'ed GWB hauling the evil trinity (Saddam Qusay and Oday) in chains behind his SUV/chariot to the roar of the crowd...
- bruno 4-05-2003 10:18 pm