Insert pithy title here

I'm in the midst of reading a book called King Leopold's Ghost. The book's premise, or factual recounting of stuff, is basically that Belgium exploited the Congo, and here I mean mostly its people though resources, ivory, rubber, are included, and pretty much sat in full scale approval while a large swath of people were killed and maimed. It's the sort of book that when you to the picture section and it's of a father sitting on the steps of his house next to the severed hand and foot of his five year old daughter. Ie, you feel especially sad as a parent. I recommend that you read this book for a lot of reasons. Not the least of which is any white person's awkward relationship with a thing like full scale exploitation of a people solely based on the color of their skin and dearth of weaponry. It's troubling in much the same way that the more recent and publicized episodes in Russia and Germany during WW 2.

S: I'm going to go wake up Sadie and look at her.

M: Take a picture of her, so I can see her too.

M: You can tell that she's the sort of child who knows that she's loved. We can just pass her off to a person, and she assumes that they'll love her as well.

S: Yeah, and that's what we want.

M: Until a certain age at which point we'll pretty much want her to trust no one.

S: That's sort of true.

S: It's good for her to be trusting. I think the world is actually full of a lot of good things and good people.

M: That's an interesting idea.

Anyhow, the book, particularly the recounting of the behavior of the station agents, made famous by Conrad in Heart of Darkness, is just incredibly troubling in a we are all one big human community sort of way. Ie, when you read the excerpts that these men were sending home it's not entirely off base to doubt whether you yourself are in fact, a good person. Good is loosely defined here. We've all got our various sets of foibles. However, to read of the hangings and beatings to death and general approbation for acts of barbarism justified by claiming that the people are barbarians is problematic in the same way that folks working in Germany are problematic. Ie, it seems that a fairly large portion of human beings, if given the opportunity, will behave in a manner that most people would find atrocious. Is this mere aberration? Or at heart, are a good deal of human beings just creatures of circumstance obeying laws and occasionally helping folks because it is in their best interest to do things like follow laws and appear to be members in good standing of a community. I don't know. It makes a person at least have to ponder their own place in the world and wonder a little bit about a thing like circumstance and how much that plays a role in character. Ie, is character a strongly defined thing, like say, whether the ground is wet after it rains. Or is it a more contingent thing like the weather itself, ie, it may or may not rain given the clouds in the sky. It just seems worth thinking over for a moment.

M: I think love is a variant sort of thing. I'd say it's akin to a river carving out a canyon. It deepens over time, builds in nuance.

S: I think that you can see a person and fall in love with them in an instant and it can be the same as loving them for fifty years.

M: Do you really think that?

S: No.

M: But it's different with a child. I do think it's possible to love them with the same level of emotional intensity from the moment you first see them. I loved s as much emotionally on first sight as I do now. The love is more nuanced now, more contingent upon s actually being s and doing certain things and having dimples and such, but I think you love a child the same right from the start.


And maybe it's not even worth pondering over for more than a moment. Most modern Americans will not be faced with whether to idly stand by while people are whipped to death or to stand up and do something about it. And, I guess, in a lot of ways I'm thankful for that. The Team America world police/task force is for another day. Ironically that gift comes with a bit of a catch. Our job is to love the people that we're around on a daily basis, to "sacrifice for them in a myriad of unsexy ways." And I think that that perhaps is our proving ground, and I wish that I failed in it less often. It would give me more faith in the future.