Redtree Times

Blue Night Lucid— At the West End Gallery

And in the case of superior things like stars, we discover a kind of unity in separation. The higher we rise on the scale of being, the easier it is to discern a connection even among things separated by vast distances.

― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

I wasn’t going to post anything this morning. Writing about art or music seemed trivial when the world appears to be at critical mass around the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The world has turned its head away so many times before as brutal unjust invasions and genocides have taken place around the globe. Intervention in these previous atrocities was sporadic at best. It was never fully unified and required nations to act unilaterally while others chose to look away, tending only to their own self interests.

As a result, we have, to our great shame, taken relatively little notice as atrocity, ethnic cleansing and genocide have taken place. Perhaps this has been based on our own prejudices against other races and ethnicities, perhaps because we blithely believe that we have no connection or interest in something taking place many thousands of miles away on a distant continent. Each of us can only say why for ourselves.

But the current moment in time and space taking place in Ukraine has seemingly galvanized the planet. It feels like an emblematic showdown between the dark forces of autocracy, personified in Putin with his history of iron fisted rule  through deceit and brutal thuggery, and those of democracy and self-determination in the guise of Zelensky and each of the defiant people of Ukraine.

It feels like this is a telling moment, one that could lead to even darker days ahead. Or one that could provide a clear path going forward that unites the world in an effort to cleanse the world of the oligarchy movement that has taken hold near and far.

Either way, it is as close to a true battle between good and evil as we have faced in some time. It’s a scary moment, to be sure, and maybe one would think that it doesn’t affect them and can therefore ignore it.

But the world is so interconnected and interdependent now that to attempt to ignore the situation is futile. Everything has a greater cause and effect now, spreading out quickly in waves around the globe instantaneously, causing ripples and consequences far from where its origins.

There is here now. Their time is our time. And this might be the time that we, united as one, make a stand and extinguish the current threat of evil.

I certainly don’t want war. Who does? The people of Ukraine certainly did not. But this feels like a situation where we can’t negotiate, reason, or appease our way to the other side.

Evil is not rational.

What is the answer?

As always, I don’t know.

I worry, pay attention, try to do what little I can. But I am hopeful because as I said above, I see a path forward that wasn’t apparent a mere week ago, one that has future freed from the power of oligarchs.

But that’s an image in the far distance. Much ground to cover and great sacrifices to give before it becomes any sort of reality.

But it is there.

And that is something to build on.