The Real Enemy is Reality

"The Real Enemy Is Reality" is an examination of violence; specifically the human propensity for violence that leads to warfare. The roots are found in the very nature of being human, i.e., we need and want things that we cannot have. We desire freedom from frustration, for instance, and yet all human behavior is preceded by frustration. We want to understand our world and yet mysteries abound. We need to feel safe and secure and yet unpredictable tragedies and death occur daily. From this basic human dilemma we can choose two directions. The first is to recognize life as tragic and unpredictable and suffer the ensuing despair. From that despair, however, we can harvest new ways of relating to life and other people. We can even experience some joy and love because we are open to experience. We want more though and it's a constant struggle to refrain from the second option - anger, hate and violence. Violence, the more common and appealing course, converts our frustration to anger and searches for "causes" for our dilemma. Once identified they can be punished thus creating the illusion that we are powerful, smart and in control of our lives. The lesson we cannot seem to learn is that happiness is love, compliments of Virgil and George Vaillant: "Triumphs of Experience" page 52. This book is also written as a celebration of the bicentennial of the Star Spangled Banner. It has been 200 years since that dawning on September 14, 1814 when Francis Scott Key wrote that poem while being detained along side the British warships that were attacking Baltimore. He was a witness to war. Later, he was dispatched by President Jackson to Mississippi as a peace maker between Indians, illegal settlers on their land, the army, state and federal officials. He succeeded. Key was one of my great, great, great grandfathers and a man who knew despair and handled it in a peaceful fashion. His life deserves study and perhaps even emulation. My recommendation is that we need another 200 years of careful study of human nature in order to understand better the paradox of being human. Perhaps in that way we can avoid the looming tragedies of little Hitlers who proclaim new and self-serving answers that will eliminate our frustration and our enemies and bring peace and glory of one kind or another to all followers. We are all desperate for consolation and vulnerable to the promise of happiness and revenge by skillful demagogues. Thus, there have been 2023 wars we know of and every indication that they will continue. Chris Hedges opines that was is a force that gives us meaning. And it is true in a sense but it never gives us the meaning we expect. We need to get a better handle on our understanding of human nature. As it is, we are at risk of destroying the very planet that gave us life and sustains us. "The human experiment may fail" said Depak Chopra. The final part of the book is devoted to a monolog with Grandfather Frank about what has happened to his country since his death in 1843. I review the last 200 years in terms of the good news/bad news so that he, and we, may see the significant changes that we have experienced from that more distant perspective. Wars are a large part of that history but communication, transportation, public health and medicine illuminate our progress. Lastly, four vignettes are presented from my two year road-trip around America similar to Steinbeck's "Travels with Charlie." Encounters with people in Quebec, Florida and Washington State and a fantasy voyage 7,500 years back in time in Labrador give Key a qualitative sample of America today. In closing, I make some excuses for us by explaining that life is more difficult than it was in his time. Gone are the days when our despair could be couched in religious frames of meaning. We are saddled today with more ambiguity and to many, drugs and alcohol seem to be the best resort. Key's life can teach us much about despair, love and war.