Over the past few years some things have emerged in my attention, things going on right now. It’s 2018, you’d think (sitting in Applewood or Talloires or Richmond) we’d be past this by now, into a situation where no one harms intentionally - because no one in our lives did that. But the reality is, that kind of horse shit is going on all around us - locally and globally. Needless human suffering - which I suspect begets further infliction of pain on others (or, slightly better, self), a cyclical pattern of behavior that is tough to break but once broken (in a widespread way) is tough to get back into.

This burgeoning awareness infiltrating my consciousness and overcoming my intent inspires as much as it disappoints … on top of natural pain and harm inflicted by the fact that we’re objects jostling against others in space, some people deliberately act to invoke harm in other objects, living or not. Some work together, coordinating to inflict that damage, motivated by any number of reasons, from simple incentivization to belief to knowledge to emotion, and other reasons rooted in mental pathologies like schizophrenia. This coordinated - organized - violence is usually most devastating, most effective in its intended outcome (destruction and death).

My decided focus - because we have to have a focus, right? - is intentional human violence - actions deliberately taken by people with the intent to inflict harm. Almost all violence is wrong (excluding that necessary to sustain a human life ?) but it helps to identify a hierarchy, again, to focus. The most effective and efficient perpetrators of violence plus a way to disrupt that activity - ideally by choice - and there’s potential to affect the lives of every future victim. Preventing that wholesale trauma will only accelerate the pace at which we will accelerate towards the ideal of a global society coordinated to protect and preserve life, care for and explore the planet, and create and enjoy beautiful things …