2018:
Fate, Fortune, Coming Times
A group show in response to the possibility of U.S. involvement in Iraq until 2018*
Thoughts On Our Future
By Sarah Rose Graber
I’ve kind of been getting a bit down with the state of the world as of late. It seems like everyone is angry. People are hurting other people and they don’t seem to even know why? And it makes me confused.
The Iraq War never seems to be ending and I, like many other Americans, don’t even seem to understand how this war has consumed so many years of my life. I read about it in the papers, I hear about it from friends and family who have loved ones abroad, and I am blown away by it when I travel to other countries and am asked, “Where are you from?”… “I am from America.”
The responses vary, but one thing is a constant… the country I live in is fighting.
Suddenly I feel as though I am part of something greater that I didn’t ever want to be a part of. A small part of me is defined by the fact that I am from America, a country at war. Yet in America we have so many freedoms where we can make our own choices. But this is a choice that I didn’t make, nor many of my friends, and I’m confused as to why this war is still being fought and an end is not in sight.
I was never taught that violence was a way to fix a problem and I don’t know anyone who was told that it did. Does violence ever really solve the problem? I feel as though this was a skill I learned in elementary school.
“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” my teachers would always say.
In kindergarten, during lunch bunch, we would come together and eat our food with the other kids in our class. If we liked another person’s food we could trade.
“I’ll give you my Doritos for your Oreos?”
Or we could politely decline.
“Thanks for the offer, but these are my favorite kind of cookies. Maybe next time.”
Or we could just share our food because it was a nice thing to do.
“Of course you can have some. Enjoy!”
We were taught the win/win paradigm. We were rewarded for doing something nice and quickly learned that it was “good” to be good to others.
I learned these skills here in America when I was little along with the rest of my classmates. I assume my children will also learn these skills and their children. So why the people who run our country, who learned the same things as me, cannot grasp this idea is beyond me. Being kind seems like a simple concept… but somewhere along the road we’ve stopped dealing with others like humans who have feelings and families and thoughts. They become “the bad guy,” “the opposing force,” “the terrorist” and suddenly we’re scared and act like the kid on the playground who never completely learned this simple idea of being nice. Could it be possible that our government is made up of all of those bullies? Or maybe the government needs to go back to elementary school and relearn a lost lesson.
As a human, we feel the pain of a pin prick, and we feel the overwhelming sadness of losing someone that means the world to us. We feel the stomach aches when we are hungry, and we feel the adrenaline pumping through our veins when we are scared. We are mortal and experience the ups and downs of life just like the next person.
So as I look forward into the uncertainty of our future… I wonder if what we really need to do is look into our past… and remember what it means to be human.
